Therapists with Asperger's

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I'm not a psychotherapist, but I do work in mental health, have a background in early intervention and ABA, and at my current job I was hired as a specialist, specifically because of my experience working with hundreds of kids on the Spectrum. I've been a Therapeutic Support Staffperson, a 1:1 ABA therapist, and a program clinician. Currently I'm an intensive case manager, and a large part of my job consists of working with therapists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals to monitor and coordinate care.

Hey Veggie girl,

Its hard when social interaction is not a natural skill and youve had to learn it the hard way. I know for myself that I have to work extra hard cognitively to interact appropriately at work, as soon as i get home I am distant, ignore people who talk to me cause im focused on something else, say inappropriate things without thinking. I find work is extremely tiring as the effort required is so much. It feels like I work twice as hard as everyone else - have to practice what to say before hand and go through all the possible scenarios so that nothing spontaneous catches me out mid session.

I am beginning to wonder why I decided to become a therapist - I keep thinking that a person with no legs may be determined to proove to themselves and everyone else that they can still do everything so they go to the extreme of getting prosthetic legs and running marathons. In the end they work so hard to do something that is so challenging it seems pretty silly.

I am seriously reconsidering my psychology career, i do love it - but i find it so stressful and challenging.
I know that everything Ive learnt has helped me immensely in my professional and personal life so it wasn't wasted.
I may go into some other area of psychology such as research, or educator which wont involve so many interpersonal challenges.
I have decided that currently I am cutting back my days as a therapist, reducing my study load and working at my other job as an animal keeper which I love and am more suited to.

Good luck what ever you decide to do.

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I work as a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist (been doing it for 3 years now) and was diagnosed 6 months ago after my supervisor recognised it and 'nudged me' in the right direction. The 'right direction' was an experienced psychologist who works in the same building but a different department. Before this I worked for many years as a senior care officer in a secure unit for young rapists, robbers and general scumbags.

There's quite a lot more I could say about this and might start a new thread, but I made the mistake of telling my colleagues (all females and therapists) nievely assuming that they would be more forgiving of my eccentricities if they new of the diagnosis. Most of them have been ok but right now I'm catching hell off my managers, (what appears to me to be bordering on harrasment / discrimination) who seem to be sh*****g themselves that one of us slipped through the interview net and is now 'working on the inside'.

My admin work and adherence to what I see as petit rules and regulations has always been sh** as I'm not interested in ticking pointless boxes and doing risk assessments before I move a chair etc etc. But until I got the diagnosis there were no concerns over my clinical practice. Now all of a sudden they are examining everything I do and say (around the office / chit chat, in supervision, with patients etc etc and pulling me up for things they stereotypically associate with aspergers. Its a long story and I will tell every single detail of it when I get round to it!

Hi Lazy,

Oh that is just terrible. Sadly there is alot of discrimination even in the industry. I remember my previous employment with a psychology practice where the clinicians were in attendance at a conference and were laughing and commenting in the lunch break the next day about another clinician from another organisation in the audience. This person kept loudly complaining about the microphone being too loud and stuffed tissues in her ears to tolerate it. Also they were laughing about the odd comments she had made to others on the table. I left that workplace cause the attitude towards me changed significantly. The more they got to know me i think they suspected something and wanted me out of there ASAP. It may have just been that i didnt fit in cause that can cause you to become shifted to the edge of the group. However I believe that when i made odd comments or had different opinions that there was the feeling that I had commited an offence of some sort.
I hope that things settle down for you, not sure what to suggest - lay low for a while, or just continue proudly as usual and make a point of callingn people out for their change in behavoiur towards you particularly the managers. Is this a war that you can win??? your choice how to proceed - good luck.

I'm applying for a job that will involve dealing with emotional people, I'm not sure how well I suit the role now reading this.

Hey just wanted to also say that on the flip side I now work part time for an autism specific disability service. My boss has asd and I have confided that I do too. The worst I get now is banter about how much I resemble sheldon cooper - sheldon is my new nick name at work. I like working with the clients but it is hard work. I feel very drained at the end of each day. This job is way beneath my qualifications also but at least I can handle it and I know a hell of a lot about autism as its a special interest. So not every workplace will be ideal but I am happy that I am accepted there for who I am and don't have to pretend to be normal all the time.

therapists usually find it hard to deal with clients who have aspergers. aspergers usually get misdiagnosed with social anxiety, social phobia, avoidance personality and other disorders.

It's interesting to read about your experiences. I've completed an undergraduate degree in psychology, am doing a master's in mental health and am about to start an internship as an assistant psychologist, working with people on the spectrum. Here's hoping that it goes well!

Thanks for the reply Sharkgirl. I enjoyed and could relate very well to some of your earlier posts. I've been slow to reply because the past few weeks I have 'been on a mission' at work and every waking minute fighting my corner there. You know how it goes. I don't want to speak too soon but I think I may have won this battle for the time being.

I haven't got time to go into everything, but as I mentioned, I was only diagnosed 6 months ago and seem to have full blown inattentive ADD and a variety of aspie traits, (particularly it seems the obsessiveness but less so the inability to read people which seems to be something I excell at).

I always got in trouble over the years for my lack of effort with admin etc but no one has ever questioned my ability to 'get on' with people, (particularly people with problems). I got my diagnosis off someone I work with and told a number of my colleagues and managers as I thought they would gossip anyway and I thought it might excuse my crap admin and eccentricities a little.

I have a new supervisor who is not that experienced and I think is a little bit threatened by my tendency to want an explanation for instructions. Managers want you to obey orders without question and I sometimes struggle with that. Not because I want to be a know it all or to undermine anyone, but just because I don't see the point of following an instruction which doesn't seem to make sense or I don't see the point of it. You test the strength of any belief / theory etc by looking for the weaknesses in it. I like to understand why I'm doing something and that is part of learning.
This new supervisor just doesn't like me and for no good reason that I can identify (she's a lesbian and that might have something to do with it possibly or her relative lack of experience).

My mum died around the time I was diagnosed and for 6 months after that they witheld my caseload and have kept me cooped up in the office on admin duties like some sort of animal in a cage waiting to see if I have some sort of breakdown. Up until that point, no one had ever questioned my ability as a therapist and infact I got the impression from some tutors in the past that I have something of a natural gift for it (CBT is a system for understanding thoughts > feelings > behaviours so why would an aspie not be good at that?).

Also I guess psychology (particularly my own psychology) has been one of my 'special interests' all my life and in recent months I have read a phenominal amount about how aspergers presents in different people. Consequently I have started to see that a sizeable number of the patients I see (been seeing patients again for 2 months now) have undiagnosed AS conditions which are having a significant impact on their functioning and response to treatment. I have refered a few of them for assessments and official diagnosis where this seems to be what the patient wants and seems likely that it will be helpful.

As you probably know, there is a lot of taboo within psychology about diagnosis and whether or not it is helpful and obviously every case has to be examined on its own merits. I have caught hell of the managers for refering people for diagnosis for a number of reasons and they have threatened me with 'capability' interviews. That was going on a week or 2 ago but they seem to be backtracking now as it looks very likely that I have been entirely correct about these patients.

Ironically, the managers are concerned that I am now obsessed with aspergers and that I'm seeing it where it doesn't exist, and yet that is exactly what they are doing to me.

Anyway. Despite their threats it seems that they are now backtracking for a number of reasons and I have to say that when they have pulled me up about various things I have tied them in knots. According to government guidelines, our service should provide a 'clear pathway' for the recognition and referal for diagnosis of AS people. We should also be providing them a service and these are the problems my managers have. They don't want to do either of those things and infact they are treading on dangerous ground in terms of breaching numerous guidelines themselves. I think (fingers crossed) they are starting to realise that and are backing off. All I need now is for the 2 patients on my caseload whom I have referred for diagnosis to get those diagnosis and its game set and match to me.

How ironic good luck and let us know how it goes.

I think that I am going to stop providing therapy after I graduate (if I graduate) and start doing other things, like psychological assessments/evaluations. I am still struggling in the role of the therapist, and I am getting tired of struggling. I do not have good social skills, so I can understand why I am struggling, but I still don't know how to fix it. Right now, I just want to leave the therapy subfield of psychology. I am really discouraged.

Hi all,
I'm brand new to WP, so I hope I'm posting this correctly I see this is a fairly old topic (Therapists with Asperger's (T's with A's?)), but I'm also a therapist on the spectrum, and I'd love to chat with anyone else in the same boat. I'd REALLY love to get us all into some sort of e-mail chain or something to offer support and share stories, trials, and tribulations with each other! Message me if you are interested or simply want to compare experiences one-on-one!

Welcome, Pessa! I'm glad to see another T with A.