Is CBT really productive for a person with Aspergers?

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dunya
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12 Jun 2013, 12:39 pm

I think it depends on the experience and attitude of the person running the CBT sessions.

I had CBT while depressed and it helped me to identify some unhelpful thoughts that made the depression worse.

But, like noted above, suggesting me to re-establish contact with friends and relatives wasn't helpful as it was being ignored and excluded by "friends" and relatives that contributed to the depression in the first place. People do treat me differently, it's not my imagination and the CBT counceller I saw couldn't grasp that.



maia
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20 Jun 2013, 12:21 pm

I tried CBT for all of four sessions. I didn't like it at all. I was being told to ignore the anxiety. I couldn't understand what the therapist was trying to do. It didn't help that my therapist lived up the road from me either. I moved to art therapy but that therapist had a worse attitude. She was dismissing my feelings so I started doing the same. That is what did the harm for me. When the idea of Aspergers came about, my psychiatrist (who was part of the same team as both my therapists) basically said it was another way of calling someone a geek. I've had it with these people! All they see in people with ASD from my experience anyway is we're unwilling to bend or we're just attention seeking. They don't see our difficulties as real.
Psychotherapy on the other hand has worked best for me because they actually listen and try to understand how I handle things differently and how I get so easily stressed and overwhelmed. They don't have a preconceived notion. They don't try to force me into thinking the same way as them. Most of all they actually support me rather than rattle off about positive thinking or telling me that my feelings aren't real, or that I can easily ignore them. They don't perceive what I am saying to them as BS just because they don't understand it. CBT does.



robsten1990
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21 Jun 2013, 5:13 pm

This is a very interesting thread. I had CBT for 5-6 sessions last year because of anxiety. The anxiety was because I was going to start practical education to become a medical secretary (which I now work as). When I studied to become a nurse I failed that practical education so that´s where the anxiety came from. I had always been very good in school and had high expectations on myself so failing like that didn´t exist in my life. During these sessions I for the first time brought up that I might be slightly autistic.

I don´t know if the therapy itself helped that much although it did give me some good techniques. Like thinking about everything I have instead of everything I don´t have, trying to think "in the moment" (which is very difficult). But in the end, it had been me realizing myself that it´s alright to fail sometimes and that I can´t be good at everything. I still find that very hard because I still get angry/sad at myself when I can´t do things quick or good enough as NT:s, but I´m trying. I do feel much better now compare to 1-2 years ago.

I think anxiety runs in the family for me, my grandmother has it and I have suspected for some time that she is also on the spectrum. Much of it is also tied to my menstrual cycle so I´ve learned to just wait it out knowing that it will pass in a short time.


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the_grand_autismo
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21 Jun 2013, 9:37 pm

marshall wrote:
I don't think the "think more positive" thing can work for me. The problem is most of the time I'm not even certain what I really believe. I also feel depressed for no particular reason all to often. I do get negative but the feeling seems to precede the thoughts. The thoughts are just expressing the feeling that comes from a much deeper place. The behavioral part is probably more useful than the cognitive part. I have a lot more control over what I do than how I think.


I had trouble with CBT for pretty much these exact reasons. What I have had some luck with is more emotion-based therapy that teaches me how to recognize when I am anxious or depressed and then gives me coping skills to deal with it (which are mostly behavioral strategies). That kind of therapy makes a lot more sense to me, personally.