Autism and therapy

Post Reply New Topic

Has anyone wanted to end therapy or did end therapy after they discovered they are autistic? I’ve spent the last 4 years in therapy, working diligently to come to a strong understanding of my trauma and how it shows up.

With this autistic puzzle piece in place, everything suddenly makes sense and I’ve been feeling like the therapeutic process is no longer needed. I definitely needed therapy to help with my trauma, but I feel like I’ve got the tools to take it from here and to sort through my autism on my own. Finding resources from autistic people has been profoundly more helpful than the current therapeutic process.

The only therapy I've ever had was personal counselling and Relate counselling (for relationship problems). Last time I was there, I was about to get tested for ASD, and the counsellor knew what it was but didn't seem very expert about it. I'd consider going again though, as long as the counsellor either understood ASD quite well or was willing to learn about it. Prior to that last set of sessions, neither I nor the counsellors considered ASD. Nonetheless things didn't go horribly wrong, and some of it was helpful.

The worst I can recall was one counsellor who said I had what he whimsically called a "paralysis of analysis" and that I also had a lot of repressed feelings. Obviously the therapy suffered because both of us were in the dark over such matters as alexithymia and the ASD-related drivers of my "analytical behaviour." So his take was that I was simply hiding from painful feelings by living in the intellectual side of my brain. I probably was to some degree, but it wasn't simply that. He did have a tendency to jump to conclusions like that, and he was rather arrogant, not much of a listener. I should have asked to talk to somebody else but I was too shy in those days. But it was more his arrogance than his ignorance of ASD that was the problem.

I've long thought that I can benefit from the right kind of talk therapy, though I see myself as mentally healthy. Naturally it would be better with somebody who had good experience of ASD. I'd like a really good personal coach to help me figure out my ASD-related problems, with a view to improving my coping strategies. But healthcare services don't do that for free, any more than a physician would treat me for free if there was nothing much wrong with me. I have more important things to spend my money on, so I have to figure these things out for myself. It's just as well - really good personal coaches are probably extremely rare, and my own way seems to work quite well. AFAIK I'm already happier than the average person, and no great danger to self or others from being allowed to just get on with it.

I find therapy helpful but only because my therapist has a lot of experience with autistic people. If not for that I doubt it would be very helpful.

When you have a hammer, all you see is nails.

Some therapists I have worked with only know one style of therapy or one kind of therapy.

If you don’t feel the therapist is helpful you have every right to quit. Or find a new therapist who can help you more right now where you are.

You may find that works better than trying to change the way your existing therapist works.