It touches on issues of self-awareness, different perspectives, gaslighting, the film “Mother!” Aronofsky…. and, of course, how the above relate to the social dimension of neurodiversity

The author of the photo is the extremely talented Kasia Trojak

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Have a great read!

All shades of grey
Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, high sensitivity – neurodiversity has many shades.

Interview for the monthly magazine “Zwierciało”

Interviewing editor-in-chief: Joanna Olekszyk

November 11, 2024

Autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, dyslexia, misophonia, high sensitivity…. – today these terms are much closer and more understandable to us than they were just a few years ago. What’s more, we often recognize ourselves in them and wonder how we could have missed it before. Psychologist Kasia Modlinska-Resich explains the phenomenon (but also the pitfalls) of neurodiversity.

I recently heard Winona Ryder speak at the unveiling of director Tim Burton’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The actress said she was eternally grateful to him for appreciating her otherness once, at the beginning of their filmmaking journey together. Thanks to him, she recognized that it was something that could not only be accepted in herself, but even celebrated. I thought that over the past few years, the same thing has given many people in Poland the concept of neurodiversity.

I, too, on my not so easy educational path, met a teacher who changed my life in a similar way. Among other things, the film “Temple Grandin,” about one of the most important self-advocates in the autistic community, is also about this subject. One kind and supportive person can make a huge difference in someone’s life.

With neurodiversity, on the other hand, we are talking about a social movement that allows us to think about ourselves and others in a whole new way. It seeks to include in various areas of social life people that it has hitherto considered eccentrics, freaks or mentally ill. In addition, it calls for changes that are already beginning to happen on a systemic level – in the area of education and the workplace. And this is a revolution!

I would also add that most of our parents were often unaware of such a thing as psychic life. Neurodiversity has given us categories, a vocabulary with which we are able to describe it in quite a multidimensional way. Psychiatric diagnoses legitimize this and are taken more and more seriously. At the same time, I wanted to emphasize that I’m talking about neurodiversity from a social perspective, not medical diagnoses or treatments….

Go ahead, continue, it’s even more interesting….

We are a society in which the phenomenon of gaslighting very much dominates all relationships, from interpersonal to economic. Usually gaslighting is defined as conscious manipulation aimed at challenging our perception, denying our observations, feelings and emotions. I believe that this mechanism at the unconscious level plays out on an much larger scale. Thus, neurodiversity is also a response to our – often desperate – need to know ourselves and trust ourselves. Thanks to people who have begun to identify with certain diagnoses and understand their mental lives, more and more of us can say: “I feel this way, I think this way, and it matters.”

Personally, I was always surprised – and at the same time not surprised at all – that there is no psycho-education in Polish schools. When I went to study psychology and had my first experience with psychotherapy, I thought: “WOW! I didn’t know there was such a vast and mysterious world inside me that I had no idea about! Not only interesting and fascinating, but also of great importance to how I function on a daily basis.” However, it was only after my first mental breakdown that I really gave myself permission – and I think I’m not the only one  – to take this inner world very seriously and talk about it.

Usually when we write about gaslighting, we focus on relationships, but you’re right, it’s also a social phenomenon. Why don’t we like to go to offices, banks, post offices? Because there we have always been silenced, our competence undermined. On the principle: “I,  the official, am in charge here, while you, the supplicant, don’t even know how to fill out a swindle.”

In my professional life I have made quite a powerful volte-face – from the psychotherapy consulting room I entered the world of NGOs and business, and I don’t think there are two areas more different from each other. What is therapeutic in therapy is first and foremost a focus on radical self-awareness and honesty with oneself, as well as kindness and empathy in relationship with the Other. In contrast, the world of business and large corporations is hierarchical, and the overriding goal is profit, which is often achieved at any cost, including violence and manipulation.

I’ve said it over and over again – I started bringing neurodiversity into business because I saw data showing the tangible gains to organizations from hiring neurodivergent people. I knew that if it worked in business, it would work everywhere. So strategically this was my first goal in promoting neurodiversity. It wasn’t easy, because if you’re not someone in a high position, you constantly have to remind about yourself, ask, seek approval…. – generally, by definition, you are treated quite unfavorably.

I kept hearing: “But you know, business is business, that’s just the way it is, you have to adjust to it, the customer is our master….”. In fact, it was also gaslighting – violence and manipulation were justified, saying that I should ignore what I see and feel, because it simply happens to be this way. Well, not…. nothing happens simply to be the way it is.

Let’s remind ourselves where the term “gaslighting” came from.

It comes from the title of the 1944 film – “Gaslight”, an American psychological thriller film directed by George Cukor, and starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman among others. In it, we see perfectly and concretely that denying someone’s perception of reality can lead to mental illness.

Another brilliant film with a similar message is “Mother!” written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. The film, in a subtle and symbolic way shows the relationship between a narcissistic writer and his pregnant wife. She is creating a new life – literally, and he constantly lacking inspiration. Aronofsky beautifully shows how the heroine’s voice, symbolizing her inner life, is gradually silenced. Until she is almost unable to make a word out of herself. As a result, this leads to an intense psychotic episode. I myself have gone through similar processes and breakdowns more than once. If anyone would like to imagine what the experience of a psychotic episode is like, I especially recommend this film.

So are you saying that neurodiversity has become such a catchy idea because it increases self-awareness?

I think there are several reasons. The most important one from my perspective is increasing self-awareness, which is the most important quality we can develop, and our basic need. How can you manage your life when you don’t know how you perceive it, what you feel, what you think? Without self-awareness, you can’t realize the mistakes you make, you don’t learn from your experiences, you don’t change your habits…. In the end, without it, you will not develop the emotional maturity that will allow you to establish lasting and satisfying relationships with others. Lack of self-awareness is a bit like driving a car blindfolded and blaming everyone around you for causing an accident.

Another reason – especially in the Polish context – is the identity crisis, which in part stems from our history: partitions, two world wars, uprisings, the Holocaust, idealization of the West, transgenerational trauma. Neurodiversity has allowed us to start describing ourselves through new concepts that make sense to the individual. This can be juxtaposed with other processes of deconstructing traditional norms, such as challenging stagnant gender norms, nonbinarity, the fluidity of sexual orientation, and new types of relationships, such as living apart together.

I know we’re mainly talking about public perception, but there are claims that various neurodivergence’s are now over-diagnosed.

Well, psychiatrists are people too, often insufficiently educated, they go for the easy way. I come into contact with diagnoses of ADHD or autism spectrum issued on the basis of one superficial consultation. Then issued prescription for psychotropics and goodbye…. This also leads to rather absurd situations. For example, a friend of mine who works at a well-recognized psychiatric clinic in London said that they now have so many ADHD diagnoses that pharmacies have run out of medications. And because they ran out of medications, they stopped diagnosing ADHD because they can’t offer patients treatment. In Poland, the number of diagnoses is also increasing, and the availability of medications varies widely, mostly being poor.

As something is popular, or cool, it is also prone to abuse. This is what has happened to such concepts as narcissism, bullying and trauma, among others. Today, some people invoke neurodiversity to explain their negligence.

Even the term “neurowashing” has been coined to describe the activity of corporations and companies in declaring their support for neurodiversity, when all they really care about is improving their image.

Any theory and any tool can be misunderstood or misused. Neurodiversity can be interpreted in different ways, but what is done with it afterwards is the responsibility of each individual. I myself have encountered someone saying: “Yes, I am regularly late for work, but after all, I have ADHD, and I perceive any criticism of my behavior as discrimination and aggression against me.” Or, “I’m on the spectrum, so it’s normal for me to disobey the rules.” It’s a misunderstanding when people use a diagnosis to justify their own shortcomings and don’t intend to work on themselves.

It’s exactly the opposite: that’s why we expand our self-awareness, we go to get diagnosed, to help ourselves. To know more and more about ourselves, and to navigate our reality with this knowledge, to be able to make better and more appropriate decisions: with whom I want to be in contact, on what terms, what I want to do and what I don’t want to do. The greater the self-awareness, the greater the responsibility for what one does.

I think there are also some people for whom neurodiversity is the new terror, another invention to be reckoned with now. Not everyone wants to develop empathy for others, they feel – as was the case with feminativism or non-binarism – forced to change their nomenclature or approach to other people, and they don’t like it at all.

And do you know how many people have a problem with calling me Kasia, not Katarzyna, even though I ask them to? I shouldn’t even give a reason, which I have, by the way, because I work in international circles and, for example, to foreigners Kasia and Katarzyna are two completely different names…. Such a seemingly trivial thing, and yet here too I encounter resistance. Somehow, it often doesn’t bother these people that, for example, Karol Wojtyla should be called John Paul II from a certain point on, and Jorge Bergolio should be called Francis.

It’s as if we are in a constant power struggle – who is going to tell whom what to do.

One of the main assumptions of neurodiversity is that it is a social movement without specific leaders – a leaderless movement. We don’t act from the position of someone who has power, who knows the truth, who must be followed, but someone who is equal, functions in a diverse group and tries to do something good. I often emphasize that the greatest value of neurodiversity is the multiplicity of viewpoints. But this also requires thinking, imagination, as well as humility and the assumption that we can be wrong.

Poland is dominated by a “religious” way of thinking: either black or white, a divine ideal or the devil incarnate. There is little room for shades of gray. I recently spoke with a woman who has held a high position for many years. She told me how one of her employees – after they had been working together on a certain project for several years – came to her with such a question: “But tell me, how is all this supposed to actually look like?”. To which she replied: “But I don’t know.” After which she added: “The expression on his face was worth all the money.” This shows how strong is our need to put others in the position of a secular substitute for God.

The eminent British psychoanalyst Prof. Josh Cohen told me something similar about his therapeutic technique. He said that when patients come to him with the belief that he surely knows what they are thinking, that he knows what the truth is – he momentarily denies it: “No, I don’t know, I don’t know what the truth is.” The idea behind his words is that the patient and therapist are on an equal basis and together they engage curiosity and are open to what the therapeutic process will bring. The surprise of my colleagues in the therapeutic community at these words will also remain in my memory for a long time….

You don’t have to look far, in my experience, this is also unthinkable for many parents. To say, “I may be wrong” or “I don’t know.” – is to lose authority in their eyes.

While it is relationships based on unwavering faith in authority that are dangerous – they do not allow you to develop self-confidence and independent thinking. And most importantly – curiosity, which is the opposite of violence. This is pretty violent to expect someone to act as a God… a lot of expectations stands behind it. And vice versa: treating oneself as such is also violent to another, because it requires complete surrender. I think people who do not doubt and do not waver are fanatics.

We all need to meet each other halfway.

That’s why now, while preparing the third edition of the “Neurodiversity in the Workplace” study program at SWPS University, we are putting a lot of emphasis on how to build mature relationships despite differences. I am also the author of the idea for the project at School of Form. “Neuro-inclusive Common Space.” It’s about trying to create an area – in this case architectural – that is optimal for all of us. Yes, we are different, but we live side by side. We should be able to develop methods of cooperation that are efficient for everyone.

Judy Singer, who is credited with authoring the term “neurodiversity,” believed that the neurodiversity movement would lead to the development of a new kind of human creativity.

Do you think it will move in that direction?

I feel that it is already happening, although I also see a lot of misunderstanding and fanaticism around neurodiversity.

And I think our knowledge of the human brain and human behavior will continue to grow and expand. I wonder what else we will learn about ourselves.

Certainly a lot. I personally am interested in phenomena in the field of “parapsychology” – synchronous events, telepathy and mostly what is healing, but unspeakable …. Which I believe quantum physics can bring us closer. But at the same time I appreciate a very practical approach. I miss talking about spirituality, which would not be associated with something extraordinary – like contact with the absolute, being in perpetual nirvana – but as an ordinary realization of our humanity: being in harmony with one’s values, being honest with oneself and others, and deepening self-awareness.

Kasia Modlinska-Resich: founder and president of the Atypika Foundation. Philosopher, psychologist, graduate of psychoanalytic studies at Tavistock and Portman in London and the British Psychoanalytic Society. Initiator and co-author of the study program “Neurodiversity in the Workplace” at SWPS University.