{"id":1458,"date":"2006-01-05T17:09:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/01\/bruno-bettelheim-pans-me\/"},"modified":"2006-01-05T17:09:00","modified_gmt":"2006-01-05T17:09:00","slug":"bruno-bettelheim-pans-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/bruno-bettelheim-pans-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruno Bettelheim Pans Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found the following review of my book on Amazon<\/a> today: <\/p>\n

Senator’s approach to autism has been obsolete for 4 years. It may be well-intentioned but totally misses what needs to be learned by parents to help their kids. Any parent who is not chelating their autistic child is dooming that child to a horrible existence that might be avoided. No parent should ever accept autism since it is really mercury poisoning and the proper treatment is to remove the mercury as soon as possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was signed “Bruno Bettelheim.”
I can’t think of a more stupidly ironic way to critique my book. Cowardly, also: why not sign your real name, if this is what you believe? Confusing, too: why obsolete for four years? Anyway, Bruno Bettelheim, originator of the Refrigerator Mother theory of the autism<\/a> is probably the most obsolete of autism theorists, and responsible for more suffering on the part of autism families because of its hurtful blaming of mothers. PBS recently did a well-received movie that documented this pain.<\/a><\/p>\n

Is there a way that we can learn to have multiple opinions about autism parenting co-exist without reviling those who believe differently from us? My thing is about acceptance and living with difference, in finding happiness in the unexpected. In finding a way to connect with people who behave and express themselves differently from me, and finding the good in them. If I don’t happen to believe that a vaccine, a virus, or poor parenting caused my son’s autism, if instead, I focus on how to strengthen our connection and his skills, how can that possibly be construed as wrong? <\/p>\n

The energy taken to hate and rant against my viewpoint is much better spent helping your own child, or better yet, yourself in learning how to be happy in this difficult and beautiful life.<\/p>\n

As Voltaire’s Candide said, “Tend your own garden<\/a>.” And be judicious with your use of manure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found the following review of my book on Amazon today: Senator’s approach to autism has been obsolete for 4 years. It may be well-intentioned but totally misses what needs to be learned by parents to help their kids. Any parent who is not chelating their autistic child is dooming that child to a horrible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-nw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}