Emotional Attachment Bonds In Autistic Adults: Why’s This Not Talked About?

I'd go with your gut instinct. If your therapist is a good one, they won't flip out at you telling them that. Heck, I told my therapist I felt like I was in love with her. She didn't run away, and I didn't think she would but I was embarrassed about it.

I'm sure you'll do what's right for you. 

One time my therapist wanted to hug me after a major life success. And he goes with what i say and doesn't seem to do therapy. It's like talking to a friend. I don't have feelings for him but he makes me think he cares about me and i'm disgusted by that. He is just a therapist and i want it that way. Wanting distance and working with my mind making it better. It is probably transference if i care about how he feels, but i really don't want to...wondering if i should end this therapy.

Adult autism support services remain very thin on the ground. Speaking to her is the closest thing I have.

I'm not good at dealing with authority. It feels intimidating and I know I wasn't going to get much out of therapy if it felt like that.

My therapist tells me that she's proud of me and stuff like that. No other therapist did, but that's not a criticism - people work in different ways.

Mine is over video but I honestly wouldn't mind if it was face to face. She assures me that there's no judgement although my head hasn't caught up.

I was involved with mental health services after my sisters suicide and that was kind of like the therapy I've got now but talking to them felt kind of like talking to the head teacher or someone else it wasn't really comfortable to talk to.

I told them a lot and they misunderstood I think and it resulted in me being sectioned. Terrible time that was and its put me off mental health services for life.

They don't understand autism at all sadly.

With my therapist it's face to face as well and there's a strong connection and also a really peaceful atmosphere which I would say feels safe as can be. She's always reassuring and says it's a safe space and I've never had cause to doubt that.

I trust her more than anyone else I know.

It's person-centred therapy in my case so the connection is basically the main thing. I think it's important for me to not feel like I'm speaking to an authority figure; if it begins to feel like a meeting with my head teacher, then something's up.

I had a habit of giving people too much too soon. I've actively avoided making real-world connections until I get a degree of control over my emotions. Feel like I'm doing the right thing, not making a mess of it.

We had a 9 week break last summer. It was unavoidable but it was horrendous.

I agree. I haven't heard many success stories with CBT for autistic people. Talking therapy works much better for me than CBT ever did.

I'm like that as well. I don't talk to anyone else about anything really, I've always been quiet and withdrawn. I struggle with socialising anyway but I'm also afraid of being misunderstood or judged and used. That's been my experience with people in the past and it's led to me being hurt and more withdrawn.

Breaks from therapy are hard to endure. I'm lucky that my therapist comes to me but when she's unavailable for whatever reason it seems the longest time ever. It can be hard to get through those periods but afterwards my therapist says, see you got through it you can do it.

I don't think CBT is known for working for us. We can't think our way out of things, we need a different approach.

In my case, I don't talk to anyone else about anything. There's many reasons for that but the safety of it is a big part. The only person in the entire world I don't feel is judging me. 

My head has been a mess when we've had as much as a two week break (we see each other weekly), so I definitely don't feel, at present, that I'd function without her.

I didn't get on well with CBT either. I tried it when I was 19 and it didn't work out well and then I was starting to struggle with trauma from my childhood and depression crept in and now I've got my therapist.

I feel really lucky to be able to talk to her. It e of everyone in my life she's little literally the only one who really understands me. I feel really anxious about when she's no longer going to be in my life. I feel I only cope at the moment because of her support and encouragement.

Growing up in a traditional Catholic background in the 1970’s and 1980’s in Rural Ireland where it was all about the “simple” Catholic faith, prayer, the Rosary and Novenas to various Saints was always recommended for such situations, as the precursor of modern psychology, by the Parish Priest and in the Confession Box, where many traditional Catholic social teachings pre Vatican II were still held onto in Rural Ireland, especially by our grandparents generation - growing up, I never really understood this and what used to drive me mad was that such people would talk in riddles and use euphemisms to explain certain things, as a form of manipulation - if you attempted to question any of this back then, you were firmly told that you did not understand that you were wrong “because they said so” and that your perceptions were wrong and the firm command to “cop yourself on” was then forcefully issued - yet in later decades, this turned out to be good advice and was correct because it was “for your own good” even though we could not see it at the time 

Nor have I until now, but it's because it's a different kind. Less formal, less structured, more about forming a connection. 

The worry for me still is that I'll end up expecting too much. Like everyone in the real world is going to be like my therapist and it's all going to be (near) perfect, when it just won't.

I'm lucky that I found her, years of CBT therapists wasn't doing it for me. I needed someone who didn't feel like an authority figure or as though they were judging me, because if my guard is up it doesn't help.

Yeah, I’ve not ever had an attachment to my therapist before. There were some I liked but I’ve not ever been in love with them or bonded to them course that’s probably due to past experience and I always have my guard up with a therapist. But it’s like, what do you do if it’s a friend? It’s not like I can help it that I formed this bond with him and I would like for him to understand it more even though I don’t feel like I can explain it well.

Wow, that's so lucky for you to have an autistic therapist. I think mine is NT, though I've never asked to be fair. She's really good though, always understanding and kind and supportive of me and everything I say.

I'm glad you have such an understanding therapist to talk to. I would love to have an autistic therapist, someone who really understands what it's like.

I'm the same. My therapist is autistic too which I think is almost entirely the reason, combined with the fact she feels like the sort of person I'd get along with in the real world anyway.

There's no shame in feeling attached. I speak to mine about it and she assures me that it's completely normal.

I struggle with attachment with my therapist as well. It's a difficult one because I know she's just a therapist but at the same time I talk to her so much, open up about my deepest thoughts and I feel connected to her because of it. I worry about the day when I'm no longer able to see her. 

I think it's usually to do with your therapist.

Falling in love with your therapist is a common thing (even happened to me), even if you know that you're falling for an idea of your therapist, not who they actually are. 

Oh, I don’t like the term transference. I just looked it up and it mentions erotic stuff and those aren’t the type of bonds I have as I didn’t want to do anything erotic with my grandmother.

I'm sure it is talked about, within wider topics.

E.g. one of the recent ones I've had to deal with is my therapist. Transference is a thing within the therapy sphere, and it almost definitely happens to neurotypical people as well.