I’ve been reading a lot about therapies and autism. I know there is strong indication that ABA, in the extremes, could be regarded as emotional mistreatment for autistic people.

I have been trying to find information about CBT applied to autistic children and adolescents, and have mostly come across neutral or positive articles and opinions. Granted, most of those are in publications that share similar views of ABA.

Is there a general consensus or impression on the use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in the treatment of social issues (addiction, social isolation, …) on autistic children and adolescents?

I would appreciate any insight and/or links to articles, opinions, studies, etc.

Thanks!

  • BOMBSMEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    There is research that supports the use of CBT with all populations, including autistics. However, I haven’t really look into the studies’ methodologies to really analyze the validity of it’s claims. We just have to take the word of the authors unless someone wants to break it down for us or I get a special interest for it. Perhaps, when I get this ADHD crap figured out with the new psych, I’ll be able to do it.

    In my personal experience receiving CBT therapy, it can ave some helpful impact. It caused me to become even more aware of my feelings, behaviors, and why I behaved that way in an analytical sense. CBT taught me to assess every single thing I do and why. However, it can also be some gaslighting crap if autism-specific matters aren’t addressed. For example, using CBT, I can insist on overriding my intuition because the facts of the situation don’t match my feelings, so I come up with a different belief to feel different. Thus, it is not helpful in a lot of overwhleming situations that engage hypersensitivity. It’s like I say to myself, “Based on these facts, I shouldn’t feel overwhelmed, so I need to convince myself of that.” It can also be unhelpful in social situations with manipulative people because they alter or misrepresent reality and their intentions, which then results in me overriding healthy boundaries.

    Based on the research at face value and my personal experiences, I think that we could probably benefit from a CBT approach that it tailored specifically to autistics by considering hyper sensitivity, sensation seeking, and modules on social matters that include education and manipulative tactics, because the reality is that as autistics, we are prime targets for manipulative people.

    I have found that psychodynamic and values-oriented therapy have been more helpful for me though. Psychodynamic can be really rough to experience since it involves a lot of emotional processing and is slowwwww. I have thrown up a lot of times going through psychodynamic therapy. Values-oriented therapy was helpful at redesigning my life, but doesn’t address previous experiences, so put together, they were more helpful over all.