Considerations for Autistic Clients in Trauma Therapy

First and foremost:

Learn from Autistic people about Autism.

1.Seek out books, podcasts, blogs, interviews, research (yeah, there are tons of Autistic researchers), etc. made by us about us.

2. Learn about our neurology and physiology and how this impacts our experiences.

3. We often have interception differences, which impacts the ability to recognize internal physical sensation.

If a client is unable to connect to how their stomach feels or if their jaw is tight, certain somatic exercises probably aren't going to help in the way we were trained to expect.

This requires modification.

4. We are more likely to experience Alexithymia (a difference in recognizing and/or experiencing emotions).

If someone genuinely doesn't know how they are feeling and is unable to connect with that in any way that's helpful or realistic for the client, being asked to identify and name emotions is not helpful in the way we were trained.

Again, needs modification.

5. We do not "habituate" to exposure in the way non-Autistic people can.

Exposure therapy can be physically and emotionally distressing and may cause more problems than it helps.

There are modifications which can be made for some of us - others may need entirely different options for therapy.

(And that's okay).

6. We have more synapses in our brains than non-Autistic peopke due to Autism being a genetic coding which causes our brains to undergo the synaptic pruning processes differently.

Because of this we may have up to 80% more synapses in our brains than our non-Autistic peers. This can be a source of “obsessional" thought processes as well as intensity of thought and other experiences.

7. Some of us have hyper visual minds where we can "see" intense detail in our mind.

Some of us have no visuals in our minds whatsoever.

Some of us are in between.

A lot of trauma therapy relies on visualizing things - this is not accessible to all of us and may need accommodation.

8. We have unique needs which are common to our neurotype such as: need for routine, need to know what to expect, needing to know ahead of time of any changes to have time to adapt, sensory needs, etc.

We all have different sets of needs, however an understanding of Autism and collaborating with each client on what they experience as an Autistic person and how these need to be accommodated is necessary.

There are far too many considerations I have in mind to share in a single blog post, so this serves as an introduction and will be an ongoing topic as it's incredibly important for Autistic people to have truly Autistic Trauma Informed and Sensitive therapy available to us.

The image selected for this post which appears on the previous page and in social media links of this blog are a part of HikiApp project with Getty Images where they brought Autistic photographers and models together to more accurately represent Autism in adulthood in stock images. To learn more please visit: hikiapp.com/gettyimages
Model pictured: Paff (they/she) is an Autistic writer, creator and public speaker who runs @thisispaff and is the co-founder of @takeupspacehq