Can Aspies learn from their feminine sides?

Aspies might be interested in this thread:

Therapy Drawing - Forums at Psych Central

If (as some suggest) Aspergers is essentially an exaggerated form of the male brain, we might learn a lot from our female sides.

That theory always confuses me...I don't really feel as though I have an 'extreme male brain' I think I have influence from my feminine and masculine side...I am physically female but most of the time I don't really feel like I identify with either gender. Sometimes it bothers me because I feel weird if someone mistakes me for being male but then I almost feel just as weird when recognized as a female.

Who gets to decide what is feminine and masculine? In some Asian countries math is seen as very feminine. Here it is not.

In the past in the western world, pink was for males, blue for females.

I love to paint in a lot of blue when I paint. I have never seen that as the male color to paint in. Saying it like that just confuses the heck out of me. But so does any "this stands for that" thinking. My thinking is very direct, I don't really think in symbols and if people suggest I do, and what I "really" think... I get confused, mad, sad....

I don't think being an aspie is being like an extreme male. Here in my country where men and women can be who they are more, I can hang out with both. Most my American online friends are male, because I simply don't understand the dancing around American women do verbally and socially. But I've never interpreted that as a male brain thing.

I'm not ready to cut out things from my life because they are considered either gender, and I really don't want to try "female" things... which I don't even know what they would be. I kind of AM that stupid, I have no real take on what is female. Should I wear high heels? Cook more? I soon run out of things what female could be.

It would be interesting to know what is seen as female, because I'm so clueless...

I actually study art therapy and I'm having difficulty seeing a connection between the proposal that asperger's is an exaggeration of the male expression of the brain [or similar] and the therapeutic exercise described in the thread.

Didn't mean to sound like a mean ole ahole, just that I have some emotional trauma from "therapy". I'm amazed an aspie could fit into that kind of therapy so well. I know I couldn't.

I think some therapies are better than others for Aspies. Psycho-dynamic is a hard road, I found.

My personal insights are not applicable to other Aspies, it seems.

I find art interesting and valuable because it is nonverbal. But I have a hard time with interpretations like why would a rose be female? Are females small, pretty and thorny, while men, the trees, are huge in comparison, usually not thorny and don't wither?

I've only got Mr T's intuition, which is certainly not proof.

I'm a little curious how it was said, like Draw a rose? If I had been asked that I would have taken it literally unfortunately and I would draw one rose but no surroundings because I wasn't told to do that.

"Imagine a rose. Look at its colours. Look at its textures. Examine the leaves and the flowers and the thorns. What do you see? Where is the rose? Notice its surroundings. Notice the weather. Look closely and remember every detail. And when you've got the scene clear in you mind, open your eyes and draw it."

Well... to explain my inability to make a connection:

the rose/rosebush drawing is a common exercise in art therapy. I don't know if your therapist is trained in art therapy or not [and that is not any kind of judgement on their training- it can't be, I don't know them, I simply lack that bit of infomation], but the conclusions they come to based on what you draw in that exercise may be partly intuition but it is also, or should be, based on legitimate training and knowledge of what different asspects of drawings often respresent for individuals.

Fences, thorns, petals in different states, a single rose versus and actual bush, crowding, sun, grass, etc... these all make a picture of a person's perception...

And that base knowledge has been formed through repeated exercises over many many years and comparisons of many many many individuals and situations and case studies and treatments, etc etc etc.

But one of the issues in your situation is that the exercise is effective when the individual actually IMAGINES the scene- you stated that what you drew was based on something you saw.

i'm also confused as to the interpretation- granted, I'm not a professional, but I have knowledge of the exercise both from doing it in my studies and studying it in order to get training to be an art therapist.

So it isn't that I don't agree with the idea that asperger's is a more emphatic manifestation of a masculine brain- that's not really something I think much about so I'mnot really sure.

I think it is something to consider.

From a psych point of view, I'm curious about the exercise you describe.

As someone who has been dignosed as autistic, I find art therapy to be really really valuable, and I think a lot of people don't want to take advantage of it because they don't necessarily understand how it works or they are intimidated by it, which is SO unfourtunate.

I think it is really great and can be beneficial to some extent for just about anyone as long as it is catered to the individual.

...and off I go with the tangent again haha.

Also, that would be taken into account- not that you didn't draw the surroundings, only, but why you didn't draw them. ALONG with what you did actually draw- did you draw thorns? Were they big, small, etc.

There is another exercise called "Draw a Person in the Rain" [I think I have the one I did in my albums, actually] which is a similar exercise. What you do not draw is often as important as what you do draw, and how you draw these things, but all needs to be taken in context.

I saw it in my mind's eye. There is no physical rose involved.

The drawing is only part of the exercise. More important is what the patient says about it. The therapist can prompt the interpretation but it is the patient's interpretation that matters.

I'm surprised to hear that people are intimidated by art therapy. I thought its non-threatening nature was its greatest strength.

Oh, yes, I know.
But I thought you said the surroundings were from Madame T's yard or something? Maybe I got mixed up, sorry if that's the case- just that every part of the drawing is important.

I mean that's not that I'm trying to nit pick at YOU, I just thought it would be helpful info for you, if I did in fact get that right from what you posted.

Unconscious selection of memories is significant too.

Is it really possible to imagine something that is not made up of elements you have actually seen?

To me, a rose belongs in a garden. Madame T's garden is one I spent a lot of time looking at, waiting for my appointment. Emotionally, it was probably more important than my own garden.

I have no idea. I was trying to have a conversation about all of this. It seems unwanted, so my apologies.
*shrug*

I'm sorry. I'm in a bad mood, and especially about Madame T.

S'ok. I didn't want to keep upsetting you.

The drawing could be helpful, but I don't see being artistic as necessarily being a feminine thing. Most of the famous artists of the past were men. Even today, lots of artists are men

Love the drawing I would say that art has been my major therapy, has saved my sanity and my life although I had psychotherapy for twenty years too. I find this whole male/female brain idea interesting as when younger I always favoured what I considered my 'male' side - only took notice of male artists and writers for inspiration - have come to see that it was not my male side I was favouring, really more of a revolt against female stereotypes!

If everyone has a male and female side they are not truly male and female sides, I hope you see my logic here. I think it is more a name given to certain sides which biologically has nothing to do with male and female. I have a hard time when people just make up names for things I totally cannot see the point of.

View it as a metaphor.

I don't use metaphors for "real things". I'm science minded and I think these things brings a bad taste to something that should be science based.

But then I'm kind of hardcore aspie.

Unfortunately, the study of the mind is not really a science yet.