Therapeutic Adaptations for Autism - and where do you find them?

I have been struck by how many of us on this forum have issues with Mental Health, yet how many say that counselling and CBT etc haven't been much help.  I have to say that getting the right support for my phobias and anxiety was my primary driver in the investigations which lead me to the possibility that I am autistic, and has me on the road to an assessment.  Nothing offered by MH services either helped me or made the slightest sense in relation to what I am actually experiencing.

With that, I've been reading around adaptations of counselling and psychological therapies for autism.  One example is below. Generally these pieces include thoroughly sensible ideas like:

• Ask very specific questions
• Use images
• Adjust the lighting etc
• Allow A LOT more time to understand ideas bottom up through the detail and make connections
• Allow A LOT more time to identify and analyse emotions and sensations
• Don't assume certain behaviours are a mark of lack of co-operation
• Don't assume anything from the patient's body language etc until you check with them
• Don't expect them to be able to talk if in melt down

Personally, I have found NHS general MH services have done more harm than good; I'm in their naughty box because I can't seem to think what they think I ought to think or how they think I ought to think it, or feel what they think I ought to feel.  I feel I've been continually talking at cross purposes with them. They want to know what I think and feel, so I knock myself out to be honest and tell them everything I think I know and understand about my situation, only to be scolded with: "I don't know why you think I need all this detail". I tell them that my mother seems to be suggesting that I rejected her as a tiny baby (I didn't want to be hugged), and they try to pressurise me into saying she must have abused me, which just isn't true. And then I'm thought of as unco-operative for rejecting the premise. I've gone into melt down in there and then been asked "So, what's going on?", when I didn't know and was struggling to speak at all anyway.  My failure to come up with an answer is deemed evidence I don't want to "put the work in".  The list goes on, but looking at it now in hind sight, ALL of the problems with the therapy seem to me like a litany of everything ever that can go wrong in an NT / ND dialogue.

I've been left to figure out what's going on for myself, though as I look back, given the very large number of autistic behaviours I had in there, I'm disappointed the possibility never occurred to any of the professionals I dealt with. - Never mind, it looks like I have the answer now.   

Quite apart from the fact that a failure to diagnose autism would mean that the true cause of anxiety can be missed, it only stands to reason to me that a person who does not process either thought or sensory information in the same way as NTs, won't respond, or respond as well, to therapies designed for them.  I am thus very interested in how therapies can be adapted effectively.  Once over the diagnostic hurdle, I will of course need to find something that does work for me.

So, I am interested to know what other people are being offered and whether it's helpful.  Have you had your frustrations trying to communicate with mental health professionals?  Has anyone made any effort to adapt their practice for you?  What adaptations do they make? Are the specific mental health issues of autism even on the radar of the services in your area?  Where DO you find the right kind of support?

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