Would an aspie make an effective mental health therapist?

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This is a career option I've considered off an on. Would the social issues inherent in AS lead to FAIL if I were to be a therapist?

Maybe. I've never considered this career path. I'm not good at manipulating people toward any end, even if beneficial to them.

I've been told that I would make a poor therapist when I commented that people should be 25 years old before being allowed to marry. My justification for this statement was that people are living longer, so they have to invest themselves more heavily for the long haul, and they have more time on their hands to become dissatisfied with the decisions they've made. Long gone are the days when someone would die at 18 from smallpox or a tapeworm, so there is less urgency to hurry up and screw before dying. How's that for empathy?

One could argue (and plenty have) that the increasingly raising age at which people are being labeled as children is actually detrimental to their well being. I do not think that my oldest will be ready to move out by eighteen, but I would expect my younger two to at least be at a point where they can survive on their own by then if not actually be ready to make the leap because they want to.

At one point sixteen was considered very adult. We can be married at 18 or sign up to defend our country, but we cannot drink until we are 21. I joined the Army at 18 and married at 19. It was a mistake to get married then, but not because of my age, because it was just the wrong person. I do not think that age would have prevented my choice, therapy would have.

I do not think that my Aspie son would make a very good therapist. Perhaps at some point he would make a good "big brother" for younger ASD kids though. Therapy is not really supposed to be about manipulation. It is supposed to facilitate healing. It is kind of like hammering out the curves in a fun house mirror so that you can see yourself clearly again.

Maybe with a cognitive-behavioral approach yes, like a cold blodeed mad scientist of human mind who treats the client as some kind of machine (which actually is), more open approaches (read: crap) seem quite at odds with ASD traits.

I am studying to get my masters in occupational therapy (which includes psychology training) to work with other people on the spectrum.

I am currently a music and drama therapist, and teach a form of movement therapy called the Alexander Technique. On the surface, I teach voice and movement lessons, but on the deeper level, my goal is to help people get past blocks that keep them from expressing themselves creatively.

I find that I work very well with other aspies and autistics (I have Asperger's and Nonverbal Learning Disability). Most of the clients who have stuck with me and made really positive changes have had at least some aspie traits. The people who quit after a few lessons are usually people who are deliberately neurotypical -- people who are very aware of what is "normal" and what is not, and who are weirded out by anyone who deviates from that norm. All of my long term clients have benefitted from our work together -- one has a recording contract, another has overcome amusia (neurological tone deafness) and can now sing on pitch.

Do I believe that someone with ASD would make a good therapist? Yes, in the same way that someone with neurotypical syndrome would make a good therapist. Each will be most effective working with the population that they connect with, and that connects with them. My boyfriend, a fellow aspie, has worked with many highly recommended therapists with neurotypical syndrome, and yet most of them were not able to help him, and some of them did more damage than good.

The important thing to understand as a therapist is that you can't help everybody, yet there will be some people that you will be of tremendous help to. If you want to be a therapist, find out who those people are (maybe fellow aspies), and figure out what the best way to work with them is. The way that I work is through music and movement; the way that you work will be unique to you -- find out how you work, find out who you can work with, and if you wish, you can become a therapist.

My $0.02

~ Caterina

As a child coming up in the school system and as a young adult, I have been to many mental "health" professional who had NS (Neurotypical Syndrome). Out of all of these, none was of any real help to me. The only way I would ever go to one again is if I were forced to or if I needed to do so in order to get or keep a job. If I were going to one for therapy purposes, he or she would definitely have to be an Aspie or Autie.

The main thing about mental health therapy in my experience is that it's 90% the patient who speaks, not the therapist. What the input the therapist has, though, is meant to be precise and get directly to the issue. So social skills are not really needed (certainly it's one person talk and then the other) yet analytical (not empathy, they tell you what's wrong, you don't have to work it out for yourself). I do sometimes wonder if I could make a career change into this…

Common wisdom says that Aspies don't connect well with other people and lack empathy, which leads to the conclusion that being a behavioral therapist is not a good option since it requires connecting with people and empathy. But, common wisdom once said the world is flat, that the physical brain was a useless organ as intelligence was in the heart, and that woman weren't smart enough to vote. While many Aspies do fit this mold and would make poor behavioral therapists, this isn't always the case. I believe Aspies have too much empathy, which causes overload and either the unwillingness or seeming inability to connect with others. Aspies have the ability and do connect with other people, making the empathy issue a moot point. I think the question should be whether a person wants to be a behavioral therapist rather than whether a person with AS could be one.

As an Aspie, for much of my life I remained distant from others and created the story that I was different and had nothing in common with other people. I became detached and analytical as a defense mechanism. It wasn't that I didn't care about others, which I do - but rather that I was actually believed I wasn't good enough and I wasn't worthy to be in the company of others. I finally realized that I have much more in common with others, even from the simple fact of just being a human being and there was more that made us the same than different. When I put my baggage aside, I also let myself feel the empathy for others that I had suppressed. While I'm not a therapist, I have the ability to listen to people and get things about them that were hidden from them or they suppressed. All people have blind spots and what seems obvious to me was not to them. I believe it comes from both empathy and my analytical skills and believing I had that ability and could make a difference.

I think you should ask whether you want to be a behavioral therapist. Some posters on this discussion have given ample evidence for why they shouldn't be, though I think it more a function of personality than AS. Fortunately, there are other branches of psychology that require objectivity and analysis over empathy, which would capitalize on their personality and AS traits. Other posters have shown how their AS gives unique insights and make them effective as behavioral therapists, especially for others with AS. I think they chose that field because they care about other people and looked beyond what the world says an Aspie can do.

I'll state the above in a different way. I assume behavioral therapy is of interest to you, but you have doubts based on "conventional wisdom." If so, your question is "As an Aspie, do I have what it takes, and can I be trusted?" I think the better question is to ask, "To what am I committed? Can I commit myself to being a behavioral therapist and make a difference for others?" Of course, only you can answer that question. If you are so committed, I absolutely believe you would be a very good behavioral therapist. I think one's commitment overcomes any real or perceived limitations, unless one's commitment is to those limitations.

Whatever your choice is, I wish you good luck. But, please don't make a decision based on AS rather than what you want.

Not especially.

Not a matter of ability I guess, but being a mental health professional takes a lot of emotional energy and can be very wearing and stressful. Think of it. You have someone who is bogged down, crying, on occasion will not listen to you when you try to help, may require approaches you don't know how to do. You have to take rapid notes the whole time, which requires you hear everything, don't miss bits, and multi task to get the important bits written... and after an hour/45 minutes of that, in comes the next one.

Between them, you'd have to do a lot of paperwork and log details in order to take care of the business/financial side of thing.

Just make sure you truly know what you're getting into before you go down that career path, because it can be a very challenging occupation for NTs who don't have to deal with the emotional or auditory processing issues that some spectrumers do.

Depends on how you are with people, an aspie is obviously less likely to become a mental health therapist than a normal person but its always possible, i have a fair bit of knowledge about psychology and im considering doing that when i leave school

As someone who has studied Psychology since I was 8 years old and has Sociology and Psychology as my special interests, I'd disagree with a number of people on here and say that AS individuals can make fantastic therapists.

There are a number of concerns if someone with AS does want to pursue a therapy or counseling job though, one of which is the fact that you will have to study a lot more about social interaction, expectations and other things to learn the psychological and sociological reasons people do things as well as their personal rationalizations related to their own behaviors. Another consideration is the ability to maintain a professional distance from the patients. I am not pursuing clinical work for psychology because I become far too involved emotionally when I am in a counseling role. It taxes me greatly and leads to lots of stress and problems in balancing my own emotions. However, there are many ways to overcome this, and it may not be a problem for someone else who is AS.

Clinical approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, modified Neuro-linguistic Programming, or Hypnosis are all good options for someone who is looking to have more logical cause and effect types of behavioral modification. I have successfully used all of these on people I have treated as a counselor, and have become quite adept at manipulating people because of knowing the logic flaws that most NT's have and using those perceptual loopholes to change their behavior for the better in their own lives.

Being able to see beyond the patterns that most NT's have is a good aspect of a therapist in my view, but you must abide by codes of ethics or you can seriously begin to mess with people in negative ways. I have encountered people in my life who have used these methods to seriously emotionally damage and break people in order to play a twisted game with people's lives. It is entirely possible to do so, but highly dangerous leaving people broken for years after their encounters with such treatments.

Overall, AS individuals have the full capability of being effective therapists if they apply themselves to studying the topic thoroughly and work at being able to effectively handle intense emotions from others without seeming too distant or getting too involved. It is a fine balance, but certainly doable.