Therapists’ experiences of the decision to broach unnamed autism in psychotherapy. A narrative analysis.
I’m a student on the MSc Psychotherapy and Counselling programme at the University of Warwick. I would like to invite experienced (3+ years post-qualification) psychotherapists or psychotherapeutic counsellors to participate in my research dissertation project into the experience of working with potentially autistic clients in therapy when that autism hasn’t been named by the client, or psychiatric diagnostic status is unknown.
Psychiatric studies confirm that autistic people have a significantly higher risk of mental and physical health comorbidities, and a lower life expectancy. Guidance issued to medical professionals in the UK advises to hold the potential of autism in mind when working with people, in order that they may understand and better accommodate their needs and differences. In the UK, psychotherapy doesn’t have a diagnostic remit as a profession and therefore there is a lack of research or training around how to recognise whether someone may be neurodivergent or autistic, and what to do when we do identify this potential in our client work. In therapy there is the additional risk of the double-empathy problem, whereby therapeutic work can fail through fundamental differences of expression and experience resulting from the combination of an autistic person with a neurotypical person.
This study seeks to fill this gap in the research literature, by exploring the experience of the decision-making process around broaching perceived difference in neurotype, specifically autism, in therapeutic encounters and the associated experience in the client work following the decision.
I’m seeking up to 6 participants, who will be interviewed via MS Teams. All participants need to be UK-trained and UK-based, and the study is only concerned with psychotherapeutic work with adults.
For further information please see attached Participant Information Leaflet, or contact helen.r.forbes@warwick.ac.uk. The research supervisor is jo.molle@warwick.ac.uk
Please see Participant Information Leaflet here.
Please see consent form here.
Kind regards
Helen Forbes