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Originally Posted by The_little_didgee
What do you mean?
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I’ve never been tested for ASD, no one has ever suggested it, and I don’t think I have it – in addition to no problems with language I didn’t have social problems in elementary school. I did in high school, after a molestation attempt by my uncle at 13 and subsequently developing anorexia nervosa, for which I as hospitalized for 11 months and I came back a former “mental patient’ and socially weird at that point.
Nevertheless, because of what I believe is my innate temperament PLUS the traumas which led to disconnection from some emotions I feel like I have the “autistic” orientation to life described in the Aspie criteria article.
One of the major differences I discovered between between me and my last therapist is that I am not "cliquish". I want to feel that I belong but I am not oriented toward looking for my "group". So it seems to have meant that a lot of social behavior and reactions and impulses that other people take for granted I don't really understand very well. I think I COULD, though, because I'm probably neurotypical, but nobody has ever tried to "teach" or help or tutor me. And without something like that, or some feedback, I'm just lost.
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Originally Posted by The_little_didgee
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It isn't different. Obviously it is due cognitive style. People oriented to people vs people oriented to things. Unfortunately we are a minority, with leads to a lot of misunderstanding.
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I looked into non-pathological personality differences more than 30 years ago, when my late husband was still alive, and I wasn’t so “mentally ill” and out of things, and came across the Myers-Briggs personality inventory. That focuses on cognitive style, too, and it helped me understand people’s differences just as differences.
However, the psychology establishment doesn’t recognize the MBTI or even the general idea of differences in cognitive style as having anything legitimate or useful to offer in the usual psychotherapy practice.
But there are some definite drawbacks to the conventional or what MBTI might call an extroverted or feeling orientation toward life, too. As you pointed out, it seems that that a tendency toward making social judgments and ascribing blame (instead of looking for impersonal “cause” as I prefer) is one of them.
This could be something interesting to study, if there were any support for it. But the people/social reality seems to be that there isn’t.