This would have rated a touch higher if it weren’t for the blatant ableism towards autistic people. 

The rampant ableism (it turns out Neff is a supporter of Autism Speaks) heavily overshadows the lessons of self compassion, which were overall helpful but also consistently derailed by the wandering passages of her personal life. These excerpts often made me question her morals (eg cheating on her husband, grieving that her son will never get a PhD because of his autism (???), monetising her son’s ND, etc) but additionally I found Neff’s writing so expositional that the whole text could have been summarised in maybe a third of its total length.

Big trigger warning for chapter eleven, which was incredibly disturbing in its recount of a distressing trip to Mongolia which “healed” her son of autism (aka forced him to make his autistic traits) through rituals and horses (???). This is such a dangerous and unethical narrative that Neff is perpetuating.

What does Neff think of her autistic/ND readers trying to introduce self compassion into their lives? Are we not included in your readership? Are we destined to be burdens on NTs, their reason to read this book?

I will be looking for lessons in self compassion elsewhere.