The Unlocking: An Autism Story

by Porscia Lam

Overview

The Unlocking unfolds in pandemic-stricken Melbourne, charting one family's desperate battle against the escalating behaviour of their autistic toddler. Amid the lack of in-person services, Harry exhibits severely restricted eating, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, crippling separation anxiety, and a demand avoidance that impedes every function in his young life. Harry meets the description of Pathological Demand Avoidance, a sub-type of autism that is not yet recognised in Australia, where an individual exhibits an anxiety-based need for control by avoiding the ordinary demands of living.

During a break between lockdowns, and with much trepidation, the family embark upon a journey with applied behaviour analysis (ABA) therapy. ABA is an intensive therapy considered the gold standard in early intervention for autism, but with a controversial past. The outcome is life-changing. Beneath the veil of dysfunction and anxiety, they discover an outrageously creative, highly intelligent, and hilarious little boy.

The Unlocking is an atypical memoir spanning five epic years-agonising and wretched, hilarious and triumphant, offering solace and hope to others while shining a spotlight on a little-known profile of autism. It is an ableist's humbling lesson on disability.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781763508323
Publisher:	Kind Press
Publication date:	02/25/2025
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Porscia Lam is a Melbourne lawyer who has spent over fifteen years working in large firms and financial institutions. In 2021, she began a three-year career break to care for two young children, one of whom was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. During this time, Porscia immersed herself in learning about autism, Pathological Demand Avoidance and ABA therapy. The success of her son's early intervention therapy led her to write her first book, The Unlocking: An Autism Story, which was shortlisted for the Hawkeye Manuscript Development Prize in 2024. In her spare time, Porscia is a keen rock-climber and occasionally contributes articles to outdoor magazines and blogs.

Editorial Reviews

★ 2025-05-21
A mother discusses her son’s dysfunctions and the grueling battle to overcome them in this engrossing memoir.

Lam recounts her experiences with her autistic son, Harry, a smart, creative kid with normal-range verbal capabilities who was plagued by severe anxiety, obsessiveness, and a syndrome called Pathological Demand Avoidance, which made him militantly defy every request. Harry violently rejected all dinner-time food except for two specific brands of chicken tenders; refused to wear shoes, then threw fits when his socks got dirty; monopolized Lam’s and her husband Paul’s attention, physically attacking them to end phone calls and Zoom meetings; and required endless hours of ritual cajoling to eat or use the toilet. The demands of caring for Harry, exacerbated by harsh Covid-19 lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia, where they lived, tested Lam’s family to the breaking point; she writes that she “lost the will to live.” But help arrived in the form of “applied behavioral analysis” therapy, a controversial practice that uses painstaking observation of autistic kids’ actions to understand and change behavior—in Harry’s case, by rewarding him with favorite toys and framing lessons as fantasy adventures. Gradually, Harry added new foods, began tolerating separation from his parents, and—miraculously—started school and made friends. Lam’s prose is evocative and unflinching in conveying the strain of Harry’s condition: “Harry’s desire to control everyone in our household was a source of elemental torment…I despised it, hated it, felt degraded each time I indulged it.” She also provides a fascinating, meticulously detailed psychological analysis of the workings of Harry’s mind: “He was forever observing and taking mental notes, but would not give anything a crack until he was satisfied he could do it with absolute perfection the first time. Then, if he liked it, he did nothing else but that.” The result is a profound and moving family saga that illuminates and richly humanizes the challenges of autism.

An extraordinary portrait of an autistic boy and the fight to help him.

Kirkus Reviews