How talking therapists experience working with adult clients who have autism

Abstract

This research aims to gain new insight by exploring the thoughts, feelings and experiences of therapists working with clients who have autism. Three professional talking therapists participated in the study. Unstructured interviews were conducted and analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Six main themes and 13 sub‐themes were found which include therapists’ validation of autism, how therapists integrated autism when addressing mental health problems, how their personal experiences of autism impacted on their work and how they experienced the situation in which autism emerges during the therapy. Helpful suggestions are made for clinicians, namely, to zoom‐in and zoom‐out of autism, hold the knowledge that people with autism process information differently, incorporate working with trauma, consider disclosing a personal connection to autism and consider carefully whether, or not, to tell a client that they may have autism.

The Assessment and Treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Autistic People: A Systematic Review

“…Autism-specific adaptations of TF-CBT have been theoretically proposed in areas of emotion regulation, graduated exposure, cognitive restructuring, and psychoeducation (Stack & Lucyshyn, 2019), and randomised controlled trials have shown efficacy of adapting CBT to treat depression in autistic adults (Russell et al, 2019a) and anxiety in autistic adolescents (Storch et al, 2015). For psychotherapies, more generally, the person-environment fit is an essential consideration and specific adaptations should be considered when a patient is autistic (Brook, 2023;Mazurek et al, 2023). Anecdotal reports highlight the importance of careful consideration of the individual needs of an autistic person suffering from PTSD for successful use of psychological therapies, including narrative exposure therapy (NET) (Fazel et al, 2020) and adapted CBT (Carmassi et al, 2019), and use of trauma-informed care to manage symptoms (Kildahl & Jørstad, 2022).…”

Introduction to Approaching Autism within the Contexts of the Neurodiversity Paradigm and the Person-Centred Approach

“…Pro klienta je důležitá validace a přijetí jeho zkušenosti, včetně její jinakosti. Autismus nemusí být centrálním bodem konverzace, pokud sám klient neprojevuje potřebu se mu věnovat (Brook, 2023). Pokud si dovolíme neštěpit klientovo chování a prožívání v důsledku vlastních nebo vnějších normativních představ, umožníme mu integrovat všechny aspekty jeho zkušenosti, jak to popisuje Rogers (1961, s. 80): "Cílem tohoto procesu je, že klient objeví, že může být svou vlastní zkušeností v celé její šíři a zdánlivé rozporuplnosti; že může sám sebe vyjádřit na základě své zkušenosti, namísto toho, aby se snažil naroubovat vyjádření o sobě samém na svou zkušenost, čímž by zabránil vědomému přijetí těch částí, které nepasují.…”