Understanding ethnocentric judgments and the impact on autistic people: a trauma-informed Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (TIFDA).

Abstract

In the past decade, the prevalence of autism diagnoses has seen a significant increase. Alarming statistics reveal that autistic individuals face a disproportionately higher risk of suicide compared to the general population, with intelligent adult women experiencing an even more pronounced vulnerability. Prevailing pathological discourses often attribute such distress to the victims' cognitive processes, perpetuating a pathologizing, deficit based narrative rooted in research conducted by non-autistic individuals, labelling the autistic way of being as a disability that leads to suffering.

This thesis examines how the judgments made by non-autistic professionals concerning autistic service users, and the subsequent treatments and service adaptations delivered, are grounded in a deep-seated and often invisible cultural bias and how they induce stress, vulnerability and trauma in autistic people. The research process integrated a range of methods to gather a set of textual resources to analyse this theme and challenge the existing pathology framework. Priority was given to data collected from autistic individuals and their families. Methods included drawing on the author’s personal experiences and her work as a psychotherapist, in-depth interviews with four adult autistic research participants, dialogue with the published memoirs and blogposts of autistic adults and activists, and critical analysis of the portrayal and ‘treatment’ of autistic people in mainstream health, education and care communications and practices.

To analyze the collected textual data, a novel research method called Trauma-Informed Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (TIFDA) was developed. Inspired by Michel Foucault's ideas on discourse, power and knowledge, the researcher expanded the Foucauldian framework to incorporate an appreciation of the harmful emotional impact of discriminatory practices, developing a trauma-informed approach to discourse analysis.