This paper critically re-evaluates the diagnostic and phenomenological overlap between Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD). It argues that the current clinical impasse reveals the limitations of psychiatric nosology¹ when confronted with neurodivergent experiences of distress. This analysis introduces the Environmental-Relational Trauma model as a non-diagnostic conceptual framework for understanding how the neurotypical environment itself functions as a site of chronic structural harm for many autistic individuals. Drawing on critical disability studies, participatory autistic scholarship, and post-structuralist critiques of psychiatry, the framework deconstructs how mechanisms of epistemic injustice and institutional betrayal produce expressions of distress that are frequently mis-categorized as intrinsic autistic "symptoms." This paper concludes by arguing for a paradigm shift away from individualized diagnosis and toward a praxis centered on environmental justice, institutional accountability, and the centering of autistic epistemologies.
Ericwilliam Brown (Mon,) studied this question.