This short workshop will explore the experience of being autistic, autistic people’s experiences of therapy, and implications for practice. While this training will focus on autism, we believe its content is also relevant to working with other neurodivergent people, and also generally helpful for working with all clients.

Autistic people often experience more mental health difficulties than non-autistic people, but talk therapies can often present their own challenges when they are not adapted to autistic ways of being. Autistic people report feeling misunderstood, disbelieved, and unable to access talk therapies, yet those who have been able to access appropriate support talk about the value they can bring.

Sonny and Colin are both autistic counsellors with extensive experience in working with autistic people, and in counselling for trauma, respectively. They will briefly summarise the findings from their research project into autistic people’s experiences of talk therapies, and use this as a starting point for looking at how counsellors might gain a better understanding of autism and neurodiversity, how we might adapt our practices, and work more effectively with autistic clients. They will also talk a little about their experiences as neurodivergent therapists.

This workshop is designed as an introduction to the topic, with more in-depth sessions on specific issues around autism and neurodiversity planned throughout the year, on topics such as trauma, stuckness, and interpersonal relationships.

This workshop has a limited number of places to allow for more interaction and discussion.

Attendees to this event will receive priority booking to our upcoming in-depth CPD on working with autistic clients with trauma.

For more information on autism, mental health, counselling, and the workshop facilitators, visit:

www.autisticmentalhealth.uk

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Number of tickets available: 18

Time: 2.5hrs 10am-12.30pm with fifteen min break (rolled into middle breakout session)

Format: Presentation, group discussion and breakouts

Participants will also receive resource links and a CPD certificate

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Structure:

- Neurodiversity and neurodivergence

- Autism

- Autism and mental health (and other co-occurring conditions)

- Challenges that come up in counselling

- Accessibility

- Communication and connection

- Q&A and discussion