I am an adult male, and have Aspergers Syndrome. I am currently suffering depression. I have had two lots of CBT but I do not think it has helped much. What I think I need is a counsellor on a one to one basis to just talk to.
I work part time, as at present that is all I can manage. Can anyone advise me as to where would be a good place to start to find specialist counsellors?
NAS7937 said:Many assessors will read the 'triad of impairments' on Wikipedia and presume you have these, that they describe you and that they are at the root of the problem. The triad is a poor description of autistic people written by those wanting only to pathologise us.
I'll readily agree that the triad is not a good way of describing what people with autism are like. It does not describe their strengths or their abilities and it does not give any sort of impression of what to expect when you meet an autistic person. Autistic people are often identified by their differences - between each other and between them and non autisitc people hence the phrase "when you have met one person with autism you have just met one person with autism".
Equally, you don't define a one legged person by their one leggedness - the one leggedness does not describe their knowledge or state of mind or a thousand other things about them. However, you do not ignore the absence of the leg, you do not imagine that it is irrelevant - actually it would be rude to pay no attention to it. I think we do all have a fundamental problem and I do not think it is a good idea, or healthy for us, to ignore that issue.
NAS7937 said:We don't know that the OP has underlying communication issues. I'm autistic and I don't.
Access to Work will fund the specialist counselling that I linked to above. I know because they funded it for me. Depression can be work-related.
Thanks very much for posting this clovis, has opened up an avenue I thought was a dead end
Random
NAS7937 said:We don't know that the OP has underlying communication issues. I'm autistic and I don't.
The triad of impairments that characterise Asperger's are
People with the condition have difficulties in three main areas. They are:
[Ref: http://www.autism.org.uk/asperger]
So, when I said that the OP had communication issues I was referring to an impaired ability to interact and communicate with other people. People with Asperger's often have very good vocabulary and speech but are unable to get their points across and are unable to see other people's points of view so communication is less effective to the point where it is a real issue. I imagine that SALT for children will aim to make them effective communicators so they would perhaps teach them about listening to others and thinking about others ideas before jumping straight back in with the childs own personal and self oriented views. I was wondering if anyone had had communication training for adults in which turn-taking and listening skills were addressed.
Access to Work will fund the specialist counselling that I linked to above. I know because they funded it for me. Depression can be work-related.
If an autistic person has depression because they have problems at work due to their autism then counselling would be entirely appropriate. I would expect the counsellor to try and resolve the issues of "autism at work" as a route to tackling the depression.
Just a follow up to answer my own question in my last post. I hadn't appreciated the distinctions between the different types of talking therapies so I went looking for clarification and found this
www.nhs.uk/.../Types-of-therapy.aspx
I realised yesterday that we talk a lot about CBT for autistic adults with depression but we don't talk much about training or help with dealing with the world. My understanding of part of the issue is that we get the MH problems because we keep butting heads with the rest of the world and get depressed etc when we keep failing to make ourselves understood. Children with autism are routinely referred for speech and language therapy so that they can make themselves better understood. @Abathur, have you ever had help with the underlying communication issues that autism gives you? Perhaps if this was at least addressed it might relieve some of the conflict (or lack of good interactions with the world) and you might be able to undermine the depression at source.
I am well aware that autism can't be fixed but I am quite sure that we can be educated/trained and helped to have a better path for our lives.
Hi,
I read this post last night as I was looking for the same, particularly funding it from the Access to Work scheme.
I have been checking the Access To Work scheme on google, and as far as I can make out counselling is a type of support worker they do not provide through this scheme
Can anyone clarify ?
Random
I don't think that depression counselling would come under Access to Work. Depression counselling is a health treatment whereas AtW is for employment related issues. There is a difference between being fit, or well enough, for work and having a fair chance of doing a job. AtW gives people who need it a hand-up by providing training or other assistance.
I'm a bit puzzled by the OP's query - was the CBT not provided on a one to one basis or was the problem that the CBT therapist had their own ideas about what each session was going to discuss?
