therrapy

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i have given up seeking therrapy, social skills training, role playing from therrapists. my experience is that they spend to much time getting my personal history. they also know i am a sucker - gullable. they try to lead me away from the reason i came to them in the first place. after perhaps a month or so [paying out of my pocket] were discussing my family --- when i have tried to control the therrapist back to social skills - role play they seem upset or tell me they find i have to deal with other issues first.

Good grief. They're trying to "cure" you of Autism, and you'll get worse and worse if they can just get you into the "victim chair," focusing on the past (like a broken record) instead of focusing on treatment and healing, and moving forward with your life.

Human Love is the Best Medicine and costs nothing. Settle for no generic brands.

The best coping mechanism is self-acceptance, friendship and get proactive in your own life with education, hobbies, etc, without therapy.. if its possible to have good, strong friendships of people who don't judge and condemn you or try to change you, accepting you like you are... and incidentally will probably share the same interests as you do.

Welcome to WP

Welcome to WP!

Welcome greetings to the Wrong Planet neighborhood, squeezer.

To WrongPlanet!! !

Welcome to WP, great people here!

Welcome to WrongPlanet, and welcome to my time warp.

Hello squeezer, welcome, enjoy your stay on the Wrong Planet!

I have had many, many bad experiences with therapy too, but I haven't given up yet because I really need help coping with anxiety and just figuring out how to live my life. I just started seeing a new therapist and it's not looking good, but I'll give it a chance.

The problem is that unless a therapist specializes in AS (and none that take my insurance do), they don't know anything about AS and treat you like an NT. Psychotherapy is based on the notion that everyone is alike, and that people will react predictably to certain suggestions (subtle suggestions, which is what therapy does: it tries to quietly persuade you, trying to give you the impression that you came up with the insights on your own). If you say something that is outside of the therapists' expectations, they just dismiss it.

I think you need to find the right therapist who is wiling to actually listen, and who is able to accept that he or she doesn't already know everything, or that they know better than you. That may be a difficult trait to find in that profession.

Just like with anything, there are many bad therapists.

There are also many good ones.

And being to tell the difference is, well, very difficult.

What I might suggest because you mentioned a lack of funds was reading books ... you can probably find a decent selection at your local library, or you can even just hang out at the bookstore and read for free.

Don't only look at Asperger's books (although they are good, too). Check out business books and books on communication skills. For example, I was able to borrow the audiobook "Assertive Skills for Professionals." This was a very helpful audiobook for me to listen to. I am on the waiting list for, "coping with difficult people." Other books include "unwritten rules of social relationships" (disclaimer: I haven't read this one yet).

One other book I was surprised to learn a lot from was "cognitive-behavioral therapy for adult asperger's syndrome." This is geared toward clinicians, but I did find a lot of it helpful.

And if in the future you go back into therapy, feel free to tell the therapist, politely but assertively, that you want to focus on learning social skills rather than talking about your past. If she persists, ask why she wants to talk about your past rather than focus on what you believe can help you in the present. If you're uncomfortable saying it, you could probably write it on an index card and show it to her. If she thinks that's odd, then that's definitely a bad therapist.