The AutSide Podcast

In this week’s conversation with Cathy, I unpack why “developmental delay” is often a category error—less a truth about the child than a reflection of assessment systems built to misread autistic gestalt development. Today’s conversation with Cathy centred on the core question behind my forthcoming paper, When Delay Is a Category Error : what do we really mean when we call a child “delayed?” I wan...

A threshold before Priced Out of Personhood—bridging When the Future Won’t Hold into the systems beneath it. If the last series named collapsed futurity, this one asks what made it material, and who profits when life becomes cost. Before this next series begins, I wanted to stop here for a moment at the threshold between what I’ve just finished and what I’m about to begin. Because I don’t think I’...

A closing reflection on collapse, grief, autistic futurity, and the lies we were sold about planning, stability, and success—ending not in despair, but in the stubborn work of building smaller, truer futures together. This video closes When the Future Won’t Hold by naming what the series was really trying to do. I was never writing about uncertainty in the abstract. I was trying to speak to a cond...

In this solo episode, I explore why “developmental delay” is often less a neutral description than a category error—one that misreads autistic gestalt processors through analytic tools that were never built to see them. This week’s episode is a solo one. No Cathy, no squirrel, no familiar back-and-forth before the camera starts rolling. And in some ways, as much as I miss my friend and usual co-ho...

A video introduction to When the Future Won’t Hold—why this series is arriving now, why it must be poem-first and auto-theoretical, and what it means to name the collapse of futurity without flattening it into crisis. This video is a threshold piece—an opening hand before the series begins in earnest. I wanted to speak directly, in my own voice, because When the Future Won’t Hold enters difficult...

Today’s episode advocates for a broader understanding of gestalt language processing that extends beyond early childhood intervention. Whilst identifying these unique linguistic patterns in youth has helped families move away from deficit-based models, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks argues in the source article that the medical field often neglects the adult experience. Individuals who process information in...

Today’s episode challenges the conventional view of personal development as a linear progression or a series of measurable milestones. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that traditional metaphors for success, such as ladders and rubrics, fail to capture the complex reality of how individuals actually grow. Instead of focusing on upward mobility and quantifiable goals, D...

A conversation with Cathy on masking as survival architecture—voice, burnout, safety, and the long cost of becoming legible. For gestalt processors, the child who scripts grows up. The field must learn to recognise the adult. This morning’s conversation with Cathy felt like a continuation of the week’s deeper current—a spoken companion to the pieces I’ve been writing about masking, burnout, and th...

Today’s episode explores the complexities of returning to a former life or career after experiencing a significant personal break. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, critiques society’s preference for neat, redemptive narratives that frame recovery as a simple journey back to the status quo. In reality, what is often labeled as healing or reintegration serves merely as a way fo...

Today’s episode examines the diagnostic nature of personal collapse, arguing that a breakdown is often a response to an unsustainable life arrangement. Rather than viewing a rupture as a spontaneous failure, the author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, suggests it marks the moment when a person can no longer falsify their own reality to fit societal expectations. Whilst acknowledging the...

Today’s episode examines how modern institutions often mistake an individual’s internal suppression of their needs for genuine personal resilience. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that schools and workplaces prioritise neurodivergent people who are easy to manage and least disruptive to the established status quo. Consequently, common professional praise regarding a p...

Today’s episode explores the exhausting labour of navigating cultural and linguistic differences within professional and personal spheres. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that true translation involves much more than swapping words; it is a complex act of bridging worlds that can often feel like a forced performance. When individuals are pressured to soften their real...

Today’s episode explores the common misconception that verbal eloquence is synonymous with immediate self-awareness. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that so-called “high-functioning adults” often perform a false transparency, leading others to believe that their internal emotions are as easily accessed as their spoken words. Instead of viewing “delayed processing” or...

Today’s episode explores how traditional reflective practices often fail neurodivergent individuals by forcing them to translate complex internal states into standardised language. These conventional systems frequently prioritise institutional productivity and emotional self-regulation, rewarding those who can package their distress in palatable, professional ways. The author of the source article...

Today’s episode concludes a series that reinterprets autistic diagnostic criteria through the framework of gestalt processing. The author of the source article and poem, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, explains that the writing style intentionally uses a recursive structure rather than a traditional linear argument. By frequently revisiting core concepts and metaphors, Dr. Hoerricks aims to stabilise meaning...

The DSM records autistic behaviour like field notes, but mistakes surface for source. In this conversation, I trace how gestalt processing hides in plain sight—and why translation, not correction, is the work that comes next. This morning’s conversation with Cathy began, as good conversations often do, with a joke about time. Holidays, time zones, daylight saving, the usual petty tyrannies of chro...

Today’s episode explores the tension between external observations and internal cognition within the context of autism. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that traditional diagnostic standards primarily document visible behavioural patterns rather than the underlying neurological architecture of the individual. By examining the concept of gestalt language processing, Dr....

Today’s episode explores the internal cognitive labour experienced by gestalt processors when they attempt to communicate with those who use analytic language systems. Whilst analytic thinkers develop ideas through linear steps, gestalt processors perceive information as a unified, whole pattern that requires a complex process of translation to be shared. This translation involves breaking down a...

Today’s episode examines how some autistic individuals process language, specifically challenging the traditional view of ‘literal thinking.’ Rather than a permanent deficit, the author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, suggests that ‘literalism’ is an initial phase of a complex cognitive process that requires time to build associative patterns. Using the example of a common idiom, her e...

Today’s episode explores the concept of echolalia, challenging the common clinical view that it is merely a form of meaningless repetition. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, suggests that these vocal echoes represent internal architecture for gestalt processors, who use preserved phrases as foundational units of communication. Instead of viewing repeated dialogue as a behaviou...

Today’s episode examines the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) through a linguistic framework to offer a fresh perspective on autistic communication. Rather than viewing these specific speech patterns as inherent flaws, the author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, interprets them as indicators of a gestalt processing system. Dr. Hoerricks compares the process of...

Today’s episode explores the fundamental disconnect between clinical observations and the internal reality of neurodivergent individuals. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks argues that current diagnostic frameworks focus strictly on external behaviours, such as social skills or specific interests, rather than the underlying cognitive architecture. By using the metaphor of a map...

Today’s episode serves as an introduction to a collection of essays by Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, which explores the unique internal landscape of gestalt cognition. Dr. Hoerricks utilises a blend of autotheory and autoethnography to lay the intellectual foundation for a future field guide centered on pattern-first thinking. By rejecting traditional academic boundaries, her piece seeks to validate lived...

My first test of Substack’s Recording Studio—a little rough at the start, but useful. A quick preview of Interior Architecture: reading the DSM not as deficit inventory, but as a record of gestalt traces hidden in plain sight. From Asperger’s to Architecture: Rethinking Language, Severity, and Self. ( A reflection on diagnosis, gestalt processing, and the limits of psychiatric description ) This w...

Today’s episode explores the invisible cognitive labour required of individuals who process information through holistic patterns rather than linear steps—gestalt processors. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, describes the exhausting process of translating internal insights into a fragmented format that professional institutions can easily digest. By securing preliminary mater...