I feel like I can’t communicate with my therapist

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I first started seeing a therapist when I was a teenager, way before my diagnosis, when I was dealing with unmanageable anxiety. I got that under control, thanks to medication, and I’ve been on different medications and gone to different providers over the years. When I started going to a community health group, I had a great relationship with my first therapist there. Like I really felt that I was getting good help to look at myself. Since she left that practice, I’ve bounced around a bit within the group with various levels of success.

I’ve gotten more and more frustrated as time’s gone by. I’ve tried to explain to my current therapist what it is that I’m looking for, but I don’t communicate well with emotions and I feel like I don’t have the right verbiage to get my point across. Every time I take a tentative step to try open the conversation, it feels like it’s shut down, or dismissed. Even when I feel like I said something that she might’ve picked up on, it’s forgotten by the next session. There’s no follow up on whatever I say, and I don’t feel like my self-assessments are being validated at all.

How can I communicate this? I feel like there must be therapy methods I can point to and say “this doesn’t work for me” or “this is what I’ve found helpful”, but I don’t know how to go about any of this.

I struggle with this too. I've learned a lot from therapy, but after a year I still don't feel that she really understands me.

I'm learning that it's okay to quietly disagree with therapists on certain issues. They have specific professional standards that they must adhere to, and opinions they legally must uphold - which I can accept, but I don't have to agree with them. Psychology is not an exact science, and the current methods are not perfect.

In terms of your self-assessments being invalidated - maybe next time you could explain, 'this is how I see myself and my situation' - and ask if she agrees? And if she doesn't, it's okay to respectfully disagree with her opinion. You know yourself better than she does (and it sounds like she's not listening well to begin with.)

Hope things improve from here (for both of us) - it's definitely a challenge!

I appreciate your response...

What you guys are describing is fairly common. I've experienced it myself. If the therapist comes from a psychodynamic/psychotherapy background, they are trained to focus on people describing their emotions. Since this is one thing that autistic people do badly, therapists who don't understand ASD are pretty lost for something to work with. Also, they do this thing called mirroring, which can leave an autistic person pretty confused.

With ASD, the therapist needs to be very structured. Also, I think both the way they are recruited and trained, leaves them unaware that other people don't have the kind of hardware they have.

I seriously think that if your therapist does the 'everybody feels like that' thing, you need to communicate to her that the degree in ASD is much stronger than in neurotypical people, and honestly, if she doesn't get it, change therapists. What she is doing is not helpful, it's damaging. And you can tell her I said so.

Cognitive behavioral therapy seems to work best for auties, but of course there are exceptions.

That particular therapist might not be a good one , for you

Or maybe counseling is not for you

Welcome to WP

Communicate with your therapist in writing. Even what you wrote in your original post is great. You are much more able to be articulate and to get your thoughts across in writing and she can't shut you down like when you are trying to speak. I do that sometimes too. I write something out at home and then my therapist prints it and reads it when I am there. That really helps.

The therapist is supposed to be working for you not the other way around. Treat the therapist as an employer would an employee. After an effort if things are not working out fire her and hire somebody else.

Am quite sure most psyche pros , are clueless , when it come to aspies been seeing various one each for extended periods, never felt could let my hair down with any but i tried . Most recently when funding for my therapy was stopping cause my therapist didn-t have adequate credentials . And we parted smooth , earlier in session had asked how to get past some homicidal feelings over 13 yrs old for a brother whom executed my husband point blank . At insistance of my brothers gf . No other witness and brother let his gf take the fall, ..i figured it out. Using only available facts , DA didnt care brothers gf got acquitted.. So having said this it might stick in your craw. So to speak. No resolution ever. Tried tried many years.. So i ask therapist how to deal with or stop these feelings . Session ends ..no worries am going to try to restore funds, to be able to continue therapy with her..
Next morning 10: am ,, knock on the door ...bang bang bang.. its the police ..? Crises intervention unit .... How may i help you ?
Police: are you going to kill someone.. ?or hurt yourself ? W.T.F. .. advise me they are sent by my therapist.
Brother and his gf are 1800 miles away btw.

Guess we are NOT on the same page, especially as have told her police had traumatized me in recent past . For and to No end or reason.....gonna keep my hair up in a bun from now on with any therapist.
Yes not communicating well with therapist .

Never found one I truly could communicate with. It's always been rare for me to find one that would so much as listen to me.

-11---------------------------- long SIGHES