Health Science Reviews

by Sharyn Van Der Walt

When you think of autism, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? A shy, sensitive person who is either very smart or as “dumb as a doornail”? While that’s the stereotypical view of autistic people, in reality it’s not so black-or-white. Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) exist on a continuum, ranging from mild to severe impairment in social communication and interaction, as well as the need to adhere to strict routines. While ASDs used to be diagnosed in 4.5 out of 10 000 births, its incidence has now risen to 1 in 54 births. ASD is 4 times more prevalent in men than women and occurs in about 1% of the world’s population.

With this in mind, the researcher set out to establish the origins of autism from an analytical psychological perspective. Before we dive in, let’s first have a look at the concept of archetypes – a central part of analytical psychology. Archetypes represent stereotypical characteristics of everyday phenomena. For example, a mother is commonly thought of as a nurturing figure and a father a more dominant, strategic figure. These archetypes have been passed on through generations and play an integral role in a person’s development.

According to the researcher, the main cause of autism is a disturbance in the matriarchal (mother) archetype’s formation during pregnancy, causing the patriarchal (father) archetype to become dominant. The emphasized patriarchal role causes the person to function mainly based on logic, reason and objectivity, whilst the lack of a matriarchal archetype leads to a diminished sense of subjectivity and emotional capacity, which varies depending on where the person lies on the spectrum.

To make the concept easier to understand, let’s think of the matriarchal archetype as a container. The researcher conveys that everyone is born with this container, but the level to which it is filled varies. Neurotypical people have a lot of contents in their matriarchal container, whereas neurodiverse people have less, depending on where they are on the spectrum. This implies that people with ASD aren’t able to naturally express traits associated with the matriarchal archetype, but these traits can be “synthetically” incorporated through treatments such as therapy.

Because people with ASD experience their feelings and the outside world very differently to neurotypical people, they often feel like outsiders. Because their experiences are different to those of neurotypical people, their needs are different too. Even though they still need affection and warmth from others, this isn’t where the focus lies – instead, one of their primary needs is to be understood, which is only a secondary or tertiary need for neurotypical people. They also need extra support when it comes to organising their world and learning to live in it, despite being “different” from the majority.

A key difference is that neurodiverse people have a natural ability to compartmentalize, whereas even though neurotypical people can do this too, it takes more cognitive effort (it doesn’t happen instinctively). You’re probably thinking, “what on earth does that mean?”. Let me explain by using an example.

Say a neurotypical and neurodiverse person are exposed to the same scenario: one of their loved ones is in a car accident. While the neurotypical person’s emotions take precedence upon hearing the news, it is more difficult for them to ‘push’ the emotion aside for the time being and deal with the situation at hand in a calm, logical manner (i.e. compartmentalize). When placed in the same situation, the neurodiverse person will still feel their emotions – to a lesser extent than the neurotypical person – in the moment, but they are instinctively able to compartmentalize. Only after dealing with the situation will they fully feel their emotions. Of course, this is a generic example and there are a lot of variables that influence the extent to which a neurotypical person can compartmentalize (some may not be able to at all), and the extent to which a neurodiverse person can feel their emotions.

As you can see, even though people with ASD are a little different to neurotypical people, each has their strengths and weaknesses and their own important role in the world. So, next time you come across someone who you think might be on the spectrum, instead of asking “how can you think like that?”, ask “why do you think that way?”. You might learn a thing or two.

Reference
de Araujo, C. A. (2022). Autism: an ‘epidemic’ of contemporary times?. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 67: 5–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12746.