counselling

Just out of interest: In what way does it not help? The counsellor doesn't understand you or their techniques don't seem to fit you or you don't get better or...? I'm just asking because I found exactly the same up to the point you have described so far and it really surprises me that they couldn't do better. I was told I must be too rigid for CBT but somehow I don't quite agree that it's only me who can't make it work. I found this self-help-book-like low intensity CBT rather upsetting because to explain certain concepts they used examples and these examples were just so far away from any issues I had, in fact I sometimes wished to have the problems these example people had. It's not because I can't do abstract thinking. If a counsellor asks me again and again how something makes me feel, I respond and then she isn't satisfied and tries to find different words for my feelings (which do not fit), then I wonder if she is perhaps too rigid to divert from the questionnaire she must have in her head or to accept answers that don't fit the catalogue of answers she will have in her head too. Or another one told me every week that work is too important for me. Everything that I told her is important to me too didn't count, no idea why, she never explained it. I don't even know what would have counted. Well, if I'm too rigid because I can't stop work being important to me, then is she not just as rigid if she can't stop telling me that it's too important to me (which I think is objectively seen not even true when things at work are fine, but they were everything but fine and therefore I couldn't switch off the (as it turned out totally justified) worry, which perhaps I could have if work wasn't important, but somehow she missed the point). They found me flat and it seemed to irritate them - isn't that a bit rigid too? They could just have decided that this is how I am when we discuss upsetting topics and that's it. Somehow it made me wonder if others do really respond as expected.

I've had a few sessions with a counsellor as part of the ASD assessment now, she has mild ASD herself. No idea if it will help but she is the first counsellor who doesn't constantly get things that I say wrong. She sends me a letter after each session summarizing what was said and I'm absolutely amazed how accurately she describes my feelings. It's just what I've said really, so in a way I would have expected everyone to get it right, but perhaps the others did listen, then interpreted it the way they or some other people would feel and then concluded that I felt the same but couldn't express it adequately (maybe because I'm not a native speaker or so). Guess someone who constantly gets me wrong will never be particularly helpful, so chances may be better this time. 

So to make it short, I totally agree with QuirkyFriend that you need someone who has experience with people with ASD, otherwise they will be busy all the time making you fit into their (rather rigid?) concept instead of developing a concept around you.

Thank you for your reply Oktanol.  I would say more or less everything you have written applies to me too.  In my area the NHS provides CBT but it is very much aimed at people with depression and anxiety.  I do have some depression and anxiety but what I really want is some "life training" on how to negotiate life in a neurotypical world.  My depression and anxiety originate from there...   If that makes sense.  It's the CBT that's rigid, not us... :)

There is a psychological process developed by Eric Berne MD called Transaction Analysis, or T.A., and he wrote a book called GAMES PEOPLE PLAY The Psychology Of Human Relationships ~ which explains all the systematic steps and stages involved with societal behaviour patterns.

G.P.P. was the first book I read when I started studying western psychology twenty six years ago - and I have referred to it continually ever since. One of it's nick-names as a book amongst some psychologically and sociologically inquiring Aspergians is, "The Manual." It was first published in 1964 and it is still not outdated, and CBT was actually in fact adapted from T.A.. The reason for the adaptation was basically that T.A. works according to the patients ability - rather than by the therapeutic stop-watch and funding allowances.  

CBT is itself as a therapeutic process extremely good for pre-adolescents, and pretty good for adolescents, but thereafter decreases in effectiveness for more mature people ~ given that peoples linguistic-synaptic structures become more neurologically fixed and set as time goes on.

CBT deals more with systematic methods of communicating - cognitive dissonance and resonance and so fourth - rather than exploring the experiential mechanisms of personal interactions and social transactions that have proven to be behaviourally counterproductive, productive and neutral. The point of T.A. is to achieve an experientially balanced state of awareness by working with what is there ~ rather than as such with what people imagine should or should not be there.

Basically with C.B.T. it is pretty much how to think, speak and behave appropriately - spot the potential glitch there perhaps with A.S.D.. Of course though, one person's medicine can be another persons poison, so when it comes to any therapy it is important that it  works for the individual - regardless of whether it works for anyone else or not. Obviously the same applies with therapists, in that the most proficient therapist can pretty much make any therapeutic process a really good one.

With G.P.P. being the rules and regulations manual, there is also a modern therapy manual called T A Today A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis, by Ian Stewart and Van Joines ~ so if you are more inclined to working out your own problems in your own way and at your own pace; it is definitely worth considering. Also, T.A. Today (second edition) is the current training manual for becoming a transactional therapist if anyone feels so inclined.

Oh - sorry; do mean the warning was that you bore most people rigid with T.A. talk?

Is it then that you wish to discuss the composition of the Child, Parent and Adult ego-states as being psychological fragmentations - which although having characteristic similarities; they are in fact traumatically divided and suppressive states of mind that are prone to resequencing - i.e. through the sub-conscious, pre-conscious and semi-conscious sub-stratums of conscious awareness? 

I am Aspergian and rigidly fascinated with T.A. ;-) So no boredom is ever possible for me when regarding it as a subject matter.

I am Aspergian and rigidly fascinated with T.A. ;-) So no boredom is ever possible for me when regarding it as a subject matter.

Oh - sorry; do mean the warning was that you bore most people rigid with T.A. talk?

Is it then that you wish to discuss the composition of the Child, Parent and Adult ego-states as being psychological fragmentations - which although having characteristic similarities; they are in fact traumatically divided and suppressive states of mind that are prone to resequencing - i.e. through the sub-conscious, pre-conscious and semi-conscious sub-stratums of conscious awareness?