Not sure how to take a joke

I think she was being ironic. There are some very trivial things studied these days. My daughter studied the Beatles, during her university course. Perhaps it is not as trivial as I think.

I would have taken it literally too. You will encounter this everywhere in life. Don't feel that you are in any way inferior because you believe what people say.

She probably accepts that this is one aspect of you, in a non judgemental way. You can also learn to accept that this is you,, in a non judgemental way.

You can also learn from it, that you can be taken in, and be wary of fraudsters, who may try to take advantage.

A therapy session doesn't have to be deadly serious and businesslike all of the time. It may be that the therapist was trying to lighten the mood and help Hope relax. Clearly, and unfortunately, it didn't exactly pay off and I totally understand and sympathise for the awkwardness and discomfort caused to Hope.

There are a number of things going on in a therapy session. A therapy session is a social interaction between two people. It should be a time when both parties can relax a bit and open up in a safe and comfortable environment. It should be safe to make mistakes and encounter and resolve misunderstandings and to learn ways of improving social communication and other skills. Some of the time it will only be possible to develop coping mechanisms as some things are too difiicult to master but I would suggest that allowing the therapist to tackle this difficulty in handling jokes might be a good subject to focus on rather than avoiding it altogether and declaring it off limits.

Thats true, I was making a suggestion for Hope. The situation Hope was in and felt uncomfortable in wasn't a social situation where humour plays its part. She was with her therapist in a more formal setting, a setting which should  feel safe and should benefit her.

the suggestion wasnt for everyone, but specifically for Hope who is uncomfortable with this interaction with this individual.

electra said:

Can you ask this person not to make jokes?

So, autistic people have to live in a humour free zone? Are you saying that Hope doesn't have a sense of humour?

Are you serious? I don't expect to get all of the jokes all of the time but I don't want to be surrounded by people who are afraid of telling a joke because I might not get it.

I have been in a very similar situation.  I felt anxious, silly and baffled.

When people know that you are autistic and persist in making unsignalled jokes, especially if they're an autism professional, isn't it on a par with asking a blind person to sit down and then moving the chair? Or asking someone who you know is colourblind to pick up a red pencil?

Can you ask this person not to make jokes? Turn the tables and let her suggest to you why you might not like it when she does!

unless it was a deliberate test of his(her?) reaction, it must surely raise issues of competancy; the therapist is supposed to be an autism professional and ought to know the discomfort social ambiguity brings us

It seems to me that you have some considerable control over what you choose to do next. There are a couple of directions you could take matters forward

1) You could be offended by the failure of the therapist to fully consider your condition before making the joke. You could blame the therapist for this failure. You could be cross with her and your relationship with her could deteriorate. This is a lose-lose scenario in my opinion.

2) You could understand that she is only human and that she made a poor joke that you didn't understand. You could understand that you are only human and that you don't understand everything. You could ask her to explain the joke so that you can get a better understanding of jokes. You could use the incident as an opportunity to let her learn more about your condition and you could use the situation to learn more about how non-autistic people think. This could be a win-win scenario?

Choosing to follow the first path might lead to more obsessive thoughts about how bad the siutation is for you whilst the second path may lead to you gaining some understanding and accepting that people (you, me, everyone else) all make mistakes and do things that people find confusing or even offensive at times.

Humour is a tricky area. It is likely with autism that you cannot read the body language and facial expressions used to supplement the intended humour in the words, or used differently in order to mislead, in sarcasm. Nor can you be expected to show the right facial expressions in response.

I suspect that the therapist let it slip her mind that you might not understand. Hopefully she will have registered from your reaction that she needs to be more careful with jokes in future. 

I'm sure somewhere there is a course on some aspect of Kate Winslet's acting in media studies. What I think she meant is that you can study anything in university. The joke used to be degrees in one sport eg football. So it was a joke, but one that the therapist should have considered how she presented it to someone with autism.

You shouldn't have to explain your difficulty to your therapist; she should understand, and should endeavour not to repeat it, if she is professional. If she does do it again, however, you would be perfectly entitled to explain to her that you are at a disadvantage in recognising humour and that she ought to consider this.

That just sounds like she made a very bad joke to me. It doesn't mean you don't have a sense of humour! 

Hi Hope,

These jokes may irritate you but is it reasonable to expect people who talk to you to censor everything that they say in your presence, or to you directly, to ensure that you will understand it? It bothers you because you didn't understand it but it also bothered you because you let it bother you.

She was making a disparaging remark about modern education. It was intended as a joke and, even though you didn't understand it, you can't stop people from saying things that you don't understand. People can't understand everything that is said to them and you can't expect her to understand everything you say to her.

Don't be hard on her for failing to only utter things that you understand and don't be hard on yourself for failing to understand everything that is said to you.