they rejected my request (i knew it would happen)

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Are you in the UK? Waiting time that long is hardly surprising over here.

Are you in the UK? Waiting time that long is hardly surprising over here.

That was similar to my experience, except the psychologist who I was seeing for therapy happened to be qualified in ASD (weird coincidence!) so did the assessment. I don't have a formal diagnosis though because I didn't want to have to involve my parents.

My autism was noticed during the CBT sessions I was having for anxiety/depression. The therapist was initially trying to convince me that I had great social skills and it was only anxiety that was stopping me from using them, but she gradually realised that actually I didn't have great social skills so the therapy wasn't really working. I was referred for my ASD diagnosis by my CBT therapist.

Uhm... whut? Seriously? You have to give me your reasoning for that, because as far as I know, as a psychology student, psychoanalysis is not particularly useful to begin with, and CBT usually achieves decent results.

(If you've had bad experiences with a therapist using CBT, then that would explain why you think so little of it--I would propose that the trouble was with the therapist, since even the best therapeutic approach is useless in the hands of someone who doesn't care, can't communicate with you, or is so bound by prejudices and stereotypes that he can't see you as an actual person.)

Now, granted, any therapy has a chance of failing; but CBT is a pretty common-sense approach. The idea is to learn how you think and what ideas are driving your behavior, and then to correct those to be more realistic. For example, if you had CBT for depression, you might be taught to become more aware of the way you "edit" your thoughts so that you ignore the good things in your life and focus on the bad possibilities. Someone with depression might, when facing a test, say, "I'm probably going to fail; I'm stupid, and I'll flunk out of school." CBT would make you aware of that, and the nonsense of it: That it is likely you will not fail; that if you do fail, that is not sufficient evidence to call yourself stupid; and that if you fail, that is not a guarantee that you'll flunk out of school. Then instead of feeling helpless, you would learn how to plan your reactions to those events, either good or bad. For an autistic person it can help to actually plan out how you might deal with a feared event, for example: "If I fail this test, I'll go to the professor and try to find out how to study so I can catch up. Or I'll go to the tutoring center and find a tutor." That way, you don't ignore the possibility that bad things can happen--but you teach yourself that you can deal with them.

If you do something that isn't good for you--CBT has been successful with people who have addictions or anger management issues, among many other bad habits--then CBT would be used to teach you why you do those unhealthy things, and then to find alternative behaviors you can replace them with. So, someone who drinks when he's discouraged might be taught to talk to a friend, or go for a jog, or read a book to take his mind off things. Replace one unhealthy behavior with a healthy substitute--find out why you do the thing that's hurting you and find another way to deal with it that doesn't hurt you.

The nice thing about CBT is that it takes into account your own mental life. It's not like simple behaviorism, where mental life is ignored and you just try to change behaviors directly--a bad approach, I think, for anything but the most simple problems. Rather, you take into account your motivations and thoughts and what you say to yourself about things. And unlike behaviorism, you're doing the changing to yourself rather than having it imposed on you from outside.

Done properly, CBT can be quite useful, but it does require a good deal of work on your part, and sometimes requires that you tell the therapist that you want to focus on useful, everyday problem-solving instead of sitting and talking about nothing particularly useful. As an autistic person I often go off on lectures about special interests and have to be re-directed off those.

A lot depends on the therapist, and how well you communicate and work together. In CBT, the therapist is sort of a coach--they'll direct your efforts, but you've got to do the actual work. A good therapist will listen to you about what your goals are, what you value, what you want to get out of the therapy.

i have no problem with CBT , i will try it out. i just hoped she would accept and just made me let me do a test or something.
problem is my communication , it is very extreme sh** . i find it very difficult to express(verbally) what i feel or think.

today i just wrote a a4 paper from top till bottom filled with my thoughts. she asked me if i was the one that wrote all of this.
with writing i can take my time and think and put everything on it but when i have to talk it goes downhill very fast.

i think that will cause a problem with that cbt.

CBT is BS, you'd achieve much more with psychoanalysis.

CBT often involves 'homework' where you write down your thoughts and do various written tasks between sessions, so there will at least be some chance to express yourself in writing.

is that a requirement , even if you are an adult ?
bc i don't want to involve others.

It is in the UK :( they need information from others about when you were a toddler/child. At the time, my parents were already annoyed because I was seeing a psychologist for an ED and the only way I could deal with it was by not involving them at all. When I was assessed for ASD, they didn't even know I was still seeing her and I didn't want them to so asking them wasn't really an option!

Years ago I was sent for CBT . I tied my best to explain to them that my mane problem was my inability to deal with people . All they seemed interested in was getting me in to social situations. No matter how many times I told them that for years I had pushed myself in to every social situation I could (even though I could not really cope with it ) and they would leave me feeling more and more drained until I just broke . All they would do is go on and on about me needing to push myself more . The guy would just get annoyed at me and accuse me of not trying . The experience left me feeling a lot worse and even more of a failure than usual .

Things that have happened in my life have proved to me that the "intense world" feelings I had even before having the experience that caused me PTSD, are justified. So how can a therapist change that view? I have evidence which proves me correct and a therapist can't change that. And also, as an Aspie I get overwhelmed easily, so challenging me to face my fears will be too overwhelming for me, and the logical side of me has been proven that my feelings are justified so how can I be made to think differently?

That's not true. It is of course preferable, but not essential. Although some clinicians will insist, that is their preference, others won't. In fact, if a clinician normally insists on parental involvement and refused to diagnose AS without it, they could still diagnose PDD-NOS as lack of childhood information is one of the reasons clinicians sometimes diagnose that.

In fact I emailed Simon Baron-Cohen (renowned UK autism expert at the ARC and author of the AQ, EQ, FQ, SQ etc tests) and asked him this question (whether childhood information is essential) and I have his emailed response confirming it is not - which I can copy & paste into a post if you wish.

> dear (whirlingmind).
>
> sorry for the delay in replying. we do not want to give out the misleading message that a childhood history is essential for a diagnosis of AS. it is desirable but not essential.
>
>
> i hope this is useful. rest assured that your diagnosis is valid, with or without the childhood history.
>
> best wishes,
>
> simon bc

Here you go:



I removed 3 sentences (and my name for privacy reasons) as they were specific to my situation as it was. The rest is copied and pasted exactly as I received it (complete with lettercase errors!).