psychotherapy babble

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I started the process of getting diagnosed today, but the psychologist I talked to on the phone seemed to want to focus on things like my relationship with my mother and seemed to think I just had issues I needed to work on. She didn't seem to take me seriously about AS, but at least I'll get to see a psychologist who might be able to refer me to a specialist. But I feel like I'm at their mercy, and like I have to prove myself as autistic to even get to the specialist.

I really don't think I'm hypocondric. But I'm sure she's right and I need therapy as well.

She seems rather unqualified. I would shop around for a therapist until you find one you are comfortable with, and actually knows what they are doing.

Finding a psychologist that knows how to work with autistic people or who can correctly diagnose us is indeed a momentous task. You might be better off going to a neurologist who specializes in autism.

I have a therapist, who is a licensed clinical social worker, that I use for therapy, largely to deal with anxiety issues. I was just saying if you do want therapy, it would be a good idea to track down one you like, rather than one you like and can work with.

That sounds like a very psychoanalytic perspective; attachment/mother issues have been seriously discredited as a cause of autism.

I don't think she meant that my mother issues caused autism, it was more along the lines of me not having AS at all, but rather emotional problems. She asked about my current relationship and I told her I have to ask him to be very specific about what he's feeling and why he says and does certain things. It's wearing me out because I really don't get his "moods" and I can never tell whether it's because of me or something else so he has to verbalize everything.

You know what she said? "Oh, that's not Asperger's, that's just communication problems"

She agreed to set me up with a psychologist who in turn might be able to refer my for a neuropsychiatric investigation, but only after I promised that regardless of any diagnosis I would be willing to work on my emotional issues. I still feel bad about the whole thing because I started crying on the phone and I didn't know why, because I wasn't sad and now I feel like an idiot.

Tears of frustration perhaps?

To summarize, so long as making a referral will ensure you promise to keep coming back to pay her more money, she's happy enough to make the referral; in fact whether you are diagnosed as having an autistic spectrum disorder, or as being an alien from planet Z, if it will make you promise to come see her and pay her money, it's all good with her?

Mmmm.

It is rather depressing. I now feel like I have to convince the next person I have AS just to get to the specialist.

But I don't think there's a financial interest for them. I don't pay them myself, and there's plenty of people who want to be seen by them. But maybe my problems sounded like something fun to prod around in for a general psychologist.

And this is exactly why for my autism I have an ASD therapy and not a psychotherapy.

In discerning babble trust your gut.

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I agree there are some idiots out there who think they know more than they do, and force clients to fit their pet theories.

Counsellors in the past have told me that:

I could sort out my relationship problems in an hour if I really wanted to

I was repressing tons of stuff

I was in a "paralysis of analysis"

They never thought of AS so they assumed that, just like the average Joe, my difficulties in understanding my feelings and my analytical way of thinking were a product of my free will that I could simply change.

Then there was the guy who was fixated on a theory that the client must go right down to "rock bottom" and then rebuild. Maybe that works for some, but it was inapproprtiate for me and I just wouldn't do it. It didn't stop him seeing every sign of my feeling down as my being close to achieving his beloved "rock bottom" point.

Another one insisted that I must definitely have sensed something wrong between my parents in my early years and that it must have affected me, even though I'd been blissfully unaware of any conflicts between them until some years later, when it had come as a complete shock. In fact there's little evidence that there was anything wrong between them in my early years. And that advice was from a supposedly nondirective therapist.

When abreaction was fashionable, they insinuated that my failure to do that was holding me back.

I think it's important to be skeptical of anything they say that seems presumtuous, and make it clear that they have to provide good reasons why you should believe them. It's worth keepng an open mind, because some of them can be quite helpful, but they can also lead people right up the garden path as well. Shop around till you find one who makes sense. Or if it's a condition that you talk with one particular therapist, don't expect too much of them. Sometimes they can have an uncanny way of making you think you're "in denial."

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/scienc ... #episode22

Go to episode 22.

It talks of the illusions of episemologist cultures, psychology being one. It is 50 some minutes, but totally mind blowing. We are caught in a very bad and unscientific system.

It is about PTSD, but could be extrapolated to any condition.