Therapy: Symptom Treatment vs Autism Therapy
If you find yourself investigating therapy options for yourself or someone you love, you will probably be overwhelmed by the academic language often used by organizations and offices around you. There are many different types of therapies that have been found to be beneficial by psychologists, but how do you know which one is right for your situation? One of the things to look for is if the treatment program specifically mentions its adaptability for autism or if the practitioner specifically mentions having experience working with autistic people.
Just because an organization does or doesn’t list autism experience, there are still things you need to investigate before committing to an intervention. One question you can ask the therapist is whether they say they focus on autism therapy or symptom treatment. This may not seem like a large difference, but this will reveal a lot about their attitudes towards autistic people. If the therapist says they focus on autism therapy, this should be a red flag because it implies that they see the autism as the root of the person’s struggles. Treating autism is also impossible because it is a condition of the brain.
Therapists who are supportive and inclusive of the autistic community will focus on treating the specific symptoms that are causing the person distress. For example, if a person seeks talk therapy for social anxiety related to autism, the therapist should not focus on making the person act more neurotypical in social situations. Instead, the therapist should work with the client to create a plan to address the behaviors and thought patterns that make the client nervous about social situations and help them come with a plan for navigating potentially tricky socializations.
This attitude will be much more effective in the long run because the client is more involved in the therapeutic planning process and in making their goals fit their lifestyle. Therapists who want to support their autistic clients will address their own inherent ableism and will create therapeutic opportunities for their clients to actually improve their quality of life instead of perpetuating trivial neurotypical standards that are proven to be harmful to their clients.
