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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:14]
B
Hey, everybody. Welcome to ABA Inside Track, the podcast that's like reading in your car, but safer. I'm your host, Robert Perry Crews, and with me, as always for this spring 2025 book club edition of the Pod. Ugh. No, I can't believe I said that. Podcast are my fabulous book club co hosts.
- [00:36]
A
Hey, Rob. It's me, Diana Perry Cruz. Hello.
- [00:39]
C
And it's me, Jacqueline Marie McDonald. Very formal today.
- [00:46]
D
And it's me, Alan Haberman, book club guy.
- [00:49]
B
Oh, boy.
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C
With no middle name. Alan. No middle name. Haberman.
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A
Ali Jackson.
- [00:56]
B
It's Book Haberman.
- [00:58]
C
Alan Book Haberman.
- [01:02]
D
We'll leave it a mystery. You got the J right, Diana, but not the. Not the. Not the name.
- [01:09]
C
It's probably James or Journal.
- [01:13]
D
I don't think you'll. I don't think you would guess it in a. In the two hours of recording this podcast.
- [01:19]
A
Really?
- [01:20]
C
You know what? It's on. I'm gonna. I'm gonna talk, and then I'm gonna be like Rumpelskildskin when I'm like, talk, talk, talk. Is it Jedidiah?
- [01:31]
B
Go back to this. Anyway, this is our podcast about behavior analysis and behavior analytic research, where most weeks we talk about a topic in relevant research articles. But special times of year, we break out all the stops and read an entire book related to human behavior or something related to behavior analysis, which I think is more what our book this season categorizes into. And that is just what we're going to do, as voted on by you, our patrons. So if you are listening to this in the spring of 2025, thank you so much for being a patron of ABA InsideTrack. If you are listening to this in the far flung future, I hope you joined as a patron of ABA InsideTrack. If not, that's okay. You. You can still enjoy this episode. And if you're listening in the spring of 2025 and you say, why is this two hour podcast I hear so much about only like 30ish minutes? It's because you're listening to the free preview because we want to entice you to join the rest of us for the whole shebang. Because we're going to be talking for a super long time about Gennara Narenberg's divergent mind thriving in a world that wasn't designed for you. Unless you're one of the people that the world was designed for, in which case, I guess you could still read this book, but you might not get as much from it. But that's what we'll Be discussing. So we are all here together. We've all read this book. This was a nice quick book. I remember where I was when I read this book because I was able to read it in such a short amount of time. It was quite enjoyable. That's all I have to say. So we got about an hour and 58 minutes to Phil, I can say
- [03:10]
C
where I read my book. So I like to read a nonfiction book in the morning and a fiction book in the evening to keep myself spry.
- [03:17]
B
It's good. That's a good pattern, isn't it?
- [03:19]
C
I know, because you never want to put a nonfiction. You always want to put a nonfiction book down. Right? There's never one that you're like gripping. I need to get to the next page. You're like gonna be late for work. And I read this book across a month because I can't read a ton in the morning, right. Because I have to go to work. And I really enjoyed picking it up. It wasn't like a. I read Atomic Habits and it took me like five months. So there you go. I read this one in one month and I had time to spare and I really, it really resonated me in a lot of ways and it led me to think about different things that I haven't thought about going into my workday.
- [04:04]
B
All right, Alan, Diana, what were your thoughts of the book in general before we dive into it?
- [04:11]
A
I think I also read this in the morning. So I remember reading it over a lot of different bowls of oatmeal.
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C
So yours was like mid afternoon. I'm just kidding.
- [04:21]
A
Jackie's saying that because I don't eat breakfast in the morning, I eat it at like 11:00am yeah, pretty much,
- [04:28]
D
yeah. For me there are certain, very thought provoking certain parts I found very familiar as someone we'll get into later who has a received a highly sensitive person label at one point in my life by a psychologist.
- [04:45]
B
So.
- [04:46]
D
But other parts, you know, I, I just had some mixed takes on it, I'll put it that way.
- [04:53]
B
Okay. For me I was shocked because I started reading this book and it felt very touchy feely. It felt very non scientific at various points. And I was very worried as I started it of oh, is this book going to be just about Gennara Nuremberg's sort of personal experiences and not in a way that I think we can make any sort of generalizations about or extrapolations about. And we're going to be, you know, we just got this like ladies, you know, talk for a while. And as it went on. I did find a lot of really resonant sections and passages. And while I think there are going to be some sections of the book that depending on sort of where you are in your journey as a behavior analyst, are either going to hit you and you're going to be almost revulsed by and other sections where you're going to feel like, yep, that's exactly where I am. I did find it really making me think about myself as a human being, which I don't often do so much as a podcast host automaton and really thinking about Diana because this book references the idea of sensitive people, the idea of neurodivergence in general, mostly focusing on female neurodivergence and what that might mean and really looking at it in terms of sensory sensitivity, which again, a lot of us, when we hear sensory sensitivity, we start thinking, oh, someone's going to get out. Brush and joint technique, which is mentioned in the book, which there tended to be a lot of research sort of debunking its utility for treatment of problem behavior. But this really talks about it in a different way. And it really made me think of the book Quiet Diana, which you've read and you shared. I have not had time to read yet. And thinking about.
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C
I don't think I've read that book.
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B
No, you didn't. You own Quiet.
- [06:45]
D
Wow.
- [06:46]
B
Okay, maybe you didn't read it. You own a copy of it. I know it's sitting on our shelf somewhere.
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C
It's somebody else.
- [06:51]
B
Somebody left it. But in any case, this book definitely made me feel very empathetic. And as I was reviewing my notes before this recording, I did sort of thinking ahead to our summer book club, previous book clubs is the twist of ABA inside track that we've all just learned to become more and more empathetic and fully understanding of the challenges humans face people. Is that really what, what, what the journey has been? Because I don't know, it's just I felt very, very emotional reading this journey
- [07:23]
A
through, doing this podcast, which if you're listening to this, when it came, when it came out, we just did our nine year anniversary. I think it run has run in parallel to a lot of the changes that we've seen within our field during this time. So yes, to answer your question, I think as a whole our field has had more focus and, you know, maybe opportunities to discuss the ways in which we want to ensure that we're presenting as an empathetic and compassionate field. And I think in our discussions of the research and of the general, you know, themes that we are finding important in behavior analysis. We've kind of followed that same path in our, our podcast journey too. Not to say that either we, we nor the folks in our field were not empathetic and compassionate to start with, but that we've given ourselves, you know, space and also challenged ourselves to ensure that we're incorporating that in the ways that we want to in our work.
- [08:32]
C
Yeah, one thing I was surprised about is I actually did not know that it was about female neurodivergence because I never looked up, but I never looked, I saw just all that. Just bought the book. I'm like, all right, this book won. I didn't read anything about it. It doesn't say about it on the COVID Right. It just says neurodivergent mind as a person face mosaic person face on the COVID And I, and then I was like, all right, what am I getting into? And I love to peruse the table of contents before, before I read a self help book to see what I'm getting into. And the first chapter is the Female mind throughout history. And I was like, ooh, still not realizing it's going to be about female neurodivergence. I'm like, ooh, maybe this is going to be like a sub chapter. And then, you know, after a few chapters in, I'm like, oh, there you go. There is the focus. So I, that was interesting to me because I, I get, you know, I guess I held the traditional stereotype there that because this book, even though it was written by a woman, I thought it would apply to men because that's what we usually read about. So that, and that in itself I think is amazing that this book has specifically been tailored to the woman's experience or the female experience when so often we've been overlooked in this realm and probably other realms too, let's be honest. But that's not what we're talking about here.
- [10:00]
B
I know. I think in general, one section or I think one challenge I had with this book because overall this was a book referring, like we kind of said at the top, a book about sensitivities in relation to neurodiversity and specifically how that impacts humans. And we recently did an episode about medical model of disability. So that should be coming out around the same time as this book club episode. And this book really covers on a lot of themes I think we've talked about. So the idea of disability being more of a societal construct than necessarily a medical one. The idea of individuals being undervalued for their strengths and really focused on how their deficits in regards to or as defined by typical individuals tends to be a huge focus of treatments rather than areas that they. That they themselves feel that they are struggling. That many of the systems that we have in place are not created equally and in some cases don't seem to be created for anyone in particular, but they happen to do more harm or cause more stress to certain individuals than others. And really looking at what we as a society can do to sort of support the individual. And I know one of the themes that I really liked in the book was the idea of, of individualization, which I think is something very core to our field in terms of not and everything should be this way, and this is so unfair and why would it be that way. But really kind of opening up a dialogue and letting us think about how individuals might need different things and how whether adhd, autistic, highly sensitive, synesthesia, synesthesia, synesthesia. It's more about understanding what you need and learning how to advocate for yourself kind of being the central theme. And if you had to pick one underlying idea, be if everyone sort of was allowed to get what they needed and learn how to advocate for themselves. A lot of the issues and a lot of the friction that comes from being humans in a world that's designed for everybody all at once and nobody all at the same time might just work themselves out in a lot of ways.
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A
Is that the title of your Oscar movie?
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B
Oscar winning movie, Everything Everywhere Doesn't Work.
- [12:14]
A
And also Nowhere at the Same Time
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B
and Nowhere at the Same Time, that's a sequel. And I think it did really allow this book, even though many of the terms here are ones that I kind of remember being told like these are verboten. Don't use these. This is not behavior analytic. These treatments do not have the same evidence base. To some extent it dodges the question of whether it does or does not have evidence based and that it has a value to an individual. Could it just have a value for that individual? And I think that's something we've talked about a lot. Something could have very little evidence to support it as a treatment. And that doesn't mean that we in saying to an individual, I suppose you could try that treatment, certainly if you have the financial wherewithal to pay for it yourself, because insurance probably won't cover it, you could give it a shot, see what happens. And I think that kind of. Even though in some ways I could see some behavior analysts reading this book and saying this is A bunch of nonsense. I think it might miss the. I don't want to say miss the point of the book, but I think it would miss a component of individualization and empathetic reasoning that a behavior analyst could bring to this book and still take something from it. Even though we might see many of the concepts in here as being sort of antithetical to what we think of as typical evidence based practice. My read. I mean, what did you all think in terms of this book? For the behavior analysts out there, who are the people listening to the show?
- [13:35]
D
Go ahead, go ahead, Jackie.
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C
Oh, okay, Alan. Point. Just kidding.
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B
I'll take this time to keep talking.
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C
I didn't think about this book in terms of evidence based practice. That's not how I looked at it at all. Because I am not in the, I guess in the realm to provide this sort of treatment. Right. In a way. But I used it as a way to broaden my understanding of how others might feel differently than me and how that may inform my treatment. And so the question of evidence based didn't even come into my realm when I was reading it because I was using it more as a way to understand other people, to be more humil. Humility. To be, to have more humility and like. To be more humble and understand that. Yeah. Yes, words came to me and to understand that I don't know the experiences of other people. And this book could help me recognize some of those differences and so that I could provide more sensitive treatment to my clients.
- [14:53]
D
Yeah, I think that with, with any book like this, you know, as behavior analysts we can look at it through that, like strict scientific rigor point of view or take like the functional contextualist view, which is, does this book help someone? Might it help someone? Might it help me understand someone's context and how they're comfortable or uncomfortable better? And in that sense it's a very useful book in that these are experiences that some people seem to find very relevant. And so being. Having a book to have this conversation about and for people to engage with is very important because you might not even realize that your experience is different from others if no one's talking about how different their experience is from other people goals. So
- [15:51]
A
that makes sense to me. Yeah, I think the, you know, statement I was going to make was about contextualizing experience, which is what Allan also took away here. And I think that that's one important piece for us as behavior analysts to keep in mind. So like what. What has always kind of killed me in, in talking about behavior analysis Is we talk about reinforcement and we say, well, we know that something is a reinforcer because when we apply it, then the behavior increases, right? And that's the definition of reinforcement. So we're like, all on board with that. But then the next question that should come after that, but that we don't often ask too much, is, well, how did that thing come to be reinforcing, right? And the standard answer is, well, it came to be reinforcing through a history of consequences. But different things become reinforcing for different people. And so part of that way in which something comes to be reinforcing is individualized to that person. And what we, each of us is bringing to the table in terms of our own genetics, as well as our own history, as well as our own neurotype, right? Is going to have influence on what we find reinforcing, what we find salient, what we find tolerable in the environment, etc. And each of our own personal EOs is going to be modulated based on that personal experience and history they were bringing in here. So to me, this book helps add additional context to that background understanding of how and why we may all act differently, right? How we all may behave differently. And that big antecedent pool that we're pulling from in terms of current history, past history, and genetic influence is a really large pool. And the more that we have an understanding of what can go into that pool, the better we can serve our clients and help understand where they're coming from. So to me, this helps to add to that very large pool. This book reminded me of uniquely human by Dr. Barry present. And that is not a book that we've covered in book club, but. And it's not a behavior analytic book, but he is one of the folks who did the Certs model, and it's coming at how to approach autism from, you know, somewhat of a different perspective that, again, draws very largely on this importance of. Of overall perception and sensitivity and the variations that one comes into the world with that and how we as practitioners need to react to that. So to me, those both of these books focus very heavily on that which I don't know. I think we as behavior analysts can take that into consideration and have it fit within our conceptually systematic worldview as well.
- [19:04]
B
One of the challenges that I. I know I found reading the book, and I found it to be a fun challenge, though I could see some behavior analyst reading this book and not finding it to be a fun challenge was much of it was. It certainly was certainly not written As a radical behaviorist book. It was written for a pretty broad audience for written for mostly, I think, well educated women who either consider themselves or might be wondering if they are neurodivergent. I always make those two turns up and written therefore, with a lot of more mentalistic terminology. And while much of the book I found to be relatively straightforward in terms of being able to think about it in terms of, say, private events or environmental behavior relationships, there certainly were other times when I found myself sort of trying to translate some of the more mentalistic talk into, you know, into behavior, behavior analytics speak. And to some extent I wondered whether or not that was a value. Maybe it was fun for me, but is there a value in there? And I think as behavior analysts, this book did make me think of are there terms? I know we talk a lot. We've done episodes on the idea of terms people like, terms people don't like in our field, whether it does or does not matter whether our ability to build rapport. Are we at a point where as long as we're able to explain what's going on behaviorally to each other, we should worry less about the terminology as long as it is comfortable and understandable to the widest group of individuals? Or do you still think there's a value in digging in more precisely into some of those terms? I was just kind of wondering, did folks kind of get to those sections in the book or do they sort of have an opinion on that? As a, I don't want to say a negative to the book, but certainly as a, you know, potential caveat to just, you know, any behavior analyst picking this up and, you know, potentially being frustrated or upset by that?
- [21:04]
D
Well, it's a point of, it should be a point of humility for us to check ourselves because while we are a useful science in human wellness and behavior and mental health, we are not the only science that practices. So I think your, your take on trying to reframe things from a behavior analytic perspective makes sense for us as what we do. But, you know, this person, again, isn't a behavior analyst, isn't writing as a behavior analyst. And so much public of the sort of general public's access to mental health is not behavior analyt. So I, you know, I think that that that's just something to note and something we operate in. And so whether we want to talk about like relational frames and complex verbal behavior or you want to talk about, you know, metaphor and things like that, it doesn't have to be. Doesn't have to be behaviorist radical behaviorist, to be a value to even to us as practitioners.
- [22:15]
A
Agreed.
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D
Especially when talking about adults and their experiences over their lifetime and how they've come to understand themselves.
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B
That's a good point, Alan. I think the idea that this book is for adults and brings up the idea that many of these challenges are ones that may have only been explored with very young children or individuals that aren't able to communicate necessarily due to disability to some extent. I think about things like there's a whole chapter on, you know, sensitive people really enjoying a lot of the treatments that an occupational therapist might present in terms of the brushing, in terms of the swings, in terms of weighted blankets, and how so much of what I learned as well, this isn't an evidence base. This actually can cause harm, really. Was from a very specific point of view of. From the point of view of children engaging in severe, challenging behavior who cannot communicate an alternate means of getting their needs met. And the only way we could judge whether the treatment was or was not effective was through a single subject case design.
- [23:22]
A
There are many dependent variables as well that could be under consideration when we talk about effectiveness. And different studies have looked at different ones and, you know, pretty narrowly defined what those. What. What efficacious means in that particular scenario.
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B
But the idea of this being a book for adults and about adults, I. I don't think until I started reading this, I realized that so many of the areas where I might say, well, I don't know about this, I don't believe it really are from that very small subset of individuals who might have received those treatments or been recommended those treatments versus adults who can flat out say, I like this. This makes me feel better. I went to work after and I felt good, or I don't like this, and please stop. You know, they're able to advocate for that need as long as they know that that's an option for them, which, you know, we'll talk more about. We get into the book as historically is not always presented as an option because there are a lot of barriers to, you know, that. That level of advocacy or that specificity of advocacy. Speaking of treatments, was there anything else in the book that folks either really resonated with in terms of treatments, terminologies, or conversely, phrases that folks found maybe not confused by, but maybe uncomfortable or they really had to reflect on more deeply than others?
- [24:44]
C
I was relatively new to all these terms, like highly sensitive person. I was new to obviously not autism and adhd, but a lot of the terms, they were new for me. So I found it interesting to learn about them. So I didn't know things beforehand. And so just reading about them was just a new thing for me. So that was exciting. When I was reading it, I can
- [25:08]
D
say that, yeah, the term highly sensitive person was something I was introduced to in my early journey for personal therapy in my 20s, and I think was something that, yeah, isn't too common, but is something that sort of a framework that really helped me and my personal therapist make a lot of progress for me and, you know, related to my ADHD diagnosis. But other parts of me as well, like, feed into that and then just understanding other people in general. So that was. That was definitely, like, more familiar to me. I think her. In the introduction, she talks about the phrase social awkwardness, which is part of the book. That kind of frustrated me because I feel like she. She does such a good job of talking about how we needed to find things well, but then like, left this idea of social awkwardness not as developed as it could be because I feel like there's, like, multiple parts to social awkwardness. And when she says do away with it, it's in hope of, like, getting rid of the idea of, like, social awkwardness and accepting people feels a little blanket generalization to that approach. As someone who has a history of social awkwardness, I quote, unquote. So. But yeah, no, I. I definitely. I feel like she's. She's using a lot of terms that are still being talked about in, like, mental health and wellness circles now. I mean, only five years old, but it's also five years old. Like, you know, that's. That's a challenge sometimes.
- [27:04]
B
I know one of the terms that I was. I was not really sure, and I wish it had been either more maybe not more defined, but I would have loved to hear other perspectives. Was the term meltdown. That came up a lot in terms of individuals who are, you know, reporting that they have a meltdown after periods where they are in centrally stimulating environments, or if they have been masking for a whole day and they come home and have a meltdown. Because that's always been a term, I think when I've heard it used, has been used by adults to describe children. So I've always sort of seen it as this infantilizing term, like, oh, baby's having a tantrum sort of situation.
- [27:41]
A
No, it's a pretty common term in the neurodiversity sphere is to talk about a meltdown and to distinguish it from a tantrum in that a tantrum is thought to be. I Mean in our terminology, operantly controlled, such that you might see a tantrum, respond to reinforcement, and increase or decrease, whether you're reinforcing it or extinguishing it, et cetera. And then a meltdown is not operantly controlled behavior, but it's really more in the category of emotional responding, such that it's not going to be sensitive to consequences or contingencies, but is occurring due to overstimulation in the same way that you might burst into tears when you didn't want to. Same idea. But you're. It's like your body bursting into tears because you're over stimulated, over overwhelmed.
- [28:35]
C
It's like a. It's like a physiological response, right? So, yeah, it's. It. I don't think it would. It absolutely wouldn't fit in. It would fit more in our respondent conditioning paradigm. Yeah, right. At that level one of selection than. Than two or three, like, there's nothing, nothing you can do about it. And I. I will share a personal. Since Alan shared, I will share a personal. And like five years ago, I bur my eardrum on a flight and it's given me some inner ear disorder issues. And since then, I have now recognized that this is how some people live always, right. I had. Not before, right? But like, I like loud noises bother me, bright lights bother me. I'm in PT for vestibular rehabilitation, right? And like some. I used to love being busy all day long. Like, it was like from the moment I woke up till the moment I went to bed. I loved doing things and I just can't do it anymore. Sadly, my body, like, cannot handle it. And it's like by the end of the day, I like, physically can't go on. Like, if it's like, if. If it was been a particular stressful day or if it's, you know, like there's been a lot of visual stimulation or a lot of auditory stimulation, I like, physically cannot like, stand up, right? And no one's gonna be like, good job, Jackie. Standing up. That's not gonna help, right? Or any sort of reinforcers. Like, physiologically my body is like, shut down. And you know that. I think not knowing that that's how other people in the world exist. That was one thing that I. That really resonated in the book with me is that that wasn't my experience before, but it is now. And it felt nice knowing that I'm not alone in that experience.
- [30:29]
D
I would. I will just further share that. I. I didn't know at the time, but I probably Had a few meltdown experiences a year in my early, like twenties where I would. Again, it's emotionally overwhelming and it's very much for me, like, I had to like, it was like no lights, no sound. Almost like, you know, like sort of a classic like migraine response. I wasn't having the pain of a migraine, but that's how I understood to like, I just had to completely withdraw from everything because I couldn't. I couldn't enjoy things in those moments. And I think that's where like my original depression diagnosis before I got to my ADHD and being a highly sensitive person and those that talk in therapy happened was because of that. And now like, that's part of the. And it's. This is important that people have this information is that, you know, that's not the healthiest response and suggests a lack of like, coping skills if to your environment. And so like now I don't have those experiences, like hardly anymore. You know, I'll say never because I'm still a person. But yeah, no, I, again, I found it very familiar. And yeah, I think that we definitely talk about. While the term meltdown and tantrum sometimes get conflated, I think it's pretty clearly defined by the neurodiversity and neurodivergence movement that. Yeah, it's a. More of a emotionally being emotionally and just like physiologically overwhelmed by everything.
- [32:08]
A
Yeah. Yeah. So maybe it would depend on sort of your familiarity with those. With the terms that are used in the movement. Because I didn't, I didn't notice any terms in this book that I was like, I don't know. I don't really know that term, but maybe that's why. And then I have my own, um. Done my own research on highly sensitive person as well. Although I don't. I don't think it's a full diagnosis that one gets and then it's not in the dsm.
- [32:39]
B
But I also diagnosed you as a highly sensitive person.
- [32:41]
A
I definitely identify as a highly sensitive person.
- [32:43]
D
It's a label. That's why I said label myself because.
- [32:46]
A
Yes.
- [32:47]
D
Yeah, it's a useful, useful framework to think about oneself as.
- [32:52]
A
I find it very useful. It. When I read it, it made a lot of sense to me and that. That's generally how I experience the world. And you know, it fits within the idea of how one can be very easily overwhelmed in certain settings or, you know, disabled in certain settings by what that setting feels like. And you know, my own growing up was very different than how I live now in terms of what my home life experience is like. And you know, Rob has been great in recognizing.
- [33:30]
B
I wasn't sure what adjectives you were about to use.
- [33:32]
C
Me neither.
- [33:34]
A
The level of stimulation in our house is very different than maybe what my body is used to handling. And so he can recognize when I am shutting down and will tell everyone in our family to be quiet and give me space because it is extremely loud and overwhelming to live in my house.
- [33:57]
B
Divergent Mind saved my marriage, I have to say. No, I did appreciate as I read this book, as I was thinking, because there is always, I think, and this gets into some of the medical disability versus, like you said, on the label of patterns of behavior, patterns of sensation, patterns of feeling, that when I heard highly sensitive person, it always sounded like one of those kind of made up descriptions of someone who just can't hack it or just can't take the modern world.
- [34:29]
A
Yes, you used to say that.
- [34:30]
B
I used to say that, yes. I know. I don't anymore. Because what it comes down to is whether or not something's in the dsm, which has a lot of problems. I'm not a big DSM booster or anything, but if someone is describing a pattern of challenges that they're facing in their daily life, whether or not there is a quote, unquote medical reason that it is happening or not, they are describing something that is occurring to them. And whether or whether it has a label or doesn't have a label, why would one not try to discuss with that person, what are some things that make you feel better? What are some things that I can do to help? And rather than getting all up in arms about, well, why should I have to change the way I am? Or why can't I just be loud all the time? That's the way I like to be and therefore I should get to be loud and you should deal with it. Recognizing that if you care about other people, you would like them to be comfortable more often of the time. Especially because if they're always on edge and feeling like they're about to have a meltdown or having a meltdown, they're never going to learn coping skills because they're too overwhelmed. And if the goal is to find like a good medium where everyone is getting what they need more often than not and building more ability to handle tough situations or know how to advocate more effectively for those situations, you need to be in a position where you are feeling safe. And so certainly after reading this book, I mean, it's something I think I've done to Some extent. But really it dug home that point of there's more that I could be doing to be supportive of, certainly to Diana, but to other people in my life who might have similar sensitivities. And that that is a part of the advocacy. And that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to then say, well, I will never make a noise again because I am going to be a loud person. At times I enjoy being loud. It's fun sometimes. But I have to know the difference between being loud because it's something that's exciting for me, and, you know, understanding other people's cues of, hey, could you take it down? Or where could I go to be loud? And no one can tell me to stop being loud because that's who I am. And it doesn't have to always be right next to Diana that I can be so loud.
- [36:36]
D
Well, and Rob, just to push on that a little bit more, I think there's, because some of the questions that you've asked kind of point to this. There's even going beyond that because your, your formulation of that is, I think, reflects some of the accidental ableism and paternalism of the medical model that we're all, like, trained in that, like, well, I need to not be this way so that they aren't overwhelmed, that they aren't doing this. It's like, but also, like, maybe Diana, the things that make her highly sensitive person also make her a really good behavior analyst because maybe she can determine they're like salient stimuli in an environment for a client. But if she also is overwhelmed, then those same systems that help her be effective in her roles in that she has chosen for herself in life, then that if those systems are overwhelmed, then, yeah, she can't cope necessarily as well, or she might not be as functional. And so you're not just, like, protecting her, you're, like, empowering her in the way that you can by making, minimizing your negative impact on her. Not to, like, go into YouTube specifically, just extending your conversation.
- [37:53]
B
We're not paying you extra for the, the couple's counseling, Al. I know. I, I, I appreciate the component related to the ableism, related to the empowerment piece, John, because I don't think I was very clear about that, though. If anyone ever asks which of us should probably just stay at home and take care of the kids who are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, it should totally be me. Diana should be out working. She's really great at this stuff. And I'll stay home and, you know, just be quiet. Well, I'll be loud. You won't be here, so I'll just be loud.
- [38:23]
D
You'll stay at home and raise the kids who can mostly raise themselves at this point. Okay.
- [38:28]
B
We're going to college pretty soon, so, you know, that's.
- [38:31]
A
I mean, I don't know. Like, I don't want to get too far off the path here, but Rob is very supportive of me and I actually. I have like amazing self esteem. Like, I think I'm awesome.
- [38:44]
D
Oh, 1,000%.
- [38:45]
A
And I love very much who I am and how I am. So this book kind of just. I mean, this book kind of confirmed things that I already thought about my awesomeness. Yes, it confirmed my awesomeness, but also just that I. That my way of being is. Is worth protecting. Right. And that the things that make me cool person are also related to. You know, I think a lot of my unique perception of what the world is like. And it does make me want to just make sure that that's a part of me that everyone gets to know about me versus me, you know, masking it and trying to hide things that are challenging for me or the ways in which I see the world.
- [39:31]
B
Well, any other general thoughts about the book or shall we dive a little deeper?
- [39:36]
A
Any more group therapy?
- [39:38]
D
I know.
- [39:38]
B
Does anyone have any thoughts about our relationship? You know, how can we.
- [39:41]
D
Well, you brought it up. I'm just extending the conversation and metaphor.
- [39:51]
A
No.
- [39:52]
B
No. All right, well, let's take a little break and then when we come back, we're going to dive a little bit more into the content of Divergent Mind by Junara Narenberg. We'll be right back.
- [40:18]
C
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A
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C
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C
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A
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C
again, that's www.regiscollege.edu regiscollege.edu One more time, www.regiscollege.edu.
- [41:28]
A
see you there.
- [41:29]
B
Bye. And we are back talking about Divergent Mind by Janara Narenberg. But before we do that, thank you all so much for listening. If you're listening to this as soon as it came out or soon around when it came out, as a patron of ABA Inside Track, thank you so much. We're going to do our secret codes just like we normally do for our episodes. We're going to have two in the main feed, but in the body of the post on the Patreon page that only you can access, you'll have a third separate discount code. You can get 100% off the 2 CES you get for listening to this podcast as a thank you to you for being a patron. But for everybody who's listening, regardless of whether you're a patron or not, you're going to need the two secret code words. We're going to do the first one now. It is number N U M B E r number like 0 or 1 or 2.
- [42:23]
A
You know what, Rob? My favorite number is 6 or 6 number. That's a throwback.
- [42:32]
B
That is a throwback. Before we start doing the pigeon, let's keep talking about the, the book. So we'll do kind of a little bit of our deep dive. I have some kind of general questions that link a little bit chapter to chapter, though we don't need to go into like chapter one, is this chapter two, is this as much we're trying something a little bit different for, for this book club, though we may fall into old habits. So generally about the book. Jannara Nuremberg is a reporter, Health and Science, who around the mid 2010s, sort of noticed a lot of articles by adult women describing challenges that they were having as they were entering the workforce or as they were getting into more advanced positions in the workforce and their struggles, even though they were considered, quote unquote, super smart or so smart, how can you have a problem sort of situations. And from that, she dug into the neurodivergence field, looked at her own neurodivergence. She started a lot of groups for women to talk about neurodivergence.
- [43:29]
A
She's your go getter.
- [43:30]
B
And. Yep. And wrote this book sort of to sum up a lot of what she had found out. And to some extent, the book does read like a travelogue, almost like, I can almost imagine if they wanted to make this the Netflix documentary series. You know, it's Almost like fully scripted there of like, in this chapter, we've got all the clips of, like, you know, sanator sanitariums in the. In the 50s and 60s with women going into them and, you know, how they were poorly diagnosed as hysterical. And then other sections where they're like, in this one, we're visiting, like, an occupational therapist or we're visiting New York, you know, San Francisco, where this architect is going to show us their snozelin rooms. And you really make like a whole really, really, probably a pretty cool documentary series about Divergent Mind. So it's a lot of, like, almost that travelogue of, like, let's talk about a topic and let's talk about some people who know about this topic. And then let's talk about another topic, though it's basically broken down into sort of general history of women in neurodivergence. General discussion of different types of neurodivergence is specifically related to sensitivities. And then the last part, which is really about, okay, what does this mean? What could we do to empower as well as support individuals who are highly sensitive or who are sensitive or have a diagnosis that relates to some sort of sensory sensitivity?
- [44:44]
C
I want you to know that we're all behind the times because Genera just published a new book in 2025 called Trust your Embracing Nuance in a World of Self Silencing.
- [44:55]
B
I like the idea of embracing nuance, but when. Wait, she just probably. We voted on this thing, like, a year ago.
- [45:01]
C
I'm just saying we're behind already.
- [45:03]
B
If she wanted to email us that she had a book coming out, we could have read the new book. But she didn't.
- [45:08]
C
She didn't.
- [45:09]
B
So we're stuck reading this old thing.
- [45:12]
A
Oh, this old thing.
- [45:15]
B
Maybe we'll. Maybe we'll put it on the 2025, 2026 poll. All right.
- [45:19]
C
And then she'll have a new book out by then.
- [45:21]
B
No. Okay. If she's writing one book a year, she needs to do more research. That's too fast.
- [45:27]
C
That's true.
- [45:29]
B
Some boilerplate.
- [45:30]
A
So, Colleen Hoover.
- [45:35]
B
So kind of starting in the first part, discussing generally, like, the idea of, you know, history, history of neurodiversity, history of sort of women in that movement. Ladies, ladies, on the show, what was your kind of reaction to just this history of maleness? Was it kind of a business as usual? Yep. We knew that. Were you madder than normal at how kind of awful so many people have been treated throughout history?
- [46:00]
C
Nope. It is pretty common knowledge when you're a female that you are overlooked most of the time and no one cares about you and your body. Just putting it out there. So this was. Nope. It was not surprising and pretty common knowledge if you're a lady and you've ever gone to the doctor. So.
- [46:19]
A
Agreed.
- [46:19]
C
Sorry for that eye opening piece for you, Rob.
- [46:22]
B
I mean, I don't think it's bad.
- [46:24]
C
You're like, I want you to be mad. I'm not. I was already mad. And now I'm just complacent because this is how life is.
- [46:30]
A
We're not complacent.
- [46:31]
C
No.
- [46:32]
A
But we're not surprised. Right. Chapter two.
- [46:41]
B
We don't want to hear the male counterpart. Well, I was mad. I was very offended.
- [46:48]
C
I am glad that the book started in that way because even though I'm not surprised, it's good historical context to what we currently talk about now and how our language and how we view women in their disorders. As I'm putting in parentheses for people that can't see are and why. It's why we're like how we are. Right. So I think it's really important to have that historical context that it has. Women have never been in the forefront of medical research. They've only just been included in medical research recently. Right. Because of our hormones. Our crazy hormones. Hormones. We can't. We can't have like a steady state. Which is true. I'm, you know, like. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have been studied in the past and how people tried to in the past and potentially even now. Right. Silence women's voices because we are not part of the dominant class. It may change things differently than what the current dominant class, which is white men want, how they want things to be.
- [48:02]
B
I'm so tired of those guys. They really kind of suck. Just saying. I don't want to be too. I don't want to come off as anti science, but I feel like between this book and some of the other books that we've read and our discussion of the medical model of disabilities, it does to some extent feel like the medical establishment. Not every doctor certainly, but the medical establishment really is the bad guy in a lot of these stories. And a lot of the challenges that individuals are facing really do stem from this very paternalistic view of medicine of we have answers. And if you don't agree with them, well, you must be part of a problem that is occurring. And only I will know the answer to the problem, which is probably your crazy. And here's how I will help you be Less crazy. And again, I think there's plenty of people possibly in our federal government that really want to beat up doctors even more. But I think it is sort of a reckoning. And I'm curious, I'd love to hear more from medical professionals, sort of how they are reflecting on that, because I know there are some medical professionals that are very aware of this. I think there are some that still think business as usual in terms of, well, everything's a medical problem, and if only we could find the right drug, we could make your problem go away. Because the problem is you. It is not a problem with how you or the environment you are in. It is, you are the problem and the product in that. In that respect.
- [49:28]
C
I mean, that is how it is working and how it has worked in the past. Right.
- [49:35]
D
And what they're trained to do, like be clear about that, you know, when everything's a nail, when all you have is a hammer kind of approach, if you are trained in the medical model, which has utility. It's not universally, universally applicable, though, to solving problems. In terms of this chapter, I think she does a really good job of. Yes. Like, centering this on. I think, as Jackie pointed out at the beginning, this was. It's very refreshing to sort of see a. This is how history has treated women in terms of this fear and everything. One drawback for me, and again, this is sort of the. The mix take. She sort of neatly wraps up experiences for queer people and people of color because they're not her experiences and sort of puts them on the shelf. As to say, this is relevant, but I'm not going to be talking about it at all beyond these, like, three references that I make for the entirety rest of the book, which I can understand why she would do that because she's centering this on her experience and the experiences of other people she knew. But also for a book written in 2020, is very frustrating to have done or not have more pointers on, like, and you should go look here at this research or you should look up this person. It just feels very. Yeah, yeah, it feels very much just a. And these things exist and relate to this, but I'm not talking about them beyond these broad references.
- [51:22]
B
You do bring up a good point, Alan. And sometimes it does feel like, what is the. What is the correct core? Like. Like, is it as much as just, I'm going to have one more chapter, and that's the chapter about people of color and I'll bring in a separate author to write that chapter, or does that run the same risk of, well, now I'm treating it like this is a different problem and it's not related to the rest of my book. But I guess I will have that separate section and we'll leave it there with, like, is that, is that divisive in its own way? And. Yes, well, it is. It is. And I think there is that real challenge of when you are trying to get together an idea to be concise, but to be thorough and extensive. And what's the way to do that? Like, would also there be a concern of. And you know, in the back, like here, if you're a person of color, here are your links. Go read something else, but not this. Or, like, start here and go read this if you want. Like, does that feel. And again, we're not people of color, so, you know, our discussion can only be what it can be.
- [52:22]
D
No, but I, I am, I am a queer person. And yes, I, I take that. And it's a very similar problem that I just. My frustration isn't that she doesn't talk about it like, because again, I, I understand that she has limitations as an author and as a person who is not members of these communities, but she should say that. And I feel like an author writing in 2020 should be more explicit about like, like, it should be very clear that the history of like, psychology has been atrocious to women, has been atrocious to queer people, and has been atrocious to people of color. And so if you are a queer woman of color, you may not find as much comfort in this book because I may not be the person, the author for you, but in the latest references I can find on that are on this one page at the end of this book or something like, just because we're talking about public health and she's educated in public health, that is her background as like an author. And so just that little extra responsibility of saying, drawing our boundaries and then saying, but please explore this. Or even just a call to action. Right. Like, we need people. If you are frustrated by this book, please respond and tell me how wrong I am, but doesn't really happen. So that's just one of my, like, frustrations with the book.
- [53:56]
B
Sure.
- [53:56]
D
But again, I can understand why and I want to be generous to the author, as always.
- [54:02]
B
It does sound like some of the sections I'm seeing. And we've been talking about qualitative, qualitative analysis, research, more sections just like subheadings within the research paper on this is who we are as researchers. So I like the way you described Alan, I'm sort of just like, put that in the. You know, put that in there. That sense of, here's who I am, here's what I'm going to be able to write about, but also not making that a. And I'm going to pass on the rest of it, so I don't have to talk about this anymore, really. But, you know, what can we do to be proactive about that rather than just pretend it doesn't exist or pretend that we're speaking for everybody, even though we're not 100% sure? We're definitely not speaking for everybody in any. In any situation. I'm not talking about physics.
- [54:44]
C
Right. And I do want to. I looked at the copyright. So she did publish this book in 2020 and then republished it again in 2021. So in 2020, we got to give her some grace. Right. Because maybe she was working on this book before everything that happened in 2020, and then it got published. But she did have the introduction. Right. She talks. So in the introduction, this probably was added in 2021, the introduction part, because she does talk about the killing of George Floyd. So that is where she could have said she could have given Alan what he wanted. Right. In the updated introduction for the 2021 release. Because in 2020, I mean, like, who was doing anything good? Like, we don't really know what, like, when she started writing the book and when she started, you know, like, a lot of stuff changed between, like, 2020 and in 2021, surprisingly, you know, so. But in 2021, she could have added that in the introduction to give Alan a little more, you know.
- [55:46]
D
Yeah, just me.
- [55:47]
A
I was gonna say everyone. Not just everyone.
- [55:50]
C
Not you. Just you, Alan. But I mean, like, that could have
- [55:52]
D
been a place where my points could have been satisfied.
- [55:56]
C
Yes, right. You'd been like, okay, I understand. Yeah.
- [55:59]
A
Yeah. Because it's pretty central, honestly, like, to the theme of the book is that one can only know one's own experience. So it would have been thematically a very small additional step to ensure that she was including all of her identities in her discussion of her own experience.
- [56:16]
C
Right.
- [56:18]
B
All right, well, so the next chapter goes into the idea of sensitivities. What are sensitivities? What are folks responses to the. I mean, I think sensitivities is a term that I've taken a very long time to sort of come around on, understanding what that might mean, how it can mean different things to different people. The fact that it's not necessarily always a medical sensitivity. Or medical, in the way we think of a medical diagnosis, that it still can be impactful. But what were people kind of thinking in this? Was it sort of in line with your own journeys, something new?
- [56:53]
C
This is aligned with my own recent journey, as I described before, right. Before, before this happened. I don't feel like I had to. I didn't really think about it. And it didn't occur to me that everyone's like internal experiences may have been different than my own internal experiences. When I think about lights, for instance, or noise now, right. I'm like. And that never occurred to me that different noises may affect people in different ways because they didn't affect me in that way. Right. But now I am a hundred percent on board and I'm very aware of how that can, that can affect, you know, just, even just being present in a room. Right. And how noise and light and visual stimulation can, can, you know, shut someone down very quickly. And so this is something new for me. So I read it resonated well in that, in that way. And I don't think I am a highly sensitive person. I think I'm actually, I'm not very good at reading other people's emotions. I don't think Diana is my friend, but I'm not that good at it. And sometimes I think to my, like, when people are mad at me, it takes me a very long time to recognize that they're mad at me unless they specifically say I am mad at you. But if they give me all of like the like the non verbal cues, I very rarely pick up on them. I'm like, well, if they're still talking to me, we're still doing it. We're doing great. And so I don't identify as that, but I do have a lot of friends that I can see, see those sensitivities in. And I think in my, in my, my younger age I probably wasn't as accommodating as I could have been. And then I would learn, like, I would be like, oh, I'm good with fast change. And, and I'd be like, oh, then I would walk in. So Diane and I work together. And I'd walk in, I'd be like, Diana, can you give this two hour presentation in five minutes? And so now I no longer do that because I was like, I can't handle that. I can't believe that that would bother her because it wouldn't have bothered me.
- [59:08]
A
Yeah, right.
- [59:09]
C
And so that's something that I'm not good at. But I can, I think as I'm growing older. I can more easily see. And maybe because I'm doing more work on myself and others. Right. See where there are differences and accept those and actually really love that that is there. Right.
- [59:29]
A
You agree, Diana? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know that you're talking about me when you say all those
- [59:33]
C
things, and I am not, but do you agree that. I never know.
- [59:39]
A
Maybe you don't. I don't know. I never. I don't know because I. I mean, I can walk into a room and immediately tell, like, what the vibe is in that room without talking to anyone. So maybe I don't, you know. And again, like, I always think that everyone can do that, but maybe not me.
- [59:59]
C
I'm like, it's my own vibe. It's whatever my vibe is, is that's what the room's feeling.
- [60:04]
A
Right. And then, well, then, I mean, I absorb everyone else's vibe too, like, instantly. So. But I think my point I wanted to make is this. This could 100 makes sense to me. And I talk to my students about this as well, in terms of what the environment is and how important components of the environment are going to be different for everyone. So when you have a situation, when you're like, I don't know what's up with my student, they're doing, quote unquote, you know, out of nowhere behavior. Well, for them, it's probably not out of nowhere. There's a reason why. And it very well could be that there is some aspect of the environment, so some very important stimulus in that environment that is making their response, you know, potentially avoidant response occur to some stimulus that isn't even on your radar. So I always, I try to point out to them, I'm like, you know, how. How bright are these lights in here right now? What's the temperature in this room right now? How loud is that air conditioner right now? Is the projector flickering right now? What are the colors that I have on the screen? Right. Like, I go through all of these things with them to try to help them identify. Like, there could be something in that environment that for them, they don't even notice. But for someone else, you know, what sound are the lights making right now? Right. Is like, about to drive them up the wall. And that ties into this idea of sensitive. It can be internal too, is the other thing. Sorry. Like, those stimuli can be inside the body as well.
- [61:46]
C
All of those highly resonate with me. As of last week, I was like, I'm gonna have to wear no clothes in the recording studio. Because I was hot and everyone else is fine.
- [62:01]
D
Well, and I. I think that. I think it's both a strength and a potential point of criticism for the idea of sensitivity and that it's not nature versus nurture.
- [62:14]
C
Right.
- [62:15]
D
It's so like, I. As someone who has. Has that label and uses that label, I definitely see a fellow HSP in like Diana. But Jackie, I sometimes think that you might. You might be.
- [62:33]
C
I had a tarot card reader once tell me I was.
- [62:36]
B
Yeah, I think Jackie's sensitivity comes from medical issues. Well, so I think you're the exception that proves the rule. But that's like the medical model.
- [62:45]
D
But that's the thing. It's physiological, right? And so. And it may be that the things that you're. That the statements about HSP that involve being sensitive to other people may not apply to you, but it may be because other statements are true in a sense of, like, a rich and varied inner life. Like. Like maybe you find it and your. Your learning history is such that you haven't had to develop that sensitivity and you're able to. And. Or forced to perceive your own sensations all the time. And so that's the thing about this. It's. It's, again, just. And I think that's why it gets tied to autism and adhd. And synesthesia is like. It's a whole spectrum of the. We are basically bombarded by stimuli all the time, and it just wears some of us down faster. And I think that's a very useful bit of information to take away from this idea is that, like, it is difficult. Some things are difficult for some people, but they're still human beings. It's just for whatever reason, they're. They find the environment more trying to exist within. And in terms of sensitivity, that feels like a perfectly good, reasonable definition that we could, like, work from, even as behavior analysts.
- [64:21]
A
So I remember working with a young student who's a preschooler, and he was, you know, something was wrong, right? And, like, you just couldn't figure out what. What was wrong. This was a highly verbal kid. And so finally I was sitting there with him, and I realized, like, his collar on his shirt was, like, poked inside. Right? You know what I'm talking about, right? And I was like, hey, do you feel this right here? And he's like, yeah. I was like, your color's messed up, right? I'm like, is that bothering you? And like, that was. To me, like, that moment was like a light bulb moment for both of us, right? He was like, that is bothering me. And I was like, oh, my God, this. This little thing, right? Which for maybe me or somebody else is like a minor inconvenience, is like putting him beyond, right? And finally realizing his experience, his perception of the world is just different from mine. And I've helped him realize that, and I've realized that about him and about probably everybody else I work with, too.
- [65:39]
B
So in terms of sensitivity, we're looking at these kind of perceptual differences across people. And that theme is going to keep coming back throughout the book, certainly in the next section, till we get to part two after that. The Outer, Outer Worlds. And this is sort of a more of a breakdown of that sensitivity and how it impacts individuals based on other often medically diagnosed disorders. So autism, adhd, whether we consider them a disorder, that DSM disorder. And it starts by lumping autism, synthesis and adhd. They got one chapter, that's it. They all got to be. All got to be put in one chapter. Unlike other books we've read, they just get one.
- [66:22]
A
Sure, we can cover it all.
- [66:25]
B
And I think this chapter comes back to a theme of the experience of a lot of women that Nuremberg has spoken to about this. The idea of when they were in structured environments, they tended to do very well. They were bright. People noticed how smart they were, they were very accomplished. So the pattern seemed to be either something was noticed early on and that they were different than a sibling, or they acted different than other girls, or they were able to cope. They were able to mask and go through the typical school experiences where there was a lot of structure. Also, probably because as women, there was a lot of pressure to conform already. Plus the pressure to conform as someone who is highly sensitive or sensitive or autistic or adhd. And then only when they were later in, like, graduate school or just gotten married and were trying to raise a child and work their job, when a lot of the structures fell. Fell apart or fell away, that many of the difficulties they had just been white knuckling through started becoming real disorders in terms of disordering, you know, their. Their lives making them uncomfortable, making them unable to relate, making them unable to feel that they could be as accomplished as they had been. And often found themselves going to various doctors and being diagnosed as various things before coming to the idea that they are sensitive in some way, whether it was an autism diagnosis or an ADHD diagnosis, which historically weren't diagnosed among women as much as they were for men, and certainly not adults. Hey, you're an adult. You function so well. There can't be anything Wrong with you now. You made it. You made it to the big show. Just keep going. Right.
- [68:08]
C
I just want you to know the big show is harder than childhood. I'm just putting it out there.
- [68:13]
B
Yeah. Kids, listening to this podcast for C show is tough.
- [68:16]
C
The big show is working.
- [68:18]
B
Grow up, don't grow up.
- [68:19]
C
Kids and adulting and nobody's taking care of you.
- [68:24]
A
Yeah, it's tough.
- [68:26]
B
School.
- [68:28]
C
It's tough.
- [68:28]
A
Always working in Santa's workshop. If you're an elf.
- [68:31]
C
Yeah, always. So you've never.
- [68:34]
B
Life's hard, everybody.
- [68:36]
C
You've made it. When you're a child and you don't have to tell, you don't have to answer the question, what should we have for dinner tonight? Diana knows this is, like, the bane of my existence.
- [68:49]
B
Anything else? I mean, again, I think adhd, autism, those are topics that we have discussed a lot on the show. We've read a lot of books. We've done a lot of professional development, a lot of clinical knowledge. So I don't know if chapter three was necessary outside of. I think that theme coming in. I thought that was resonant for me. But were there any other parts of this chapter that kind of refrain, Some of your own professional thoughts on autism, adhd?
- [69:12]
C
Yeah. One thing I think that I. I really took from this chapter is the idea. Obviously, I knew that, you know, the symptomology of that are the traits that you see in women are going to be different than dudes. But I think that it was a good reminder that many of the times I might see masking. Right. And Manhattan, I should be looking for that to try to combat those types of skills and make them more adaptive in a way that's going to be less stressful for the individual. Right. So not just being like, oh, I'm observing them for a half hour, and I see they're doing great and they're talking to people and. Right. But really talking to them and asking them, like, how do you feel at the end of the day, how did that conversation feel? You feel? And. And what were you doing? And I think that was really helpful for me to remember that just because outwardly things may look fine, inwardly they may not be. And I think that is my take home from that chapter, you know, because we know a lot about these. And I just kept thinking about the Pharrell Lego movie. I don't know why. Because he sees color when he hears songs. And that was.
- [70:29]
A
I didn't see that movie.
- [70:30]
C
Oh, you should.
- [70:31]
A
I heard it was good, though.
- [70:32]
C
It's really good.
- [70:34]
A
Okay.
- [70:34]
C
Even though he's not a woman, I just kept being like, oh, if no one's ever heard of this before, that's a great introduction because it's Lego and it's.
- [70:41]
A
Do you know the name of that movie?
- [70:43]
B
Life in Pieces.
- [70:45]
C
Yeah, Life in Pieces.
- [70:46]
A
Okay. Just for our audience by Pharrell in Lego.
- [70:51]
C
I watched it on. Yeah.
- [70:54]
A
You know, from this I. Again, we have talked a lot about autism and adhd, but it is worth recognizing that for both of those are more commonly diagnosed in boys than in girls. And, you know, as this. You know, probably in the last five years or so, I think people have come to recognize that it's very likely that there is sort of a wider spectrum of behavioral patterning that could fit within both of those diagnoses that have not been typically represented in the past. So I don't think we need to necessarily over overly gender it. Right. And saying, like, oh, boys act this way, girls act this way. But rather, there are other patterns of behavior that are likely representative of these same neurodivergences that are just harder to pick up on. And we. Maybe we tend to see those more in girls, but they may also be presented, you know, across the spectrum of gender and as well. So I thought that is a good takeaway here. And then we've never talked about synesthesia, I don't think, before, because it is probably outside of our wheelhouse in terms of behavior in the way that we typically think about it. But it is cool to. I've. I've read about it before, and it's not a neurodivergence I thought about very much, but it is focused on quite a lot in this book. So it would have to do with, you know, seeing or experiencing varying senses in the context of another sense that you don't typically associate with. With that. So, like, Numbers have Color is like a classic example.
- [72:37]
D
Yeah. One thing about the. The male female distinction is. And they don't cover it in this book, but we. You. The literature often talks about it, is that some of those come down to how people are socialized.
- [72:50]
C
Yeah.
- [72:51]
D
As well. And I do think about, like, would be interesting to hear to. To consider more about. Like, did the. The women that she's talking about struggle later in life because they went from highly structured and highly socialized environments to highly structured or decreasingly structured, but less socialized environments? Because that, I think, is like, if you're. If you rely on other people who are just willing to be more sensitive to your needs because it's a social Support network. And then suddenly you're in an individualistic setting where you don't have that support. I could imagine.
- [73:37]
A
Yeah.
- [73:37]
D
Meltdown comes barreling at you very quickly.
- [73:41]
A
Trying to take care of an infant alone. Yeah.
- [73:44]
B
Right.
- [73:47]
D
So it really does take a village.
- [73:51]
B
I think. Another thing that starts in this chapter, and we saw it sort of in the initial chapters, we'll see it again in the chapter on sensory processing disorder. But is a little bit of that without being prescriptive about it, the idea of where the sensitivity comes into play based on whether a disorder or sort of the pattern that you're describing of your own sort of sensitivities to sensations or the environment, and always presenting it in this. In the light of both, where might you find distress, but also how might this be something that you value or should be valued by others or could be valued by others? So I'm just gonna just. I'll use the ADHD example that she gives. So there's a quote on page 75 describing ADHD is not a deficit of attention, but rather a challenge of regulating it at will or on demand. People with ADHD often have too much attention, just not at the quote, socially acceptable and quote times or situations found in our highly regimented and structured societies. And then it goes on at the end of that quote, and then kind of describes ADHD sensitivity as being really a curiosity and a sensitivity to new information and stimuli. So really seeing it as something that certainly could cause distress. If you're in an environment where everyone is really focused on quiet and you need to attend to something else that isn't necessarily going to be a quiet lead to quiet behavior, that's going to be a problem. It's your problem. Is it their problem? It's kind of everybody's problem, but it's not a failure of yours. It just happens to be something you might experience. And then that idea of the curiosity and sort of the intensity that you can get new information, you know, the sense that you can attend to things, but you need a certain level of attention in your lives. So I did like that. I did like how this book really did try to focus on sensitivities without always going to a deficit model of ADHD is about how you can't handle. You need attention. You don't have enough attention. Autism is about how you can't process attention the right way versus you are processing certain sensory stimulation in certain ways. Challenges related to communication and social cues you may struggle with. Or the issue is you are attending or hyper focusing on certain social cues and missing other social cues. And that's where your sensitivity is. So it's not that you are bad at social cues, it's that you just are focusing on social cues that aren't necessarily valued by everybody. And I did really appreciate that because it did allow, I think, to capture both the distress an individual might feel as well as the power and the empowerment that may come from this being a part of who you are. And also letting folks who might not experience things that way really see it as, oh, okay, this is, this is what might be happening for somebody else. That's great. That's, that's, that's good to know. That's something individualized rather than here's a problem they have and here's, I think, like, like you mentioned, Alan, in not becoming some sort of an ableist. How can I help you with your problem? All right. And then moving on, it gets its own chapter. Chapter four, Sensory processing quote unquote disorder. Quotes are in the book because there is no DSM Sensory processing disorder. I appreciated the chapter because I have to be very honest. Sensory processing disorder is not something I truly understood very well. It was one of those, I think some medical folks have told me, like, that's not a thing, therefore, meaning, I guess I don't have to worry about it. Or I can pretend it does not exist. Or if someone says they're struggling with it, I can tell them they're wrong. It must be something else, which I'm sure everyone has loved to hear. I hope I have never actually said that to anyone in my whole career. If I have, I sincerely apologize. That was a total awful thing and not helpful at all. It goes a little bit into the history of sensory processing, quote unquote. I'm going to get rid of the quotes, but they're in the book. The disorder looking at the different types or subtypes that are often described by people in terms of modulation, discrimination and a sensory based motor disorder. Really just speaking to the idea of a sensory responsiveness or over responsiveness that one might have given to other stimuli in the environment that could be auditory, could be postural challenges. And whether or not it's diagnosed as a DSM issue, it is something that people are describing as affecting their ability to necessarily function the way they might want to, or it's leading to distress. I should say, had folks had different histories with sensory. I mean, I know we've kind of touched on it a bit, but in terms of just specifically looking at sensory processing disorder, is that something that folks have had different experiences than the one I described of my own. Is it something that you had learned about previously?
- [78:18]
C
I had. I had learned about it in a class, I think, and I. I can totally see it. I can see it with many of our students. Right. And it just takes a long time. And one thing I loved about this chapter in Spec In, I guess specifically, is that many of the accounts that they give people were successfully able to manage the symptomology that they had. That said, here's how I. Here's how my life is happening. I'm doing really badly, you know, but I advocated for myself. I took control, even though people were saying that this is not necessarily true. And now I'm. I'm doing much better. You know, I'll still have the occasional. But I can manage the symptoms in my life. And I think that was very. I loved that in this chapter specifically because, like, the accounts were horrific. Like, women were like, I could. I can't get through the day. Right. I'm by myself with this one child. I don't want them to touch me. I'm gonna get divorced because my husband doesn't understand. You know, and then finding different strategies and ways to, you know, interact with the world in a more. In a. In a more meaningful and realistic way for them was. Was really uplifting on a personal level. Maybe not on a behavior analytic level, but because I. I have not. I don't. You know, this is out of my wheelhouse and out of my scope of confidence, competence. But as a. As a person reading this chapter, I thought was really eye opening and awesome.
- [79:54]
B
Yeah. The relationship nature of it, you know, really struck me. I sort of always assumed it was just like, oh, it's too loud, it's too bright. Like, it just physically is uncomfortable, but not really. Thinking about the broader impacts of, you know, certain touches, being uncomfortable and how that can send a social cue of I don't want to be touched or I can't be touched, therefore, I can't be intimate, you know, with my child, with my partner.
- [80:15]
C
Yeah. And you know me, I'm a super hugger. And so this has also given me pause that I've been trying better to not hug people so hard or so long and maybe be asked, asking. Right. Or if I'm hugging someone, they're like, this is physically uncomfortable. Maybe I take that into consideration next time. Which, you know, I had not done before.
- [80:35]
A
Two taps on the shoulder mean the hug is over, Right?
- [80:40]
C
I know, I'm working on it.
- [80:42]
B
But if you're a man in A hug. You do the taps on the back just to signal, I am a man. This is a manly hug.
- [80:47]
A
Well, then you, you had to do the handshake first.
- [80:50]
B
The handshake, the handshake and then the
- [80:52]
A
handshake into the hug.
- [80:53]
B
Yep.
- [80:54]
A
Then it's the pat on the back. Yeah, I know how it works. Alan's laughing.
- [81:01]
B
It's your woman's planning of man hugs.
- [81:05]
A
No, that's a bro hug. Specifically.
- [81:07]
B
It's a bro hug. Okay.
- [81:12]
D
My experience was enterprise disorder. I had classes on it. Coming from a special education background, I definitely had more exposure to it even before I started graduate school. Just working with occupational therapists and OT minded speech pathologists who, who had close collaboration with OTs. And I definitely have had my own personal journey. I think the class that I learned the most about Sensory Processing Disorder in was a course for behavior analysts on pseudoscience. So there was some like, loaded information and how I was formally educated about it. But then my first job as a BCBA was in a speech OT clinic. And so, you know, I think that there's a couple of useful or interesting things that sensory processing disorder. One, it's not in the DSM, but it does have some ICD10 codes. And so it allows people to, as a diagnosis of some form, allows people to access support for that in a. In a way that you can't otherwise really. And it sort of again, is a useful tool in that sense. But then also thinking about it, behavior analytically, I. Some things from Sensory Processing disorder and the theories around it are useful potentially in terms of like, lia. Like, are certain stimuli preferable or aversive? Are certain stimuli, are they easily satiated or are they easily, you know, can we ameliorate behavior by manipulating these factors? So if through that lens of like, it's potentially helpful and then, yeah, it's a diagnosis, I see a lot which just gives me pause to be like, all right, I might need to have a slightly different approach with this person depending on what this SPD diagnosis means for them. So and definitely should be a talking point if I'm talking to an adult or an adolescent or someone with the. That vocal verbal behavior who can tell me like, well, what led you to seek this SPD or what landed you with this diagnosis? And so that I can be sensitive to those factors and those symptoms that you're experiencing.
- [83:47]
A
Yeah, I mean, I see it as more. This is more information. Right. So if, yeah, if someone has come to the point where they say this is continually an issue for me or for My child. Right. Then that is an important piece of information for us as clinicians that are, is probably going to be impactful for that person in their daily life. And I think the other, maybe side of it too is sometimes why behavior analysts are like iffy about the whole thing is just because something, when something comes to have a disorder label, it doesn't automatically mean that we can't still figure out how to make that person's life better with respect to it. Right? So it's not like, oh, it's off limits because it falls into this other category and there's nothing to be done and we wouldn't want to do anything. We want to be respectful of that certainly that person's approach and what they want to change. But if it's a real challenge for them, then maybe that's something that can still be addressed and worked on because you do have to wear socks. And well, in most climates, at least sometimes, you know, not everywhere. But here in New England, you do need to wear socks. And if the seams of your socks are bothering you, let's find you some other socks, right? But if, if you're at the point where you can't wear socks at all, we may need to like, kind of work on that so that you can not get frostbite.
- [85:21]
B
And so that kind of wraps up that middle part describing sort of the sensitivities in regards to those disorders. And then we get to the last part, part three, something new. And in these chapters, it sort of looks at what are some potential, I don't know if they even want to go so far as to call them treatment options, so much as strategies, strategies or even shifts in kind of societal norms in regards to individual well being, work, home, balance, or how you think
- [85:54]
C
about yourself
- [85:56]
B
and really looking at those, those environments and what can happen. And I think one of the downsides of this section is that she's already talked about so many of these ideas that there does become a bit of a repetitive nature to the con. So certainly talking about things you can do at home and things you can do at work, there's only sort of a few variations. So you do get some of the same themes coming up over and over again, which is always tough. I think when folks write a book, you get to the end, you're like, no, you said this already. Yep, keep going. What else you got?
- [86:25]
C
I didn't feel that.
- [86:27]
B
No. I don't know, I was getting a little bit.
- [86:30]
C
Maybe I didn't feel it because I. It hasn't occurred to Me before. So this is this second part of the book. I was like, all ears. I was like, wow, this is fascinating, right? These are good advocacy strategies. These are efforts that people can like, do to improve their life. And although the, the skill seems the same at home and at work, how you apply them is different. And that's where I thought the nuance was important in this, like these discussions, like how I'm going to talk to my partner and my family is going to be really, really different than how I talk to my boss and my co workers. Right? And so I thought both of these, the strategies are very similar, but how you handle them is very different. And so I really appreciated the. I didn't find it redundant at all. I found it like, oh, if this is something I was gonna do, this gives me a, an example of how to do it at home versus how to do it at work and how to do it in different ways so that I can be successful. Thinking of me as a lady and trying to advocate for myself where in the past I wouldn't have considered, considered even advocating for myself in these things. Because this is how, you know, society views. This is what you should be doing at home, this is what you should be doing at work. And so I loved, I loved this section. I was like all hard eyed about this section because I felt like it gave really applicable strategies for people that are reading the book that are like, oh, I identify with these, you know, symptoms that I maybe hadn't before. And here are some really concrete ways that I can make my life better. And I think then that ties it back to the subtitle of the book. Thriving in a World that Wasn't designed for you. Right. I think you need this second part. Otherwise there's no point in writing that subtitle. Right? She could have done. Part one was Divergent Mind. Part two was the subtitle.
- [88:27]
A
Right?
- [88:27]
C
Because we don't really learn well, technically.
- [88:29]
B
This is part three. This is part three, right?
- [88:31]
C
I know, but you know what I mean, right?
- [88:33]
A
Like, you know what you mean.
- [88:34]
C
If you don't have this part in the book, then there's no point in saying that we're gonna help you thrive in a world that's not designed for you. Because the first couple parts don't give you. They tell you like this, oh, yeah, this is how it happened. But it doesn't give you concrete evidence of what you should do.
- [88:53]
B
Well, she gives lists. I think each chapter ends with.
- [88:56]
C
The lists are just symptomologies, right?
- [88:58]
B
They're just like, no no, no, I meant at the end. She. At the end of each of these chapters, she gives lists of these are some tips and things that you might find helpful. She goes into more in depth as to where they came from or who's describing them, which ones. Let's talk about the well being chapter. Let's start there. What tips sounded the most, you know, resonated most with you? I'm gonna say resonated because, you know, whether you would one. Each of us would use them, feel comfortable, or feel we need to use them. But, you know, if you've had clients who've described these tips as being helpful to them in their context, or if they're ones that sound like ones that you would like to be more aware of, like which ones sort of jumped out as of most potential value, putatively valuable in your life or profession.
- [89:40]
C
I think both in the wellbeing chapter and the home chapter and the work chapter, to be honest, I think setting boundaries is really helpful and being clear on what those boundaries are in those different settings. And the strategies and the examples that she gave on how to set those boundaries and what they look like was really, really resonated with me that then I can help my clients advocate for themselves. Right. Because I think that is one of the things that we're like, just get through it. You can just get through your day and you're fine. And even if you melt down at the end, you've been done it. Like, that's not a way to live. And so giving your clients the skills to advocate for themselves, being like, that's not how I want to live. It's not how I want to live my day. I don't want to just get through the workday so that then I can fall apart at home. And so I just really, I really loved that she was like, set boundaries, go slow, take time for yourself. Right. Try different things. And if something works for you, even if everyone else thinks you're crazy, just keep doing it. And I like that.
- [90:43]
B
Yeah, I write the take different approach, try different approaches, Take what works from each. I like that one. I noted that one as well, page 140.
- [90:51]
D
And she also suggests directly and directly a lot of like, self exploration of like, what about you makes you you, and how does that relate or not relate to other people? Like, are you finding the highly sensitive person label very important to this person and many of us.
- [91:13]
B
The.
- [91:14]
D
You know, she also talks about like, if you're like talks, it talks about people saying that, well, I don't see my Autism as a disability. It's just a huge set of differences that change. Like sort of define me as an entirely different kind of person than it was considered average or norm or what people typically talk about. And so finding those ways again not to sort of, we get really hung up on this idea of like label versus diagnosis, that kind of thing. And part of the limitation is that diagnosis is often important for getting and advocating for yourself. And so the bar is different. But if you can self apply some of these, this information or if you're like us noticing like, oh, this, this client that I have has a lot of traits of being a highly sensitive person. Let me institute some reputable behavior, behaviorally oriented strategies and see if it helps them as a person to, to better function in their context. So yeah, that was useful. Just again that understand who you are and what makes you and find those labels if they're helpful to you.
- [92:40]
B
I certainly think the idea of just feelings in general, I don't think I thought about this directly, but how little western society often values feelings. And there was the anecdote, I believe it was chapter five. There's an anecdote of the. The doctor who had to just had to tell a patient that a loved one had died and how all the other doctors there, it was a residency or something, were saying, well, you know, if you want to be, you got to be tough in this job, so you can't feel that to let it go. And her really pushing back and saying, the fact that I can feel this and I can feel empathy for this person, I think is what's going to make me a good doctor. Not just my willingness to be like, sorry, that person died, gotta go help the next person. And seeing that as a power rather than as a weakness. But you know, really recognizing that a lot of what, especially when working with individuals challenging behavior, a lot of the job is like, yeah, you got to deal with it. Yeah, you just got to be able to take it it and keep going. And you know, just wondering how many people that could have been really great in our field burned out or quit because they were like, that's not how I want to work with people. I don't want to just deal with their worst days and sort of shrug it off to prove my toughness. I mean, I've certainly had that period in my career of like, I deal with this better than most people, therefore I'm fit to be in this field as opposed to asking myself why aren't I feeling more about this? Is it okay that I feel Something about this. If it's not okay, why is it not okay? And that really being kind of core to some of the experiences that are described in the book, at least for that sensitivity, just having those emotions and having those feelings and how they can be helpful. And sometimes the problem is not that you are feeling things strongly, it's that nobody around you is valuing the fact that you have strong feelings. And if they were, or if we could allow for strong feelings, would some of the stressors that you're facing just not be as much of an issue anymore?
- [94:29]
A
I like the part where they talk about finding a creative and supportive environments for yourself and recognizing like, you know, what the energy is basically in different settings and how you're going to interact with those. And like, that's a type of well being management too is finding environments in which you can feel supported and also can feel creative. And like you said, find something that works for you and use it in the way that works for you. And that if it's no longer working, move on to something else. That's okay.
- [95:14]
B
All right, let's move on to the next two chapters. They kind of go together. The idea of modifications or changes in the home life or in the home setting and in the work setting, which definitely gave me some really great IKEA vibes throughout these sections.
- [95:37]
A
So modern design, is that what you mean?
- [95:40]
B
I don't. Everything had a German or Swedish name. A lot of. A lot of architectural terms. I thought it was going to be a little bit more about the relationships between people at home, but it literally is about the physical environment of home.
- [95:54]
A
Yeah.
- [95:54]
B
And there is something very fun. I feel, and I feel like ikea. I get this sense when I go to an IKEA of the sense of like, what are the feelings you have in a space? As opposed to when I'm like buying furniture, when I'm like, I need a table, I need the table to hold the following items. It has to be this big. It can't be any bigger or I can't fit it. That's all I usually think of. And these chapters really were a lot of fun to just take a break and say, well, you know what, what should the table mean to me? Or how should I relate to the table when I'm touching the table? What, how that sensation should be pleasurable to me. And I'm saying this like I'm making fun of it or like I'm trying to do a comedy bit. No, that is the crux of these two chapters of we should have feelings about the things in our space, they should have not just function, but almost an emotional valence to us. And maybe that's just if you are privileged enough that you can afford the furniture that would go along with this. I think there's the one example of the. The San Francisco architect who seemed to have no budget or timetable for the autism center he was building. Who's funding this. This center where it's like, take. Take as long as you want to build this amazing environment. We don't care. Could take years and billions of dollars.
- [97:02]
C
I felt so jealous. I'm like, I don't even know what my house would look like if I made it aesthetically pleasing to me.
- [97:10]
B
So I found my German term. It's umwelt. Umvelt is the term I'm. I'm describing here, and that these chapters are describing the environment. It means the environment and all aspects of it. The sensory world.
- [97:26]
A
That's a nice word. It is also seems like maybe like a gravy that you would put on a Salisbury steak.
- [97:33]
C
I don't know what a Salisbury steak is, but I know that it's a gravy.
- [97:38]
A
Yeah, it's a mushroom gravy. I don't know if y' all remember, but in a grab bag, I did an episode. I mean, I did an article about identifying preferred colors and textures.
- [97:57]
D
I think that was the grab bag I was on, potentially.
- [98:00]
A
Oh, okay. Yeah, maybe it was.
- [98:02]
D
Yeah, I think it was the Bilbo Baggins one.
- [98:06]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [98:06]
A
Well, the fact that you remember. Yeah. That Very well.
- [98:09]
B
I already love that one. We got a lot of fan mail. I think
- [98:15]
A
so anyway. But, yeah, that's what that article was like. It was about was like identifying preferences in a home. So living space for individuals who might not be able to verbally state it, which I thought was really cool. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is so innovative and. And so outside the box. And I had no idea that there was as much work that was done in this area until I read these chapters of this book, because clearly a lot of people are thinking about this and thinking about home design, office design for a variety of neurodivergent populations, which was really cool. And I just had no idea until I read that one article, and then turns out this is maybe a bigger area than I had thought, but it's an important area, I would argue. I mean, I feel very different in different spaces, depending on how they're arranged and set up and how they make you feel. And I'm sure I'm not Alone in that.
- [99:13]
D
Well, a lot of it actually does from what I remember come from 88. It's the same thing. What does the environment need to do, need to be like to be as accessible to as many people as possible. And that includes those things because I think it's also the drawback or presents a drawback is that we get into terms like preference, which sounds like, well, what does preference has to do with it? It's like, well, I have to be comfortable in this space and this is my home. It has to look nice. It has to be aesthetically pleasing to me. I would not be as happy in my space if it were everything were painted like neon purple color or like I wouldn't be as soothed by it.
- [100:01]
A
An electric orchid.
- [100:02]
D
Yeah. Orange. If it were, or if this apartment were full on orange corner to corner, I would be find that very unpleasant.
- [100:12]
A
You know what would make you hungry?
- [100:14]
D
If you say so.
- [100:16]
A
No, they no like red. That's why McDonald's is red and yellow and Burger King too. Because those colors make you more hungry.
- [100:22]
D
I don't know. Orange.
- [100:23]
A
You should paint your kitchen blues and greens.
- [100:25]
D
Orange makes me awful nauseated. So I think it might be. I hate, I absolutely hate bright orange. Muted earth tone orange. Like my curtain behind me is fine. Yeah, but.
- [100:37]
A
Oh, see, I love an orange.
- [100:39]
D
Yeah,
- [100:41]
A
I love a lot of color though.
- [100:44]
B
I don't know, I hadn't really thought of design. I mean, I like the idea that many of the designs that we see are from a colonialist mentality of how do we distance ourselves from places, how do we. How do we control our environment? And that kind of led to some of the more boring modernist design philosophies that people don't like. Although there was the idea that. I know like cubicles were. I think we're supposed to all hate cubicles. But then I do, I do appreciate that some people do like that sense of I'm. I'm enclosed in my little space and I kind of control this space. Like some people like that. So it's never going to be a one size fits all. It is going to be more about, like you said, Alan, what is the most beneficial to the most numbers of people. And if it's not to your taste that there is going to have to be some advocacy and understanding that that's okay, you know, that not everyone is going to like every environment equally. But there are probably more steps we could be taking in general to please greater numbers of people. Because, I mean, I think we've all been to buildings where you look around and everyone's like, this building's awful. We're all miserable. Nobody is happy here. And you're sort of like, how did this get built? Like, did no one enter the space? Did no one look at the design and say, yeah, I don't like this. Was it just one person who's paying for the building? They're like, I love my terrible building.
- [102:05]
C
Well, you have to think about it. When it was built at the sign of the times. Right? Like what was happening in the context of that time. Right. So the, the buildings that we hate now, people loved before.
- [102:17]
A
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's culturally determined. Very often what gets selected. Like, I don't really care for brutalist architecture, but there was a period of time where every college campus was built that way, which is like a giant cement square like City Hall. Like Boston City Hall. Yeah, that's brutal.
- [102:34]
B
Building offices are gonna fall over.
- [102:36]
D
Yes, there's a skyscraper that is brutalist and also anti riot because of all of the challenges of the 70s, 60s and 70s in terms of like, you know, race relations and everything. And it is the most unpleasant building I ever had. The fortune of learning within. And all of the, all of the walls, and all of the walls were like sound dampening stucco because like it was just a huge concrete riot proof building that was sort of the tallest building on a university campus. It was horrible.
- [103:16]
B
That's my junior year dorm that was specifically built for that same, the same thing to make it hard for protesters to gather. Well, so these chapters, as much as I think we're making it sound like they're just about architecture techniques, they are also about relationship techniques. So certainly the home chapter about relationships between couples, the work chapter about skills related to how can you as a boss make it clear to model some of the ways you can generate safety and neurodiverse affirming practices in terms of modeling your own, you know, asking for your own needs, advocating for your own needs and by. I had a second part I forgot. It was.
- [104:01]
A
I just read a book for work called Inclusive Teaching, which reviews a lot of these ideas as well. And not, not specifically related to neurodivergence, but really looking at informal. A whole variety of important identities for college students and how we can ensure that we're providing safe spaces for students. It's a really good book if anyone wants to check it out, is by, oh, Hogan and Sanjay or Vijay.
- [104:33]
B
I think we have an extra copy because Diana lost it under the couch and then bought another one. So we have two. If Anyone wants it? It's come on by
- [104:42]
A
inclusive teaching. Oh, Hogan and Sathi. There we go. Got it.
- [104:54]
B
So the practices go beyond just the space. They go to relationship building. But a lot of them really had to do with what can you do to sort of normalize experiences as being individual? How can you make it safe to advocate for what. For your needs, as well as. Could we just make spaces that feel more comfortable for more people? Nature came up a lot. The idea of, you know, building spaces that are closer, have a connection to nature. Some of the reasoning behind that. I don't know how much I buy. It sounds a little hippie dippy of, you know, oh, we got the rhythms of the earth or this. Our sensory needs that we all have. It can be grounding to us.
- [105:27]
C
No, that is actually rooted in science, Rob. No, no. Sleep is highly dependent on your circadian rhythm. That is not hippie dippy. And I would tell you because I love the hippie dippy, but that is
- [105:42]
B
circadian rhythms has to do with light.
- [105:44]
C
Yes, I know. And your sleep is. Your sleep is subject to circadian rhythms. So if you don't get light.
- [105:52]
B
I'm not talking about circadian. I'm talking about the idea of like, you know, oh, you've got to be able to touch grass. And like, if you just sit out in nature and zone out.
- [105:59]
C
But there's reasons, I think that's helpful because. Because of what you're getting, right? Because you're getting connection, because you're getting sunlight. It puts you back to your natural rhythm. There is real research out there. That's not hippie dippy.
- [106:13]
B
It sounds hippie dippy. I don't care if there's real research. It just sounds hippie dippy.
- [106:18]
A
If you put humans in like a dark room, that we actually want to have a 25 hour day.
- [106:23]
B
Yeah. It screws up your sleep cycle. Right.
- [106:25]
A
That's why we want to stay up late every night.
- [106:27]
C
I don't.
- [106:28]
A
Except for Jackie.
- [106:29]
B
I'm not discounting nature, by the way. I think it is nice to sit out in nature and listen, be present.
- [106:37]
D
A slightly less loaded term would be good than hippie dippy, perhaps.
- [106:41]
B
Maybe I'm gonna call it hip. You know what? No, I'm gonna die on this hill. That sounds like some hippie dippy baloney.
- [106:49]
A
The important takeaways from this book are it's all about social validity. Yeah, Right. And it's all about personal experience and perspective. So if people say, hey, if I have to be at work, slash in class, I'd really like it to have sunlight or I'd love to go outside sometimes. That's all you really need.
- [107:10]
C
Yeah.
- [107:10]
A
If it's not going to have other negative impacts in terms of productivity or learning or whatever. That's the only difference is the social validity component.
- [107:21]
C
Yeah.
- [107:21]
A
It's always man. Remember, like, when your professor would be like, let's have class outside today.
- [107:25]
B
And I'd say, no, we're sitting in chairs away from each other. I don't want to connect with any of these people.
- [107:32]
C
Do you think we're ready for dissemination station?
- [107:34]
B
No, I want to complain some more. I really just lost the thread at the end there.
- [107:39]
C
Let's do it.
- [107:40]
B
All right. So we don't do dissemination station in the book club.
- [107:43]
C
Well, we can.
- [107:44]
B
We do last. We do last section. We do the last section last term, and then our last thoughts.
- [107:49]
D
Whatever it takes. Move on. I think
- [107:54]
B
I just. I really appreciate how Jackie's just like, I only have exactly two hours in me for book club. I won't go anywhere.
- [108:00]
C
I don't. I'm setting a boundary. And nobody else wants to listen for longer. That's our feedback that we've gotten. We. They want it to be to the point. So I am listening to our readers and listening to my own body.
- [108:13]
B
Now, the twist of this podcast, Jackie, is we never did this for our listeners. We did it for our own.
- [108:19]
C
Right.
- [108:20]
B
Fun discussion. I'm fine to wrap it up. I just don't like being told what to do. So I. That's why I'm the host. Let's wrap. Let's get to the conclusion. The conclusion chapter.
- [108:31]
A
Pathological demand avoidance at all in this book.
- [108:35]
C
That's in the man book. I'm just kidding.
- [108:37]
B
All right.
- [108:37]
A
Anyway, I think I'm more PDA than Rob.
- [108:41]
B
What displays of affection.
- [108:44]
D
No. Move on.
- [108:48]
B
So we get to the. I was going on. We're at the conclusions. The conclusions of the book, which was. Okay, like, I liked a lot of what came in the book. And then she starts talking about AI for a little bit. And, you know, sense is part of the human experience. I like that. And we get to, you know, kind of the end. I do appreciate the idea of the dialectic, which is a term I have decided is my favorite term. The dialectic of being a proud and strong advocate of neurodiversity while also being okay with having therapy to improve your life. That it can be both. You can both be like, I'm proud that I have sensitivity, and I also see how it can cause me stress. So I want help with. With how to respond in certain times, which I think can be. Can be tricky in a book like this, where you're really trying to push against a neurotypical narrative, but also understanding that there are going to be challenges that one faces when you are not neurotypical. The idea.
- [109:44]
C
Did anyone look at the overall reviews of this book? I didn't. I'm just wondering.
- [109:48]
D
I did.
- [109:49]
C
Tell me about it, Alan.
- [109:54]
D
Sort of a mixed bag again. A lot of people, people like you and us are like, oh, this is all new information and this is nice. And like a lot of people who responded positively, it's because it affirmed their experience.
- [110:10]
C
Right.
- [110:10]
D
And the people who responded negatively, it was often a. This book doesn't go far enough for when it was written and what's happening in it. And it, like, will mention something and then completely leave it there without going further. A lot of it, you know, criticized the lack of intersectionality. I think that's the sort of key criticism. There's not an examination of, like, intersectionality and being a highly sensitive person and being neurodivergent. So.
- [110:48]
A
Okay, thank you. Okay, we can wrap it up.
- [110:51]
B
Yep. And the kind of some parting thoughts related to human categories. A little bit more about how the author kind of found a career that worked for her sensitivities. The difficulty of making needs known in small steps. That the people that you live with may actually be angry when you start setting your own needs for the first time and setting personal boundaries. But it's important to keep at it. And then the last line. Because I always like to read the last line. Because if you write a whole book and you can't write a good last line, why did you write an entire book? I really like this last line. It's very poetic. So I shall quote it. This is page 213.
- [111:28]
C
Rob. I actually read this and I was like, rob's going to love this last line.
- [111:31]
B
Of course I am. Like, I don't care. I don't care how scientific or hippie dippy your book might be. It needs to have a good poetic last line. I just. That's just. That's. That's my sensitivity. If I get the end of your book and you're like, anyway, that's the book I wrote. It's like, I don't like when I'm reading, like, second grader essays. Because it's like, that is how you know about the sun. I'm like, that's a terrible last line. Like, why are we teaching? Why would we teach kids to write that? As a last line. It's no good. Anyway, the last line in this book that I did, like Jackie correctly predicted, I would like, quote, it's time to come out. And as you do, what once felt like a hidden alternate sensory enclave blooms to become an enveloping universe that feels like home, that you've longed for and that you embrace with awe. End quote. I like that. That's. That's how you write a last line of a book. You sum it up and it's pretty.
- [112:22]
A
Okay.
- [112:23]
D
Hidden alternate sensory enclave blooms. Got it. That's.
- [112:27]
B
I like the idea of an enveloping universe. It feels like home. That's so touching. That really got me.
- [112:32]
C
I also, I appreciated that she had resources, even though they might not have been as well as. As. As as well as we wanted them to be. But I do like a good book that gives us some resources and they are like, here's some movies to read, here's some books, here's some articles, here's some interviews. So they give it's multi modality. But yeah, I agree. Boom. I agree with it being done.
- [113:02]
B
We definitely talked about that book and it is over now. So final thoughts from everybody. Let's go around the horn.
- [113:10]
C
I'll start first because I'm at the bottom of the horn, I guess. Alan, I appreciated that you brought that up that some people might not see themselves in this book because it didn't occur to me because I saw myself in the book and I don't usually see myself in these types of books. But I appreciate that you brought that up because it's not something I was looking for, especially since I didn't even know it was about ladies. The ladies. When I started it.
- [113:37]
B
That's what I said I started. I said, wait a minute, this book's about girls.
- [113:41]
C
Oh, no.
- [113:42]
B
I had to throw it out of my clubhouse. It said no girls allowed.
- [113:46]
C
And I, I just love the second or the third. I guess it's the third part. The third part of the book. I thought that was really helpful and I am, I am interested in reading more from this author, potentially. The writing was great too. Right. Like I didn't find any errors in grammar or syntax, which is also.
- [114:12]
B
She's a trained. She's a trained journalist.
- [114:14]
C
Well, I appreciate that because it's not how all of the books I'm reading right now are. So one one appreciates good writing.
- [114:23]
B
Journalists write good books, I think.
- [114:26]
A
Yeah, it was easy to read. It was a quick read. If anyone is looking for that in their, you know, educational literature and I do think that if these are not considerations that you've had before, it could really help to bring a new perspective on how you work with your clients and potentially others in your own life as well. So I think it is a good expansion book in terms of your worldview. If this isn't something that you've dabbled in before.
- [115:00]
D
Yeah. I think that the people who were frustrated with this book, I would just ask that they look at the book and then find out what was successful about it and then maybe tell their own story in this style. Yes. Because I think that one of the criticism that I saw that most stuck out to me is that the neurodivergence movement was championed early on by adult autistics who couldn't hold jobs. And this book is by a woman who is neurodivergent but able to hold the job. And so that distinction, like, alienated a lot of people. And so I hope those people will take that and be like, okay, this book works on certain levels. Now I'm going to write a book for me and my audience that makes sense.
- [115:57]
A
I like that a lot.
- [115:59]
B
We don't have an. I feel like we need more. Yes. Anding as a society. I don't. It's. It works for improv. I don't know why sometimes, you know, I mean, I'm as guilty of this, too, of like a no but mentality or a no mentality. So I think I love that idea, Alan. Just sort of taking what works and then what didn't. I'm gonna. I'm gonna add to it, or I'm gonna promote it, or I'm gonna look for someone else who wants to write that. And I'll promote what they're. What they're doing as. As an additive component to a larger narrative that is. Is going to be much more thorough that way. Yeah. All right. So overall, kind of, you know, pretty positive, I think. Definitely room for improvement as. As in most books. But there was a lot to take in. And certainly if you are a BCBA who is really starting out or sort of getting past the initial stages of your own humility and humble journey, this is a. I think, a good one to add to your shelf.
- [116:55]
C
And not being scared to read outside of the realm of behavior analysis. I just remember me as a young BCBA being like, I only can read behavior analytic books because that is my worldview, which now I am glad that I am not that behavior analyst anymore.
- [117:10]
B
It's always tough, I think, to recommend a book that is so potentially so far outside of behavior analysis. Because it's been a long time since I've been a new student of behavior analysis. So I think it's easier for us to be like, we've been known this for a while. We read whatever we want and bring it into behavior analysis.
- [117:26]
A
Rock and roll.
- [117:26]
B
Yes, exactly. So if you. If you are new and a little scared, that's. That's a maybe read. Maybe read it with your mentor or your supervisor. You know, make it. Make a little project the two of you do together.
- [117:36]
D
And.
- [117:37]
B
And then you talk about your feelings as a behavior analyst and as someone who wants to touch grass and. And a human more humble and as a human.
- [117:46]
C
Human.
- [117:47]
B
As a human.
- [117:48]
D
And use it as an exercise to take what seems useful about the book and translate it.
- [117:55]
A
Yes.
- [117:55]
D
Into analytic terms like that. That's why it's useful for more experienced. Like you. You that I am. But those exercises.
- [118:04]
C
Not true, Alan. Not true.
- [118:07]
D
Those exercises of being. Of taking something. Boy, this sounds so good. How can I incorporate it in a behavior analytic context? Is like, what helps you become a great behavior analyst.
- [118:22]
B
Well, to our human and behavior analytic listeners, which assume is a circle Venn diagram. Thank you so much for listening to our Divergent Minds book club podcast. Thank you so much for being a patron. If you're a patron, I'm going to give you the second secret code word now. It is scroll in the top of my notes.
- [118:41]
D
Pot.
- [118:42]
B
P, O, T. It's like a big, big thing. You can put spaghetti in.
- [118:45]
C
You put gold in.
- [118:47]
B
Or gold. Alan's making it different. I don't. I'm not gonna. We're not getting paid by that organization
- [118:52]
C
because we're near St. Patty's Day or a go.
- [118:54]
B
Oh, a pot of gold.
- [118:56]
C
Pot of gold.
- [118:57]
B
A pot of gold.
- [118:59]
A
Amazing.
- [118:59]
B
There it is. All right. And that brings us to the end of the book club. Thank you again so much for listening. Again, if you are a patron, don't forget to get the third code. That's your discount code on the Patreon page. If you are not a patron, that's okay. You can join if you want@patreon.com ABA Inside Track to get this CE for free. Or you can just have waited a long time and gotten to hear our hot take on Divergent Mind. We've probably already read the sequel by now. You know, you're a little behind. That's okay. We hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you this summer for our last book club of 2024 is the body keeps the score. 20242025 was chosen then? Yes. The body keeps the score. So we'll be back for that one this summer. But until then, everyone keep responding. Bye.
- [119:43]
A
Bye. Bye, Sam.