Do you think counselling works for aspies?

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The small amount of counselling I've had was utterly useless. I think it's because my ways of thinking just didn't match their NT assumptions. I could fix my own problems far better than any counsellor has ever managed, and I have no psychology training.

I think part of the problem may have been age. I saw someone for phobia therapy when I was about 16 which is the worst age to seek treatment because your options are adult or child, neither of which were suitable (I got child). It also taught me to associate breathing exercises with something bad being about to happen!

I was also offered it for ASD just after I got diagnosed around the same time, which was also useless as I was ahead of them with coping strategies.

Much later when I had a possible mental health wobble I saw another useless psychologist who just didn't know how to cope with me when it turned out I didn't match her script of how a person works.

I have little faith in it for anything else like my anxiety issues, I am a very rational person most of the time, if something still irrationally bothers me, it is completely rationality-proof. So I'm not sure how things like CBT could help.

It depends on the person. Some people I know have had it work for them, while others (like myself) it hasn't done anything.

Not to mention the last counselor I went to was a stuck-up rich, sexist dickhead who didn't know what Asperger's was really and didn't help at all.

Had lots of counseling as as child--didn't do me any good. I always got the impression that treating me was just a job for the therapists and docs. I also detest telling people my innermost thoughts, dreams, etc. It felt like a violation of my personal space to me when they would keep after me to tell them everything in my mind. Naturally, I held back most of it. All I got out of the childhood sessions was an ability to self analyze, which helps me a little. I did go for counseling on my own as an adult, for several months some years ago, but that was to qualify for Medicaid, so I could get treatment for more serious health issues. Unfortunately, those other issues didn't count towards qualifying for Medicaid, but my depression did, so I had to go through the the dog and pony show again, just like when I was a kid. Fortunately, I was able to qualify, and get some help for my other problems once I had Medicaid. In checking out one of my health problems, the docs found cancer, operated, and gave me a few radiation treatments, and I have been cancer free for 9 years now. So learning to self analyze, and qualifying for Medicaid are the only real helps I got from counseling.

I realize that no two people are alike, so some people might actually be helped by therapy, so do give it a try at least once, if you are having problems.

I have one question about therapy, though. Does anybody really see anything in those ink blots, or am I the only one who doesn't? I always had to make stuff up.

Counselling was utterly useless for me. The first counsellors I saw were college ones: they literally did nothing but sit there in almost total silence for the whole session, expecting me to do all the talking. The only question they'd ask was an occasional "how did that make you feel?". Quite often I would go into shutdown mode and not say a word myself. Anyway, this approach was useless for me for several reasons. 1) I'm an introvert who gets drained and fatigued by too much talking; 2) I wanted feedback and advice, but the counsellors wouldn't do this - their role was to "listen", not offer help or advice apparently; 3) I find it hard to recognise and talk about my feelings. 4) I had some serious issues which none of the counsellors recognised: they seemed to have me pegged down as somebody who was shy, or whatever, but not somebody who was seriously suffering.

Later on, I tried a course of CBT. That wasn't exactly a raging success either. The first woman I got was a trainee who simply wasn't equipped to deal with somebody like me: after 6 sessions we agreed to call it quits. That was pretty much it for CBT for a few years, until my GI referred me to a hospital counsellor in 2013. This guy practised something slightly different to CBT: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or ACT. I started the course with good intentions, but with each subsequent session found myself becoming more and more frustrated. I couldn't do it: I couldn't "accept" my emotions or whatever it was I meant to do. In the end I decided to call it quits. To the guy's eternal credit, he was the first one who didn't just give up on me, but referred me to a more specialist service. I didn't want to be referred: I told him straight out it would be a waste of their time and a waste of my time, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. That, incidentally, is how I got on the path to an ASD diagnosis.

It has been a massive help. I pretty much was heading towards a total nervous breakdown or suicide without any intervention. For the first time ever I've finally had some effective help on my side: my autism team, housing officer, psychologist, psychiatrist. They've all been really good people. The psychologist isn't an autism expert, but she has worked with people with autism, and so knows something about it. We've been doing a bit of CBT but more just general talking about autism, anxiety, and other things really. Like the topic creator, I'm a depressive realist. Things that other people see as negative, I just see as reality.

One tenet of CBT I have always got stuck on is this: I'm well aware of the possibility of misinterpretating other people's feelings, motives, or actions. The writers of CBT courses seem to assume you're a total idiot who has never once had the thought cross your mind that you might be overreacting, jealous, insecure, paranoid, etc. I question my own thoughts constantly: this does not reduce the fear that I might, in fact, have really put my foot in it, everyone hates me, etc.

Dunno if that's worth bringing up with the psychologist or not: our sessions are coming to an end soon, dare I say unfortunately. She has tried to get me to see that I have an unrealistically negative view of myself: unfortunately I fear it is all too realistic... >.> What I like about her the most, though, is that she's caring, but not huggy-wuggy with it. She engages with you as well, and actually does the lion's share of the talking.

Phew. Writing this has knackered me out.

That reminds of a training course I did at work which sounds like it might have been CBT in disguise. The pre-course work was a "self limiting beliefs questionnaire". I just wrote sarcastic comments all over it because it was about things you believed about yourself which weren't true - if I can tell it's not true, I don't believe it, so I cannot identify any untrue beliefs and the exercise is pointless. I was almost disappointed they basically ignored it and I didn't get to read out my sarcastic comments.

I also pissed one of them off by telling them I passed my driving test by believing I'd failed so I relaxed because it didn't matter any more, that apparently wasn't the correct happy clappy attitude supposed to make you succeed at things.

Somehow it was actually a useful course on assertiveness and social interaction...

I think a CBT regimen which assumes that, most of the time, your perceptions are accurate, would be the way to go.

Maybe what you think of as 'rational' is in fact negative-biased.

Yes...rationality could be negatively-based....but it should not be ASSUMED to be so.

I believe a competent psychologist/psychiatrist/counselor can make counseling work. The counselor needs to know that his/her client has autism for the counseling to work.

Counseling has never worked for me because all the psychologists and psychiatrists I saw for that purpose were incompetent and only wanted money. CBT also didn't work because it was just common sense and there was nothing new in it. I felt I was being fooled.