Talk:Autistic burnout

Appropriate sourcing

While the disclaimer at the top isn't wrong exactly, a strictly biomedical approach to this is not called for. We should be drawing on non-medical reliable sources for this kind of thing, where it's clear that scientific research is lagging well behind extensive personal accounts.

There is an analogy to be drawn with the experiences of other minority groups, and how we go about incorporating them into an encyclopedic work like this. Oolong (talk) 19:20, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Everything in the Management section, and most of the second paragraph of Research are statements subject to WP:MEDRS; I have not tagged each statement in text because some of the text does not need better sourcing, or some is cultural, etc. We're still making general medical statements here based on surveys and other lesser quality sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:58, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I disagree that we are making general medical statements here. The article is full of hedgewords in appropriate places, as it should be when relying largely on primary sources, which is in turn necessary when describing underfunded scientific topics. If our discussion of science is to remain current then there must be some freedom to indicate that not all which is being discussed is universally applicable.

I would however advocate for greater separation between the scientific understanding of autistic burnout and how autistic people ourselves discuss autistic burnout. Both have their place, as such topics do not exist within the mythologised sociopersonal vacuum of hard science, but it is still worth clearly delineating the evidential from the experiential. JMcK 84 (talk) 11:21, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi all. I took a stab at reorganizing the article to avoid the issue of appearing to make any medical statements. I also removed most of the primary sources. I thought that a few were appropriate (e.g. I think the social media study is useful as a simple report of when "autistic burnout" is known to have appeared in the written record) but I would defer to others' judgement on this. Aeffenberger (talk) 21:24, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

March 2024 edits

I noticed that some big changes happened yesterday (diff). The article has been completely restructured and heavily cites Raymaker et al 2020 as the primary and often only source for the majority of the text, essentially reading like a summary of Raymaker and immediate colleagues' theories. WP:MEDRS concerns have already been raised above; the current version now cites even fewer academic articles and more blogs/webpages. On a technical note, all in-line references using citation templates were removed as well. This makes it harder for citations to be accessed and maintained.

The "Ultimate Explanation" subsection is a particularly egregious example of original research/synthesis. I have never encountered a reliable biomedical research article or review that provides a well-evidenced evolutionary explanation connecting autistic burnout and heightened attention or hyperarousal. If someone can point me to a reliable source, I'd love to read it. As it stands, that section is completely invented by the editor.

@ShuyueZeng, I appreciate your bold edits. I think autistic burnout is an important topic that we both want to help communicate to the world. However, I have significant concerns with the way the article now stands. It reads more like an original essay, not an encyclopedic article that describes a consensus among autism researchers. I am going to start removing material from the article later today unless you or others who watch this page have comments to the contrary. Aeffenberger (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

@Aeffenberger I share the concern that the current text overly relies on Raymaker et al. and the use of medical terminology makes it seem like "Autistic Burnout" is a well-defined concept or even a diagnosis. In my opinion, the article should follow the POV set in the lede, which describes "Autistic Burnout" as a state experienced by autistic people. Both Raymaker et al. and Mantzalas et al. systematically analyze this phenomenon (rather than conducting a medical study) and their research should be presented as such. I believe this would also address the WP:MEDRS concerns that were raised.--TempusTacet (talk) 10:59, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

vs. Autistic catatonia

Is there a clear delineation between autistic Burnout and autistic catatonia? Do they differ in some fundamental way? Or is autistic catatonia a more severe form of autistic Burnout? Or is it that high-functioning autism -> Burnout, and low-functioning autism -> catatonia? Or is Burnout used when there is a clear external cause (even when catatonic symptoms are present), while catatonia is favored when no obvious external trigger is found, or the patient can't communicate it when one is present? Or is Burnout a breakdown without identifiable catatonia symptoms (which means that catatonia has to be ruled out first)?

Hmm... probably we aren't advanced enough yet to answer all this. I personally would see the last definition as the most useful, meaning catatonia comes first, because it has more narrow and objective criteria. Similarly, things like acute depression and PTSD would also have to be ruled out. If autistic Burnout was to be made a mental health diagnosis.

Anyone knowing scientific sources dealing with both terms (autistic burnout and autistic catatonia) so far? I haven't seen any reliable source comparing both as of now. But I will probably continue my search. 2003:E7:7733:2075:E98F:CA49:E349:3258 (talk) 00:11, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Autistic catatonia is the occurrence of Catatonia in autistic people, which is a well-defined syndrome and is explicitly recognized as a common comorbidity in the DSM-5. In contrast, "autistic burnout" is a term that emerged to describe shared experiences among autistic people. Just like "burnout", it's used and understood colloquially, and does not necessarily require the absence of a "formal" mental health condition like depression (which is also true for the formalized occupational burnout recognized by the ICD-11, which covers just a subset of what's commonly understood as 'burnout').--TempusTacet (talk) 11:09, 15 November 2024 (UTC)