I have a little bit of positive experience with reducing my sensitivity to loud ambulance sirens in my street. The exercise was very simple and I have a vague idea of the theory behind it.
The theory goes like this: In biology/psychology there’s a distinction between different reactions to sudden and intense sensory stimuli. An orientation reflex on the one hand and a startle (and/or defense?) reflex on the other hand. The difference that’s relevant here is that the orientation reflex quickly habituates while the startling does not. For instance, maybe you have a new washing machine that makes a strange, unfamiliar sound. For many people this sound may catch their attention, they double-check where it is coming from (orientation), then they quickly habituate, and after a handful of times they don’t even hear the sound anymore. On the other hand, a sound may be be startling you every time and you tense up and there’s no habituation no matter how often you hear the sound. Orientation reflex vs startling reflex, respectively.
Is there a way to facilitate an orientation reflex (including habituation) to kick in instead of a startle reflex? Given that these reflexes are not under under conscious control?
The exercise suggested that you consciously move your head and even the upper body (I think—or was it the whole body?) towards the source of the sudden noise and look in its direction. Even if you already know what it was and where it came from. Even if you know that there’s nothing to see there because you can’t see the street from there, for instance. Just move the body as if it had a proper orientation reflex. My understanding is, that this lowers the threshold for the orientation reflex to really kick in. For me at least it worked. I could usually note that there was an actual shift in the autonomic nervous system by having to yawn or taking a deep breath. And my sensitivity to the noises significantly reduced after a few weeks.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember a good reference for the exercise. Nor am I well-versed with respect to those reflexes. Does anyone know more about it?
Hmm, I was writing recently about how David Burns makes exposure therapy sound like a miracle cure for all sorts of things, including some things that I wouldn’t have previously expected to be treatable by exposure therapy (and he says that exposure therapy doesn’t have to look like the classic “graduated exposure”). But he doesn’t say anything about sensory sensitivity or autism in the book.
So I dunno. I guess it doesn’t sound totally crazy off the top of my head, but that’s just casual speculation, from someone who is an expert on neither exposure therapy nor autism. :-)
This linkseems to be “we tried exposure therapy for sound sensitivity, and it didn’t work”, but I would be more inclined to describe it as “this isn’t proper exposure therapy at all, it’s just making loud noises in kids’ ears for a minute or two”. This seems relevant but I don’t know how to find the associated paper if any. This and this makes it sound like exposure therapy for sensory sensitivity is already routinely used for people with autism, at least to some extent, and it works like normal.
Many years ago I read this NYTimes article (paywalled, DM or email me for a PDF) about Applied Behavior Analysis (note: see Ann Brown’s reply to this comment), claiming it could “cure” classic autism; if that’s true (a big “if”!) I guess we should consider the hypothesis that the underlying mechanism is “basically just lots and lots of exposure therapy for everything, day after day for years”.
Many autistic individuals who experienced it have attested that Applied Behavior Analysis is an extremely unpleasant experience that caused them harm. It is a form of operant conditioning, that trains us to behave neurotypically and not behave autistically through reward/punishment. It does not ‘cure’ but control.
Is it possible to make the world “dimmer” by gradually exposing yourself to stronger and stronger stimuli?
I have a little bit of positive experience with reducing my sensitivity to loud ambulance sirens in my street. The exercise was very simple and I have a vague idea of the theory behind it.
The theory goes like this: In biology/psychology there’s a distinction between different reactions to sudden and intense sensory stimuli. An orientation reflex on the one hand and a startle (and/or defense?) reflex on the other hand. The difference that’s relevant here is that the orientation reflex quickly habituates while the startling does not. For instance, maybe you have a new washing machine that makes a strange, unfamiliar sound. For many people this sound may catch their attention, they double-check where it is coming from (orientation), then they quickly habituate, and after a handful of times they don’t even hear the sound anymore. On the other hand, a sound may be be startling you every time and you tense up and there’s no habituation no matter how often you hear the sound. Orientation reflex vs startling reflex, respectively.
Is there a way to facilitate an orientation reflex (including habituation) to kick in instead of a startle reflex? Given that these reflexes are not under under conscious control?
The exercise suggested that you consciously move your head and even the upper body (I think—or was it the whole body?) towards the source of the sudden noise and look in its direction. Even if you already know what it was and where it came from. Even if you know that there’s nothing to see there because you can’t see the street from there, for instance. Just move the body as if it had a proper orientation reflex. My understanding is, that this lowers the threshold for the orientation reflex to really kick in. For me at least it worked. I could usually note that there was an actual shift in the autonomic nervous system by having to yawn or taking a deep breath. And my sensitivity to the noises significantly reduced after a few weeks.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember a good reference for the exercise. Nor am I well-versed with respect to those reflexes. Does anyone know more about it?
Hmm, I was writing recently about how David Burns makes exposure therapy sound like a miracle cure for all sorts of things, including some things that I wouldn’t have previously expected to be treatable by exposure therapy (and he says that exposure therapy doesn’t have to look like the classic “graduated exposure”). But he doesn’t say anything about sensory sensitivity or autism in the book.
So I dunno. I guess it doesn’t sound totally crazy off the top of my head, but that’s just casual speculation, from someone who is an expert on neither exposure therapy nor autism. :-)
This link seems to be “we tried exposure therapy for sound sensitivity, and it didn’t work”, but I would be more inclined to describe it as “this isn’t proper exposure therapy at all, it’s just making loud noises in kids’ ears for a minute or two”. This seems relevant but I don’t know how to find the associated paper if any. This and this makes it sound like exposure therapy for sensory sensitivity is already routinely used for people with autism, at least to some extent, and it works like normal.
Many years ago I read this NYTimes article (paywalled, DM or email me for a PDF) about Applied Behavior Analysis (note: see Ann Brown’s reply to this comment), claiming it could “cure” classic autism; if that’s true (a big “if”!) I guess we should consider the hypothesis that the underlying mechanism is “basically just lots and lots of exposure therapy for everything, day after day for years”.
Many autistic individuals who experienced it have attested that Applied Behavior Analysis is an extremely unpleasant experience that caused them harm. It is a form of operant conditioning, that trains us to behave neurotypically and not behave autistically through reward/punishment. It does not ‘cure’ but control.
Thanks for sharing, I didn’t know that.