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How do you find talking to therapists?

Oran G. Utan

For about maybe seven months now, I've been using BetterHelp for private therapy. I can't say I've found there to be any progress, though I'm not sure I'm going in with the right expectations. My therapist tries to get me to reframe my thoughts. Use less negative language, try to imagine more positive outcomes to situations, that sort of thing. "What would it be like..." is her common language for this. To which my response is often along the lines of "Well that would be unrealistic because xyz". She also tends to point out my "yets" as hopeful, despite my assurance that it's just to avoid an absolute statement. I can't tell if I'm being too rigid and set in my ways, if her approach is ill effective for autism, or a bit of both.

For anyone that uses a therapist, how do you find your engagements with them?

Parents

  • I was about to create a similar thread when I found you beat me to it.

    I was in therapy before my diagnosis. Remotely delivered CBT therapy provided by my work. It was dreadful. It was basically me spending an hour every week being told I'm wrong about everything and need to try harder. It was gaslighting and I think it damaged my self esteem.

    I later spent six months seeing a "person centred therapist". That started a few months before my autism diagnosis and ended a few months after. She was lovely and it was nice talking to her, but all she did was listen. She didn't offer any help, guidance, advice. Any random person could have done that and charged a lot less.

    And for the last couple of months I've been seeing a coach instead (something a few people on here have talked about). I have one session left. And it's led nowhere. Again, no real help or guidance that wasn't completely obvious or freely available with a simple google search.

    It is possible I have been unlucky three times, but I now feel that therapy is just a racket that unskilled people use to extract large sums of money from vulnerable people.

    I'd love to be told I'm wrong.

  • in reply to Deleted User
    Deleted User said:
    She didn't offer any help, guidance, advice.

    This is the way therapists are trained - for meaningful breakthroughs they need to guide you to make your own discoveries / revalations otherwise the process is quite disempowering.

    There is a good article explaining this here:

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/relationship-and-trauma-insights/202212/why-your-therapist-isnt-giving-you-direct-advice

    In your shoes I would be looking to find out why I cannot get to reach the understanding when guided - there may be something blocking your self reflection (self sabotage perhaps) so I would put some effort into unpacking this as it may help you connect with the normal processes in the end.

  • in reply to Iain

    I can see how CBT could help some people, but the way it was administered was very algorithmic and didn't involve any listening on the part of the therapist. The goal of identifying and changing self limiting beliefs and behaviours makes sense but it has to take into account specific challenges individual patients may have, and this includes taking account of the impact of autism (and ADD in my case). The therapist really just had a checklist she was working through and displayed no obvious understanding of mental health issues (or basic empathy). I have since read that CBT doesn't work for most autists.

    The person centred therapist, nice as she was, didn't help guide me toward anything. Each session was basically her saying "what would you like to talk about today?" and then me rambling for an hour.

    This is why I thought a coach might be a better option for me.

  • in reply to Iain

    To be fair to the original therapist, she was a “CBT therapist” assigned by company’s health provider and didn’t claim to be anything else. This was before I knew I was autistic too.

    The coach is AuDHD herself, but is just a bit underwhelming.

    When I was researching coaches I also interviewed a neurodivergent counsellor who I thought seemed insightful. I think I will get in touch with her again in the new year and have one last shot at this.

  • in reply to Deleted User
    Deleted User said:
    The therapist really just had a checklist she was working through and displayed no obvious understanding of mental health issues (or basic empathy).

    Sounds like it would be better to interview the therapist before engaging with them and try to get a good feel for their qualifications and - more importantly - experience of working with autists.

    The fact your therapist was suggesting CBT would be a red flag for me - if they knew much about working with autists then they would know we do not typically have success with CBT due to the way we think.

    Deleted User said:
    This is why I thought a coach might be a better option for me.

    Does the coach have a solid understanding of autism? Without this they are likely to bring different problems and you have the added disadvantage of being disempowered by being given guidance without the understanding behind them.

    If it works for you then good luck.

Reply
  • in reply to Deleted User
    Deleted User said:
    The therapist really just had a checklist she was working through and displayed no obvious understanding of mental health issues (or basic empathy).

    Sounds like it would be better to interview the therapist before engaging with them and try to get a good feel for their qualifications and - more importantly - experience of working with autists.

    The fact your therapist was suggesting CBT would be a red flag for me - if they knew much about working with autists then they would know we do not typically have success with CBT due to the way we think.

    Deleted User said:
    This is why I thought a coach might be a better option for me.

    Does the coach have a solid understanding of autism? Without this they are likely to bring different problems and you have the added disadvantage of being disempowered by being given guidance without the understanding behind them.

    If it works for you then good luck.

Children
  • in reply to Iain

    To be fair to the original therapist, she was a “CBT therapist” assigned by company’s health provider and didn’t claim to be anything else. This was before I knew I was autistic too.

    The coach is AuDHD herself, but is just a bit underwhelming.

    When I was researching coaches I also interviewed a neurodivergent counsellor who I thought seemed insightful. I think I will get in touch with her again in the new year and have one last shot at this.