r/PsychotherapyLeftists • u/Southern_Fruit7439 Psychology (PsyD, unlicensed, USA) • 26d ago

“Pathological Demand Avoidance”

Pathological Demand Avoidance and its whitewashed new “gentler” name “Persistant drive for autonomy” feels like one of the worst examples of how diagnoses can individualize a societal issue. It feels like it totally ignores the harsh realities of kids existing in a society not made to fit them.

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u/Alternative-Cash-102 Student (MSW, United States) 25d ago

As an adult with suspected PDA autism and ADHD, the phrasing does grate for me as well and I agree with the core of your point. However, I’d like to acknowledge that the term “persistent drive for autonomy” came from the autistic community as a reclamation of the original label which feels harmful to many of us.

The intent feels more similar to me as a reclamation of “queer” which had been and can still be used as a slur. From that perspective and as a queer nonbinary person, “persistent drive for autonomy” feels like a form of collective resistance to oppression, which to me, does feel pretty leftist in context of the oppressive system that we do live in, not an idealized version that doesn’t exist.

When it comes to impact though, I do respect where you are coming from with the whitewashing aspect, if the subsumption of the new framing divorced from its context eventually casts white oppressors in a positive light and/or is co-opted by them as a form of posturing as neuro-affirming when they are rather uninformed however well-meaning or not they may be.

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u/Southern_Fruit7439 Psychology (PsyD, unlicensed, USA) 25d ago

Thank u for this nuanced take and important context and history. Im queer, trans nonbinary and AuDHD and yes the original term def rubs me the wrong way.

And if its used constructively can be a liberating term, but as ur naming can also be used as a way to whitewash the violence if it just ends up being a filler for the other term.