From Isolation to Intimacy

Anyone working closely with people with severe learning disabilities or Autism Spectrum Conditions will find this latest book invaluable. Building on the themes she presented in Finding you Finding me, Phoebe Caldwell presents a user-friendly guide to using intensive interaction with people who are unable to communicate verbally. Numerous cases are presented in an accessible way, highlighting that by taking time to understand an individual's perspective and sensory experience, we can gain access to their world and thus to a meaningful connection with them. Giving people a sense of self through non-verbal communication can alleviate stress and thus reduce behaviours that challenge us, instead providing opportunities for positive interactions. -- Journal of Intellectual Disability Research
With over thirty years of experiences, Phoebe's enthusiasm is clear from beginning to end. -- Speech & Language therapy in practice
In short, this is a wonderful book - it challenges current thinking, it makes you want to go straight up to the next person you meet who has communication difficulties and try out the approaches she suggests. It is early days, but if evidence can be produced to support her theories this may just come to be regarded as a book that changed the world. -- The Frontline Of Learning Disability
This book reminds us of the 'intuitive' in therapy. Intensive Interaction is all about affect, about interpersonal contact and about affect, about valuing the person's communicative attempts.This book explains simply and effectively how use of imitation and repetition of body language, sounds and movements might change the focus of attention in an adult with autism/learning difficulties from a self-centred to an other-centred one. -- Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists
This book is about how we get in touch with people who, in the words of the author, "are separated from us because they cannot tell us what they want, or perhaps more importantly, how they feel". It is a beautifully written endorsement of the universal importance of emotional needs such as intimacy and social connection, irrespective of an individual's ability to communicate with others. It introduces communication as a prerequisite to all intimacy, and makes the point that communication at "deeper" levels is not verbal but physical, tactile or visual: a look, a nod, a smile - a feeling of safety with another person. In this respect, this book has applicability and value beyond those for whom it was written this book's strength is its emphasis on improving the quality of life - identifying and meeting needs - of people who are in one way or another isolated by their disability. -- Human Givens Journal