What is the explanation for the lack of engagement with ASD from Talking Therapies and Mind?

[AnthonyH.]

Can someone explain to me why Talking Therapies and Mind are so very poor in relation to engaging with Autism and helping people? Why are they so useless?

Talking Therapies refuses to help, says no help is needed, that so much help is needed they can't do it, that people with ASD won't do what they want, etc.

MIND say they might help, but can only tackle minor issues, can't be practical, that therapy can't help and in any case they can't advise anyone on the future.

They both have a million excuses pre-booked before you even start.

This is not indifference. It is aggressive and excuse-making. It is also not good enough.

 

[Joeys]

Can someone explain to me why Talking Therapies and Mind are so very poor in relation to engaging with Autism and helping people? Why are they so useless?

Talking Therapies refuses to help, says no help is needed, that so much help is needed they can't do it, that people with ASD won't do what they want, etc.

MIND say they might help, but can only tackle minor issues, can't be practical, that therapy can't help and in any case they can't advise anyone on the future.

They both have a million excuses pre-booked before you even start.

This is not indifference. It is aggressive and excuse-making. It is also not good enough.

I had to walk around the room for a bit to get rid of the swear words I would have used before I sat down?! The only experience a friend of mine had was she had CBT / talking therapies but she requested a therapist who specialized in Adult Autism. She waited a lot longer and some boroughs don't even have the option. I'm very surprised at MIND, charity or not they are well established. Did they signpost you to the Autistic equivalent? Nope because there isn't one. So does that mean mental health and neurodivergence are treated separately now? Which is mad as a lot of conditions such as anxiety, depression, OCD are what we suffer from cooccurring or as a result of not coping or knowing we are autistic? Sorry you've hit a couple of walls. Maybe as the MODs here they are helpful. Sorry I cant be more help.

 

[Chill-E]

Yes Talking Therapies will try to question why you've approached them as they largely only offer short term CBT (largely unadapted) which probably won't provide you with much help long term, if any and possibly be counterproductive

 

[MadCatLady]

Can someone explain to me why Talking Therapies and Mind are so very poor in relation to engaging with Autism and helping people? Why are they so useless?

Talking Therapies refuses to help, says no help is needed, that so much help is needed they can't do it, that people with ASD won't do what they want, etc.

MIND say they might help, but can only tackle minor issues, can't be practical, that therapy can't help and in any case they can't advise anyone on the future.

They both have a million excuses pre-booked before you even start.

This is not indifference. It is aggressive and excuse-making. It is also not good enough.

I can't comment on Mind, but Talking Therapies seems to be aimed at people with minimal issues and no complexity. I wanted help with CPTSD and managed to get escalated to the trauma team only to be told that because I was complex, I was out of scope. I had no idea I was autistic at the time and to be fair I was assessed by 2 different therapists and neither identified neurodiversity either. I was having terrible anxiety attacks with volcanic levels of anxiety appearing to come out of nowhere. The therapist thought she could manage this with CBT without having any idea what was causing it. I instinctively knew this wouldn't work and got my GP to escalate me up to the community mental health team. They identified autism I've been told standard CBT doesn't work with most autistics because our issues are caused by sensory overload etc, not our thoughts and secondly many autistics have alexythymia so struggle to identify what they are feeling. The CMHT seem to think the answer to all my issues is an autism diagnosis and are only offering a support group made up of other neurodiverse woman also rejected by talking therapies, but not any therapy. Neither my GP or the CMHT person running the group are very complementary about Talking Therapies. It's really not good enough that the NHS fails to provide any help for autistic adults. We need more organisations like NDSA and much better advocacy for ND people. So much focus is on children and their parents, not those of us who have spent years masking and trying to survive.