On Being an Autistic Therapist

This book is about working as autistic counsellors and psychotherapists. It is a collection of stand-alone chapters put together by members of theinternational online collective Autistic Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ACP). It shares their main aims: to tackle the lack of appropriate therapy availableto autistic clients and to challenge the common stereotypes about autisticpeople, which are still very much alive and can bar them both from therapy andtherapy training. But, because thewriters have lived experience of the issues they are working with, they arealso writing about ways of working most effectively and helpfully with autisticpeople. And that is what makes it unique. Each chapter describes both howthe writer perceives and processes the world and how they work withclients. Their stories provide incontrovertible evidence that theexistence of autistic therapists, far from being problematic or even acontradiction, is quite simply normal. And that neurodiversity, just likebiodiversity, enriches, broadens and benefits all. It offers readers - autistic,allistic, therapists and would-be therapists, clients and would-be clients -the chance to meet the contributors and see them as humans, therapists andsupervisors. Their hope is that, in its small way, this collection may givereaders the understanding that they need to join them in changing the world.