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Advice needed re counselling

Lotus

I had to take a few days off work last month due to anxiety and depression and the doctor recommended a local counselling service as he though I would benefit from CBT. Since then he has assessed my AQ test results and confirmed I have aspergers and offered to refer me to a specialist, which I have not taken up at the moment.

I have returned to work and made a change in my life to lower the stress, and have been reading a lot about aspergers, which is helping me to understand myself and recognise when I'm getting stressed so I can try to calm myself down. 

I haven't had any counselling sessions yet and my first assessment appointment is due next Saturday. I started wondering today if it is going to be of any help now that I seem to be coping OK again?  I've heard that some aspies don't find CBT helpful. Does anyone have any advice or experience with CBT they would be kind enough to share? 

Thanks 

Parents

  • Thanks for the link to other posts, Socks,  and thanks to Peachi for sharing your experiences. 

    One of the other posts discussing CBT linked to a pdf of slides for a presentation about it. There was an example exercise which asked people to imagine they were stuck in a traffic jam, then to write down one automatic thought that would lead them to feel each of the following emotions: anxiety, depression,  anger, guilt, feeling relaxed. When I tried this, I went straight from imagining being in a traffic jam to experiencing anxiety - no recognition of a thought process leading to that state. Is this one of the differences between me and a NT person? Do any other aspies identify with my experience?

    The central approach for anxiety was "do the thing you cannot do" - stop avoiding, safety seeking and thinking the worst, and use graded exposure to overcome fears. I understand the concept of exposure, but I don't think it works so well with aspies. I hate lifts. I lived in a 6th floor flat where I used the lift daily before I moved to the 1st floor flat where I now live, and where I take the stairs. I feel much more relaxed where I am now and when I went back to check my previous flat after moving out, I felt very uncomfortable using the lift again. Another problem in my old flat was that there was a night club behind it which pumped out thumping music until 3 or 4am on various nights, not usually less than 3 nights in any week,  and my reaction to that got worse over time,  not better - I started getting night time panic attacks.

    I'm sure some people on the Autistic spectrum find counselling / CBT helpful, but I don't think it's for me. I think that learning about myself and being less hard on myself as a consequence, since learning I'm an aspie,  is helping a lot. 

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  • Thanks for the link to other posts, Socks,  and thanks to Peachi for sharing your experiences. 

    One of the other posts discussing CBT linked to a pdf of slides for a presentation about it. There was an example exercise which asked people to imagine they were stuck in a traffic jam, then to write down one automatic thought that would lead them to feel each of the following emotions: anxiety, depression,  anger, guilt, feeling relaxed. When I tried this, I went straight from imagining being in a traffic jam to experiencing anxiety - no recognition of a thought process leading to that state. Is this one of the differences between me and a NT person? Do any other aspies identify with my experience?

    The central approach for anxiety was "do the thing you cannot do" - stop avoiding, safety seeking and thinking the worst, and use graded exposure to overcome fears. I understand the concept of exposure, but I don't think it works so well with aspies. I hate lifts. I lived in a 6th floor flat where I used the lift daily before I moved to the 1st floor flat where I now live, and where I take the stairs. I feel much more relaxed where I am now and when I went back to check my previous flat after moving out, I felt very uncomfortable using the lift again. Another problem in my old flat was that there was a night club behind it which pumped out thumping music until 3 or 4am on various nights, not usually less than 3 nights in any week,  and my reaction to that got worse over time,  not better - I started getting night time panic attacks.

    I'm sure some people on the Autistic spectrum find counselling / CBT helpful, but I don't think it's for me. I think that learning about myself and being less hard on myself as a consequence, since learning I'm an aspie,  is helping a lot. 

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