Horses, Shamans, and a Journey in Mongolia
September 9, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
If you thought from reading the title that this blog has become, for one post, a travelogue, I am afraid that you thought wrong: This is a post about a two-fold “miracle cure” for autism, via horseback riding and shamans. While both of these are described (in today’s Times Online and on a website) as the latest, newest, breakthough in “reaching” autistic children, some assumptions of autistic children as being “trapped” in a private shell and unreachable, and as being in need of getting autism out of them, are implied, and raise questions about these therapies’ efficacy.
5-year-old Rowan Isaacson started talking not, as noted in the Times Online, after the “usual prescription” of therapies and treatments (”speech and occupational therapy, applied behavioural analysis, chelation to get rid of toxins, supplements to adjust the child’s chemistry this way or that”— not that I would consider chelation part of the “usual prescription” for autism). Rowan started talking after riding a horse name Betsy—his father, Rupert Isaacson, is “a campaigning writer and former horse trainer”; his mother, Kristina Neff, is a developmental psychologist, Kristin Neff—and after being present at shamanistic ceremonies performed by Kalahari bushmen. As the Times Online notes:
Just after the diagnosis, Rupert brought a party of African hunter-gatherers to America to publicise the loss of their land to diamond mining. The bushmen became part of a 10-day event in California, and some took Rowan into their ceremonies, praying over him and going into trance. His symptoms seemed to reverse: he even showed people his toys. Afterwards, he regressed. But not as far back as before.
Since it was horses and the shamans whose influence seemed to stoke Rowa’s speech, his father decided to take him on a journey, via horseback, through Mongolia, and to make a film, The Horse Boy. (Isaacson notes that he wished to make this journey while Rowan was still small enough to ride in front of him on a horse.) Notes the film’s website:
It took over a year of researches [sic] to make contact with shamans in Mongolia who felt they could help Rowan. At their suggestion, a route through several sacred sites was conceived: to ride from Steppe, home to the horse-loving Buryat tribe, up to the forest home of the Dukha, the reindeer-herders, considered the strongest shamans of all. On the way Rowan is to be washed in three sacred waters: the Tuul River, Lake Sharga, and Lake Khovsgvol. Rituals performed at the sites will, say the shamans, cleanse Rowane of his sickness……
The Times Online article also notes that other practices occurred during the Mongolia journey, as noted by the reporter, who accompanied Rowan, his parents, and some others:
There are eight of us with Rowan: his parents, a guide, a writer and a photographer for this magazine, and a small film crew. The child is in distress again. He is refusing to go near a horse.
Two days earlier he has been subjected to what looks to an outsider like child abuse. He has been whipped by a shaman — an intermediary between the natural and spirit worlds — and force-fed milk, then held under a noisy drum. He recovered to become peaceful, sociable, even giggly. But the refusal to go near a horse is deeply inconvenient.
(No comment about whipping……..)
Rupert Isaacson, the Times Online notes, has gotten a deal with publishers for his yet-unwritten book
for sums so high that in some countries it has broken records. There is to be a film, The Horse Boy, and Viking Penguin, the British publisher, is already excited about the “online viral marketing of the story” and trailers on YouTube and MySpace. Eighteen countries will publish the book, even if eastern Europe was not that interested and an editor claimed that in Greece there is no autism. That means they are hidden away in institutions, says Rupert, instantly determined to start a campaign there.
(Regarding there being “no autism” in Greece, comments from some readers in Greece suggest the contrary.)
Monogolia via horseback sounds magnificent and I suspect Charlie would enjoy riding a horse, around a ring here in New Jersey or on the steppes of another country in a different latitude. One worries somewhat if parents of autistic children might start to seek out not only horseback riding lessons, but travel to Mongolia or to the Kalahari and seek out shamans—-just as many travel to conferences and seek out certain medical practitioners, for their autistic children. For myself, for Charlie, we seem to do well enough when we travel close to home and try to make the most of what is in front of us.
And we do feel a peaceful easy-feeling when we see autism not as something we hope to leave behind, but as itself a journey, our journey with Charlie.
“Usual prescription,” seems to me a much safer and less traumatic way of helping a child. Whipping and being force fed? Oh my gosh, I feel so badly for this little boy. I could never in a million years do that to K.C. That poor little boy has to be traumatized in some way. I wonder why they call Autism a sickenss? Are they thinking mental sickness or diseased? So very sad for the little guy.
“And we do feel a peaceful easy-feeling when we see autism not as something we hope to leave behind, but as itself a journey, our journey with Charlie.”
I love what you said about Charlie, got me teary eyed, it is beautiful.
It gets weirder by the day. Who wouldn’t be all sweetness and light to avoid another session of whipping, being force-fed milk and held under a noisy drum? The boy’s parents probably felt genuinely convinced that they were doing their best for their son but the methods seem pretty extreme. Desperation to find a “cure” that would bring “recovery” can lead one down very dark avenues. Will this turn out to be another Amy Holmes and Mike story a few years from now?
http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2007/08/dr-amy-holmes-and-mikes-story.html
Autism has certainly been a journey for me and my son. The distance travelled has broadened my mind to point where I feel if “he left it all behind”, he’d no longer be the son I’ve grown to know, understand and love. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss the tantrums and limited speech at all, but were he to miraculously wake up NT tomorrow instead of Aspie, he’d probably loose some of what he’s very good at as well as his charm.
For Charlie, it’s so often been what we ourselves can do for him in the place that we are, with the resources that we have, that have helped him the most: Charlie likes to travel, and he likes to end up in his own bed at night, and there’s nothing that needs to be exorcized out of him.
On the YouTube video, Rupert Isaacson says something to the effect of feeling very bad that his genes might be deficient and that he was not able to have a “normal” child. And Rowan from the video reminds me in many ways of Charlie, just as he is at home.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Kristina about doing what you can, in the place you find yourself in and with the resources you have. My son loves to travel as it enables him to add to his store of seeds and pebbles not to mention other joys such as new people to regale with whatever the latest obsession is.
I watched the YouTube video twice and was very sad to hear Mr. Isaacson wonder if he’d cursed his child. I can honestly say that Rowan screamed no worse or louder than my son did when he was between 3 and 4 1/2 years and I interrrupted some vital activity such as classifying seeds or lining up pebbles.
As for not responding to his name, a few months ago, my son said to me out of the blue “You know, mom, I used to hear you when you talked to me and asked me questions but I couldn’t be bothered because you were always interrupting something and I hadn’t a clue what you wanted me to do.”
Well, we didn’t try horses, dolphins or even speech therapy in the early days, just lots of reading aloud, story telling and most of all, cartoons. His first “friends” were Pingoo the Penguin, the Teletubbies and the Muppets.
That said, I’d try horseback riding lessons at a good therapeutic riding facility. I’m not sure where I’ve heard this, but riding’s supposed to be good for kids with autism. Certainly I think it seemed to help my son.
Charlie was very fond of the fleece-footed “gang of 4″ and transferred his affection to the Wiggles for a while! I would like to get him on a horse; I think he’d relish the movement and the height and the whole experience — we got him sailing, why not on a horse?
He would love swimming with dolphins simply because of being able to be in the water!
I have indeed heard very positive stories about what horses, dogs, cats and a variety of other animals can do for children with autism, alzheimer’s patients, the depressed or simply lonely. I’ve even met one “high-functioning’ teenager who found his vocation through horses.
I personally love cats and dogs and always had a couple when I was a child. However, animals and water have never really worked well with my son; he teases the fomer and fears the latter, except when it flows out of taps or happens to be in the bath tub. When he was 5, he spent 10 minutes on a gentle, mild-mannered poney pulling its ears, mane and tail, such that we were asked never to bring him back again. The swimming campaign was equally disastrous.
Fortunately, finding activities that caught his interest and helped him didn’t involve travel to distant lands, shamans and baths in sacred waters. But that’s only my boy’s story.
“And Rowan from the video reminds me in many ways of Charlie, just as he is at home.”
So, I take it that all of the galavanting around in effect had no lasting effect? I have to agree with KCsMommy… poor boy, subjected to his fathers whimsical misadventure.
am i the only one who feels Mr Issacson has “sold” his his son and his story for a bit of literary recognition. this isn’t a healing adventure, this is a desperate man trying to get his book published. this kid is being used as a specimen in his parents petri dish of fascination with shamans….
I can’t help but wonder if the parents’ constant approval and hovering actually didn’t help Rowan, and that being in the company of people who weren’t preoccupied with him every second of the day might have been stimulating. Certainly letting him pooh in his pants couldn’t have been the best plan. I’m all for whatever helps this boy and others, but these parents sound sort of fishy at best and completely exploitative and clueless at worst.
Though this isn’t a new post, I just came across it and thought I could add something regarding autism in Greece.
Our programme at the University of Birmingham has been training Greek practitioners for over a decade, and anyone who knows their autism research will be familiar with Demetri Haracopos. So I’m afraid the author simply ran into an uninformed editor.
The situation for children in Greece is still not particularly good. Many families do keep their children at home, as school places are hard to get and often poor; the outcome of this is just as it was in the US and UK in the 1960s, that adults end up in institutions when parents are too old and frail to cope. We have been told that some adults end up in monestaries, either as monks (a life that would certainly suit some) or as visitors–a funny form of respite care but it may be culturally appropriate.
As for autism in Mongolia and shamanism, again, there are probably some aspects of the child’s improvement that came from hippotherapy and a change of pace–new and interesting things spur the imagination and encourage any child to try new behaviours (even though in children with autism those new behaviours may be ones we don’t particularly like, as any parent who has gone on vacation with an autistic child can attest to). There does appear to be some science to it. In fact, one of my Greek students just did an MEd dissertation on the topic–very interesting!
By the way, the press has (as usual) presented this as cure story, when it appears that it’s not the case. There’s a reasonable and even-handed article at http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/24/autism.horse.mongolia/index.html that’s far more interesting. Quote from the father: “In our case, it was horses in Mongolia and these shamans. It could just as easily have been bicycles and, you know, steam trains. And if it had been, we’d have done a steam train journey. We’d have done whatever Rowan seemed to be showing us he wanted to do, because that was where he was intrinsically motivated.” Sensible enough. He also notes that his son is not “cured”, just gaining some useful abilities.
Having not seen the film or read the book, I can’t really say what “whipping” and “force-feeding” entailed–sounds unconscionable on the face of it but the reality might be different. The only reality that would actually matter, of course, is how the child himself felt about these experiences.
Both the book and the movie are out now, and it might be more fair to judge either of them by their own merits and not based on a VERY inaccurate article.
How inaccurate? Hmm…how about for starters that the child was NOT whipped? The whip was rubbed over his back and stomach, and then the ground was whipped, making the driving off of spirits symbolic. Apparently, Mongolian shamans think it’s wrong to whip a child, too. The story, incidentally, gets several other details wrong, but that’s the most offensive of the inaccuracies by far.
I’m aware that most people who know little or nothing of shamanism dismiss it as ignorant at best and fraudulent at worst; I know this because I’ve been a shamanic practitioner for many years. That was my interest in the book and movie, and I found it very balanced and reasonable in how it depicted shamanism. I don’t pretend to expertise on autism, but I’d be interested in someone’s view of how balanced the depiction of that is — just not based on a badly-written, horribly-edited third-party source.