Importance of being totally honest during Autism assessment

This morning I wrote the paragraphs below in a separate discussion thread on this site. Do you have thoughts on it, based on your/your loved one’s experiences being assessed?



“For what it’s worth, some advice I would share regarding going through the assessment process is to be extremely honest in answering all questions, regardless of how “bad“ or “cold“ or “messed up“ you might think it makes you appear.

I found that I answered the test questions and replied to the interview questions in ways I would not have done even one month prior, because I had realized ahead of time that I would need to be extraordinarily honest with myself and with my clinician about my true feelings and my true preferred behaviours, when I wasn’t masking and camouflaging.

My impression in talking to my psychologist is that, especially for women, it’s common to go into the assessment process and minimize or even omit mentioning their true feelings and behaviours. By not doing that, I was able to emerge from the assessment process with the feeling that the result reflected who I am – not who I have worked over two decades to appear to be.”

Parents
  • Elizabeth,

    I absolutely agree with you.  What would be the point of NOT being honest?  If you are trying to convince a psychologist there's nothing wrong with you, then is that the opposite of hypochondria, or is it denial? I don't know.  I guess you could be trying to convince yourself you're OK, but you'd be lying to do it.

    I answered the questions with total honesty.

    If someone  doesn't want to tell the truth then maybe they need to talk to someone about that first, but I guess they  wouldn't.

    Ben

  • I think the problem is that most of us mask every single day to survive so to be true yourself can be hard. Some of us may have never discovered ourselves or been our true selves before. Especially to a stranger. 

  • Yes, I take your point, for a number of us masking can become our default setting. Maybe a little pre-assessment counselling or preparation could be useful for some.

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