Counsellor dismissed AS

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Hi,
So I saw a counsellor to discuss me thinking I have AS. She basically dismissed every concern I raised (with much difficulty!), excusing everything as 'social anxiety'. She went on to say she has experience of AS because she counsels a man in Canada via Skype, he lives remotely in a forest in a hut and avoids social contact, and isn't that sweet. Sweet??! I was infuriated and couldn't get out there fast enough, but she managed to patronise me with her talk of me needing some intensive self care, made me stroke her cat and as I was leaving she put her hand on my shoulder. Ffs!! ! I hate being touched by strangers, I was so close to punching her. I feel such an idiot as she listed AS as an area she specialises in and it took so much to build myself up to do it. I'm so angry and frustrated. Any tips on finding someone you can check has real experience of AS? Don't want to put myself through that again!

Just forget about her, and go to someone else.

She, obviously, has preconceived notions pertaining to the nature of autistic spectrum disorders.

Yeah, same thing happened to me. She was wrong. Persevere, and find someone who will at least use the proper tests and diagnostic criteria.

KraftieKortie said it perfectly. I'd almost wonder if one of her treatment specialties is anxiety disorders.

That blows...what a waste of time and money.

I remember calling 16 different therapists who worked "supposedly" with ASD adults. 10 of them were frauds. Oh we don't do testing, there is no testing...we just talk. Not good enough. I called the other 6 and narrowed it down by distance and reputation. We finally found our guy, and he was brilliant. Flat out knew his stuff.

Keep hunting. There is someone out there for you.

If even half of what you said is true, you NEED a new counsellor. It sounds like she may be very misinformed about ASD, especially if she bases her whole opinion on one hermit in Canada. Seriously, what kind of a counsellor makes someone stroke their cat? Lol
I'd suggest raising the subject with your doctor instead, certainly don't let this encounter put you off.

Actually, that's the least problematic thing she did, in my opinion. Pets have a known therapeutic benefit for both anxiety and autism. Unless the person's allergic or fearful of cats, involving a calm friendly cat in therapy is a very good idea. The only thing that might be problematic about the bit with the cat is if the OP didn't want to pet the cat but felt forced to.

Thanks for all your replies.

I think I was so upset because it took a lot of working myself up to go and see this counsellor and I hadn't anticipated her just dismissing everything I said. And the rudeness about the man she Skype's really infuriated me. With the cat, it came to me and I tried to ignore it as I'm not a fan and I wasn't sure if it was ok to touch it as it's not mine, but she insisted that it wanted me to say hello and then talked saying how much her cat was enjoying it. I felt pressured to do as expected, rather than forced I guess, I was pretty angry when writing the original post.

Reading about other people's experiences sadly shows me it is all too common to not be taken seriously or believed. I've taken your advice and done more research. I've found a clinical psychologist that does assessments, so I'm working myself up to write her an email to ask about assessment and whether I can refer myself or need a GP to do it. I'd rather not see my GP as it's just an additional step of trying to convince another person to see what's obvious to me.

I would think that a counselor who specializes in minority populations, such as immigrants, women, people of color, or LGBTQ people might be a better fit than someone who treats anxiety disorders. That is, if you can't find a person who specializes in autistic adults.

The reason I say that is because the anxiety (and/or depression) itself is not the underlying problem in autistic people. If you are a kind of person who is different from the people around you, and the world is not made for people like you, that will bring you into anxiety laden situations, and eventually you'll also feel depressed. The anxiety and depression could easily turn in to clinical anxiety and depression, but those are as a result of living in an environment not meant for you.

If you're just looking at anxiety itself, they'll want you to work on your feeling with more exposures to the things that make you anxious. This can just drain all the batteries of an autistic person.

I think a counselor who treats minorities would be more open to actually listening and then have better suggestions for making things better.

The next time I go in for a diagnosis I'm gonna be wearing nothing but diapers and a helmet. If I have to walk in there looking like Capt. Obvious to these clowns then so be it.

SocOfAutism,

I think this is a good point. A lot of these doctors for adults will generally size you up pretty quickly, and if you seem normal and can live independently, they tend to assume your problems are related to anxiety, mood (either depression or bipolar disorder), or personality (a personality disorder or "features"). It seems that they do not even consider diagnoses like ASD. As far as they're concerned, they see no reason to interview or test for it in anyway. If you try to get them to consider it, they'll tend to think that that's just your anxiety disorder, mood disorder, or personality disorder talking.

I'm fairly fortunate in that regard, because I was diagnosed as a child and have extensive records supporting me, but I know not everyone's ASD was caught, particularly those who struggled in silence. With records, you can bring them and they would be dolts not to consider them.

If they think you just have an anxiety disorder, just like how SocOfAutism said, then they'll try exposure therapies, possibly with medication. For you, this may not be good, because such exposure therapies may wear you out.

If they think you have a mood disorder, then they will focus on getting you to increase your insight into yourself and trying to make your thinking more realistic. They will generally get you put on meds, too. If they think you have bipolar disorder, then they will probably tell you you have to have meds for the rest of your life. What's bad about this in your case, is if they have not even considered ASD, the bipolar diagnosis might be a mistake, so you might be subject to a long period of unnecessary treatment (and the bipolar meds tend to be pretty rough). (Lately, in the mental health community, there's been a big emphasis on "don't miss bipolar!" which is all well and good, but it may lead to some professionals jumping the gun with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.) Either way, you ASD may be getting ignored, and problems resulting from it may be interpreted in the light of a mood disorder.

If they think it's a personality disorder, then they're going to try to "interpret" and "analyze" your "deep-seated conflicts" and pressure you into going with their interpretations. A lot of professionals tend to try to strong-arm personality disorder patients, especially the ones with cluster B disorders, as they think the patients need to be taught a lesson. This isn't helpful if the underlying problem is ASD, because it's neurological and doesn't result from dysfunctional families or anything else like that. They would just end up giving bizarre interpretations of your behavior, often reading a lot more into them than there is; for example, if you have difficulty in noisy places because of the sensory issues and that leads to conflict, they might accuse you of doing it just to be "attention-seeking" and they'll just work with you under that interpretation--perhaps by strong-arming you into responding with silence. Any attempts to explain you might have ASD will just be seen as "making excuses" for "bad behavior." Obviously, this is not good for you if you actually do have ASD.

Basically, services for adults with ASD suck. The vast majority of ASD-specific services serve only children/adolescents or "low-functioning" people. There's a view among some practitioners that ASD is not treatable, so you might as well not even diagnose it; they're also worried that some insurers will deny coverage if ASD appears on the billing info, because a number have categorical exclusions of treatments for ASD. The vast majority of practitioners don't do any formal testing and don't provide for things like in-home services, and it's all focused on just talking, along with subjective measures.

That's actually the funniest thing I've read all day!

I bounced around a couple of them. One 'specialist' even asked me why I wasn't diagnosed as a kid. I'm 55. So, yeah, keep looking.

AFAIK, you don't need any qualifications AT ALL to call yourself a counselor in the UK, and I avoid them like the plague.