How People With Autism Grieve, and How to Help: An Insider Handbook by Lipsky, Deborah (2013) Paperback

by Deborah Lipsky

The book is an honest, first-hand account of how people with autism deal with the loss of someone in their life. Unlike the non-autistic response, people with autism, when faced with overwhelming or stressful situations, will favour solitude over sharing their emotions, tend to focus on special interests, and become extremely logical, often not expressing any emotion. This behaviour often leads to the belief that people with autism lack empathy, which is far from the case. Through the description of personal experience, and case studies, the book explores how people with autism feel and express the loss of a loved one, how they process and come to terms with their feelings of grief, and offers practical and detailed advice to parents and carers on a range of sensitive issues. These include clear instructions on how best to support someone with autism through the grieving process, how to prepare them for bad news, how to break the bad news, how to involve them in the funeral or wake, and how best to respond to later reactions. The final chapter explores the issue of why children and teens with autism can be drawn to death as a special interest, and explains that the interest is not normally a morbid one.

Genres: Psychology, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m autistic and I thought this book was pretty good! I really appreciated that it started off with society’s general response to 9/11 because I finally understand why I couldn’t relate at all to how most people reacted to that.

This book contained solid information about how autistic people tend to respond to death and other traumatic events. I really wish there had been more included about non-death-related situations of grief, but I found the book to be helpful regardless.

I didn’t like that we were sometimes referred to as “ASD” individuals or people or that “people/children with autism” was used so often, but in 2012 the use of “autistic” wasn’t as widely accepted so I tried not to let the other terms bother me too much when they were used.

Overall a good and helpful book, IMO. It’s given me a lot to think about regarding what plans I should have in place in case someone close to me or close to my children dies. The template towards the end should also be helpful when making those plans!

[char · Rating 2 out of 5]

I shouldn't be surprised, given the length of the book and the fact that it is clearly written for ignorant allistic people. I feel like Lipsky fell into the same fallacy as Temple Grandin used to, of universalizing her own experience to all autistic people. She certainly includes plenty of hedging language ("many but not all..."), but when only one perspective or behavior is presented, the hedging falls flat.

Personally, the biggest flaw was the lack of acknowledgment of religious and cultural variations in death rituals. Her book is situated squarely within a Christian attitude towards death (talks of wakes, heaven, etc) which will only apply to a certain subset of readers. If that's all Lipsky knows or is comfortable writing about, that's perfectly fine; but I wish she would have acknowledged this bias, or even brought in other writers to provide additional perspectives.

[Liza · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent resource to help people with ASD handle grief and bereavement - especially now during this difficult time!

[Kerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is very centered on how the author, who has autism herself, experiences grief. It is not reflective of how all autistic people grieve, but the author presents it that way. I find this problematic. I think the book is written for an allistic audience (people who are not autistic.) This isn’t a bad thing. But her one-sided perspective may give allistic people the impression that all autistic people are the same. I do recommend this book, but I encourage readers to remember that her way of grieving is not the same way all autistic people grieve.