Therapists with Asperger's

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I know this may seem like an odd question, but is anyone here a psychotherapist?

Hi there,
Its not really a strange question at all. It is quite common.
Yes I am in the process of becoming a psychologist.
I am currently a therapist working with children and teens and soon to be working with adults on the spectrum.
My initial interest in psychology came about due to the difficulties I had understanding other people I figured do a psych degree and work out how people tick. Also I wanted to be able to pass as being normal as much as possible.
Learning about human behaviour in a very formal scientific way is a good medium for aspies.
I know there are several therapists, psychologists and special education teachers out there on the spectrum.
Are you thinking of becoming a psychotherapist? or are you looking for a therapist with a deeper understanding of the issues you face?

I want to go down this road.

Yes, I am a psychologist and have been for over 25 years. I have PDD,NOS and have an adult son with Asperger's.

Oh my god, I am so relieved!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

I was recently diagnosed with Asperger's, and I am in the process of becoming a clinical psychologist (I'm a third year clinical psychology doc student). I havve been doing therapy with my own clients for a year and a half, and it is going well.

I guess I was hoping to find out that I am not the only therapist with Asperger's. I felt like I was the only one, and it seemed to invalidate my experience with Asperger's (that I can empathize with my clients and do well with them, for the most part). Socially, things are different. But, I am so glad to hear that people with Asperger's really CAN be successful therapists.

I would love to hear more stories.

I'm also in training to become one. (Actually I'm also a vegetarian (if you are, - "veggiegirl") )

Psychgots- I am a vegetarian too!

To all therapists
What areas do you specialize In or hope to when finished?
Also how does ASD improve your ability to work in this area Or
Make it more Challenging?

I'm early in my education (and my university is not exactly supportive) so I would love it if people would share some tips or experience that might come in useful as an aspie theraphist. I feel that I have to work on a lot of different things than my NT classmates.

I found the statistics to be painfully difficult, I have dyscalclia (dyslexia with numbers) so i used every available resource to help me including taking all past test, refresher courses, revision sessions, getting a tutor in 4th year, going to the numeracy centre twice weekly and doing all the homework and going over the material in detail before the lecture in the hope that some of it would make sense if I was already familiar with it. I managed to pass just after all this work.

I find research methods to be also difficult, i much prefer rote learning the information and regurgitating it in exams and essays.
Researching for essays / thesis is easy and quite fun.
The course work was so fantastic to learn except when i didnt get my choice of electives and then it was extremely difficult to ward off procrastination.

When i started uni I was very anxious and did not know i was an aspie (studied it to find out what was wrong with me) so I just worked my ass off to the exclusion of everything else. I went out of my way to avoid making friends or talking to anyone not just because of my lack of interest but also due to the fact that I really wanted to get the degree and treated it like work.
I am happy to say that 7 years on I am much less stressed about the course work although I still have no interest in making friends with the others.
I love the fact that at uni you can be as much of a book nerd as you want and there is no feeling strange about it.

Group work is a pain in the ass and is to be avoided at all costs.

I find that my rote learning skills have helped me cram for exams brilliantly - I can encode a vast amount of information into my memory and have great strategies for practicing different retrieval techniques. I find exams fun and since I always go in fully prepared I enjoy the satisfaction of smashing them.

When i started psychology it was a special interest so all things related to that were amazing to study and I would do that exclusively all day every day. As I am getting older and my interests have shifted somewhat - i am very specific about the topics i find stimulating so there is now executive planning difficulty in terms of procrastination for subjects I have little or no interest in.

What specific difficulties are you having with your coursework?

Veggiegirl,
I have been working with young ASD clients for the last 3 years now and previously worked with adults with chronic mental health issues for 6 years.
I find that having difficulties myself has made me particularly empathic to the issues of my clients. I know there is a theory that aspies / auties lack a ToM but i find this not to be true at all. It may be because I am absolutely obsessed with ToM and working out what others could be thinking, feeling, meaning etc and have done this from a very young age. I find people to be intriguing and the whole human race are like my lab rats that I am studying the behaviour of. I do have a huge sense of social justice and whilst I find normal people quite boring, I am predominantly interested in people with difficulties and am able to empathise with them.
I find my hardest clients seem to be those who lack insight or lack the determination to try to improve their situation I have real trouble empathising with people with a victim mentality or no logical ability to generate their own solutions and test out hypothesis in relation to their condition.
I enjoy working with others in a therapeutic way because I am able to put myself to one side and just immerse myself in the client, its not as difficult as having relationships / friendships.
I find that the work is very draining and I find myself spending lots of time outside work thinking about how to better build rapport, or how to break through someones denial, or how to connect with someone or explain the situation in a useful way for the person. As a result I pretty much get all the socialisation that i require and more through work and really have no need to seek out social interaction outside of work.
I feel that I am highly successful at the client / therapist relationship however other relationships both baffle me and bore me.
I live for my work and love what I do, the highlights are definately when there is positive gains for my clients.

What about you?

Wow you are so lucky to actually do clinical work already
I am going into 5 th year this year and we finally get to do it after all this time
luckily for me i have years of experience as i have done several other counselling courses specifically learning counselling skills.
I find group work difficult when it is very abstract and we are expected to work together on a project.
However I find that practicing counselling skills to be very easy and actually the basic stuff like listening skills, reflecting back feelings and content, summarising what the client is saying and making non verbals like nodding and saying uha throughout was very helpful for socialising generally.
Since counselling skills are quite scripted you are literally given instructions on what to say there are limited options and it depends on what the client brings up. Again as in my previous post I find the fact that its not about you its much less confronting that normal social situations you only need to appropriately respond to what the client is bringing to the situation, so just forget that you are there step into the clients world and use your imagination to see what its like from their perspective. I must say I prefer real conversations to meaningless chit chat and what can be more real than a counselling situation when the persons life is literally messed up and they are asking for help. Use all the experiences you have with your life challenges to understand what it would be like for them. after all you cant learn psychology from a text book you have to truly live it to understand it.
I know its more difficult with role plays versus real life scenarios expecially when everyone feels self conscious acting out fake situations, but if you can manage to do it in class you will be great in real life. I would recommend practising your counselling skills on friends, family everyone strangers in the street if possible you would be amazed how following the counselling script will make you super empathic with all people in your life generally.
Good luck

As the ever present risk of overdoing it looms id like to add a few more comments.
As psych is my special interest I particularly find it difficult in the lunch room when others wish to discuss their weekend, boyfriends and other boring unrelated topics. I find myself having nothing to say except to continue to discuss work which has been commented on.
I have one other main interest which involves conservation and saving the planet apart from these two topics I really have nothing else to discuss.

When all you do is work, think about work and then do volunteer work saving the planet there is a high risk of burn out, knowing when to stop and then being able to stop myself is not my strong point. Also unfortunately one must do other things apart from work occasionally such as clean the house, catch up with family members / attend functions. I really put everything into work to the detriment of all else. i find that I can't always easily get out of these other necessary evils and thus end up overstimulated.

I recently went out for a friends birthday and spent the night counselling various people that I met, there was a guy who had a serious gambling problem, another person who was a refuge and another person I met who was clearly aspie I have no interest in normal social chit chat and my friends all thought I was weird for having such in depth discussions with strangers about their lives and problems. I really see no point in meaningless conversation for the sake of it - if that makes me weird so what.

Great thread I would love to hear other peoples accounts especially how ASD helps and hinders our work as therapists.

I can definitely relate to psychology as a special interest! It was mine all through high school.

I spent last year working mostly with adults with severe and persistent mental illnesses. I also did psychological assessments (testing) with children, adolescents, and adults, but mainly children and adolscents. This year, I am providing therapy to college students.

I would untimately like to mainly do therapy with adults with a variety of mental health problems, maybe see a couple of kids, and do some psychological assessments. I am a generalist, which I like.

Some problems I have had so far:
-I have difficulty deviating from a blank stare at times, so I have to constantly monitor my facial expressions and work to mirror the clients' affects.
-I need to periodically make sure I am sitting in a relaxed-looking position, as my body is often rigid.
-Seeing clients is really tiring to me, so I have started drinking caffine. Also, when I feel really overstimulated after my practicum, I hide in bed for an hour or two afterward.
-When clients aren't very talkative, I have trouble thinking of things to ask them or say, and I feel awkward.
-There are a lot of pauses in the middle of my speech. Luckily, my supervisor said they make me seem thoughtful.

I think those are the main things that are hard for me. I am able to be very empathic towards clients, because I am very empathic in general. I also have a good theory of mind, especially when it's not related to my own life.

I don't think having Asperger's helps me with clients at all, but it has made me passionate about learning about psychology, which has helped.