To Challenge or to Accept

Abstract

Our participants express an inherent ambiguity with respect to the diagnosis of autism. On the one hand, it offers an explanation and a possible way out of the existing problems. On the other hand, it is impossible to completely coincide with a phenomenon that is as heterogeneous as autism. The danger exists that you will regard yourself solely as defined by the diagnostic label. Is it true that ‘accepting’ the diagnosis means that you accept a disorder which, according to certain interpretations, is a life sentence? The distinction that originates in formulating and discovering ‘being different’ is therefore of vital importance, more than ‘being autist’.