My 51 year old therapist mother LOVES Pokemon go

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do not use betterhelp. do not support betterhelp. do not believe betterhelp.

they:

-do not vet their therapists

-forcefully shut down negative commentary

-lie to therapists

-lie to consumers

-trap therapists in exploitative contracts

-sells users data

etc

Since I know a lot of my followers are also LGBTQ+: Pride Counseling is operated by the same company as Better Help, so don’t use them either.

I’ve said this before but–I almost got sucked in to BetterHelp when I was having insurance issues and really needed a therapist to talk me through some stuff. A much better alternative is the nonprofit Open Path Collective. There is an affordable one time lifetime-membership fee (60$), and they determine your rate per appointment on a sliding scale based on your income, where the cap is also 60$ (i paid 60$ and for me that was still affordable at what I made at the time, so the scale is fair) it’s less expensive than better help too tbh.

These are liscenced therapists & mental health councelors who have normal clients, but volunteer their time to take a few reduced-rate clients through the collective. No contract–they usually work for a practice, and open path is just an alternative to insurance. Iirc, better help just assigns you a therapist at semi-random, but through open path you can pick your therapist, look them up online, check reviews ect. The same way you would with a normal therapist found through insurance. They do not sell your info, everything is confidentail, mostly telehealth but can be in-person too–ect ect ect.

I highly recommend anyone looking for affordable therapy options at least look in to Open Path Collective.

this post is good and important. i have a few things to add that may be helpful:

part of going in being prepared to shop around means that if you are the sort of person who feels they have to keep pushing through, or someone who is prone to blaming themselves for any difficulty, you are gonna have to figure out in advance how you are gonna combat those instincts.

It also means that if you are at all reliant or have to answer to anyone else (like a parent) make sure they understand your right and need to opt out of seeing any given therapist for repeat visits. Work this out with this person BEFORE YOU START seeing people.

A lot of people who have never had a negative therapy experience (or were themselves taught that they can’t really have had one because it must be their fault) will try to argue that not liking or feeling uncomfortable with a given therapist is something you have to work through.

Old Freudian thought sometimes (mis)applies the idea of transference in these situations - my father used to claim that any dislike I had of a therapist was a transference issue I had to work through.

Also, shopping around for therapists that actually work can be expensive. Not only does each session cost money, first sessions are often even more expensive. If possible, see if you can ask a few questions via email or over the phone to the person before meeting. Talk with someone who knows a bit about therapy to help you come up with a list of questions you want to ask these people.

The first thing you should ask, either before or at your first session, is if they are willing to answer some questions about your future care for you to see if you think they will be compatible. If they say no, its probably best to leave.

Some questions that might be useful are:

what psychiatric/psychological tools/therapy styles do you use? - most psychs these days will say they are eclectic therapists. Some might say something like “a mix of cognitive behavior and psychodynamic approaches.” Feel free to ask for more detail. What sorts of tools do they take from these different disciplines. As Pip said, its a good idea to know what these different styles are and what you would be comfortable with, even if you don’t know what you think will be the most useful.

how do you handle interactions with family/partners? - this question is incredibly important if you are a minor or if you have less than helpful family who want to be involved in your care. Make sure you fully clarify your expectations and comfort. If you have a complicated situation at home, make sure their response to you explaining that makes you comfortable. If your parent/partner tends to exaggerate or lie etc., make sure you feel like they understand that and know how to work around that.

what do you tend to prioritize in treatment? - some therapists will prioritize life style changes. Some will prioritize mood stabilization. Some will prioritize whatever gets in the way of occupational task (leaving the house, making appointments, etc.) Some will prioritize whatever you feel is the most pressing. 

This question should be followed by:

are you willing to let me prioritize what we focus on? - some therapists have a specific checklist of things they want to work on in a specific order. They often have a good reason for this order, but its generally good to ensure that they are willing to deviate from it if you feel they need to.

For example, I have seen psych professionals who would not move on from my sleep, which has shown no positive reaction to any treatment and is by far not my highest priority. It has stalled my treatment because they wanted to focus on my treatment resistant sleep issues instead of moving on.

are you willing to work with a psychiatrist/not work with a psychiatrist?- figuring out your therapists willingness to work with or without using medication - and with whoever you may end up seeing for that medication, is of utmost importance. If you are not comfortable being on psychiatric medication, make sure you are seeing someone who is okay with that and isn’t gonna keep bringing it up. If you think you might want to try meds, ask about how they deal with that - do they have a single or several psychiatrists they tend to work with regularly? Do they prescribe meds themselves? Are they willing/able to coordinate with whatever medical prescriber you might use?

are you familiar/comfortable treating people with _______ - when asking this question, it is often better to go with symptoms/history than diagnoses

what is your view on self diagnosis - important to ask if you are going to come in with any self diagnoses you want to talk with them about. that said, personally, I think the best response to this is something along the lines of seeing them as important self-reflections and things to look into - its not bad, maybe even good, for a therapist to want to interrogate your self diagnosis. There is a difference between interrogation and dismissing it.

The best psych I’ve had in my entire life was initially dismissive of my self diagnosis of autism but she still helped me schedule testing and then, after reading the official report and talking to the neuropsych tester came around. She was able to understand where her preconception had been wrong and explained why she came to the conclusions she did and what she understood better.

Psych’s are people and the best ones will be honest about that fact.

This question is even more important if you have a developmental/ neuropsychological disorder.

Also, if you have a compounding non-psychiatric disorder - this includes most chronic conditions - ask about it and how they handle that sort of thing.

do you tend to address things on a symptom by symptom bases or work with diagnoses as a whole? – neither answer here is bad, per se - both have the potential to be pitfalls that a lot of therapists fall into - diagnosis based treatments sometimes latch onto one explanation for things and can lose sight of other possibilities or treatments, but symptom based treatment can sometimes fail to see a more systemic problem. This question will effect you most if you have atypical presentations or co-morbid disorders that complicate things.

It is, in my opinion, important for both you and your psych to understand that diagnoses are tools, not hard and fast categories that should dictate who you are, what your symptoms should be, or anything else. Diagnoses are tools to help you find the right treatment or to reflect on your symptoms and behaviors. A psych should understand this, but its often hard to ask this sort of thing directly.

these are just some ideas, not the be all and end all of what you should ask. 

If you have or think you might have any of the more “controversial” disorders in psychiatry, you might want to ask specifically about their opinions on those disorders. Note that you don’t have to agree with them, but that they have to be willing to approach your understand non-dismissively. 

These include: 

personality disorders - honestly some of the best psych people I know find the category extremely problematic and prefer to treat symptoms and not use these labels. They are more than willing to treat someone with those symptoms but they find personality disorder label to be more harmful than helpful - this is a position that is fairly common and there was a a rather large push to get the entire section removed from the DSM 5 and all disorders there in renamed and recategorized.

dissociative disorders: I live in a city with two of the highest ranked, most famous psychological/psychiatric institutions in the country and they have very different views on dissociative disorders. One understands dissociation as primarily a product of anxiety (including trauma) and the other sees it as primarily an issue of identity formation and integration. Both of these views are views of some of the most prominent psych professionals in the country. Neither is entirely correct all the time, so it may be worth while to figure out where they stand on this. Note - some psych professionals still don’t believe in DID as anything other than iatrogenic.

obesity - like any health professionals, psychiatrists may zero in on your weight as something they need to treat or deal with. some psychiatric systems i’ve been in require therapists to address weight if it is outside of the “norm” even if there is no sign of disordered eating and it isn’t causing distress (though some stretch the definition of disordered eating to fit).

i’m sure there are others but that’s what come’s to mind off the top of my head. i hope some of this helps and i’m also always willing to answer questions anyone has.

Wow thank you so much for this addition it’s perfect & I agree 10000%

Anon I hope this is also helpful to you!!!

this post is good and important. i have a few things to add that may be helpful:

part of going in being prepared to shop around means that if you are the sort of person who feels they have to keep pushing through, or someone who is prone to blaming themselves for any difficulty, you are gonna have to figure out in advance how you are gonna combat those instincts.

It also means that if you are at all reliant or have to answer to anyone else (like a parent) make sure they understand your right and need to opt out of seeing any given therapist for repeat visits. Work this out with this person BEFORE YOU START seeing people.

A lot of people who have never had a negative therapy experience (or were themselves taught that they can’t really have had one because it must be their fault) will try to argue that not liking or feeling uncomfortable with a given therapist is something you have to work through.

Old Freudian thought sometimes (mis)applies the idea of transference in these situations - my father used to claim that any dislike I had of a therapist was a transference issue I had to work through.

Also, shopping around for therapists that actually work can be expensive. Not only does each session cost money, first sessions are often even more expensive. If possible, see if you can ask a few questions via email or over the phone to the person before meeting. Talk with someone who knows a bit about therapy to help you come up with a list of questions you want to ask these people.

The first thing you should ask, either before or at your first session, is if they are willing to answer some questions about your future care for you to see if you think they will be compatible. If they say no, its probably best to leave.

Some questions that might be useful are:

what psychiatric/psychological tools/therapy styles do you use? - most psychs these days will say they are eclectic therapists. Some might say something like “a mix of cognitive behavior and psychodynamic approaches.” Feel free to ask for more detail. What sorts of tools do they take from these different disciplines. As Pip said, its a good idea to know what these different styles are and what you would be comfortable with, even if you don’t know what you think will be the most useful.

how do you handle interactions with family/partners? - this question is incredibly important if you are a minor or if you have less than helpful family who want to be involved in your care. Make sure you fully clarify your expectations and comfort. If you have a complicated situation at home, make sure their response to you explaining that makes you comfortable. If your parent/partner tends to exaggerate or lie etc., make sure you feel like they understand that and know how to work around that.

what do you tend to prioritize in treatment? - some therapists will prioritize life style changes. Some will prioritize mood stabilization. Some will prioritize whatever gets in the way of occupational task (leaving the house, making appointments, etc.) Some will prioritize whatever you feel is the most pressing. 

This question should be followed by:

are you willing to let me prioritize what we focus on? - some therapists have a specific checklist of things they want to work on in a specific order. They often have a good reason for this order, but its generally good to ensure that they are willing to deviate from it if you feel they need to.

For example, I have seen psych professionals who would not move on from my sleep, which has shown no positive reaction to any treatment and is by far not my highest priority. It has stalled my treatment because they wanted to focus on my treatment resistant sleep issues instead of moving on.

are you willing to work with a psychiatrist/not work with a psychiatrist?- figuring out your therapists willingness to work with or without using medication - and with whoever you may end up seeing for that medication, is of utmost importance. If you are not comfortable being on psychiatric medication, make sure you are seeing someone who is okay with that and isn’t gonna keep bringing it up. If you think you might want to try meds, ask about how they deal with that - do they have a single or several psychiatrists they tend to work with regularly? Do they prescribe meds themselves? Are they willing/able to coordinate with whatever medical prescriber you might use?

are you familiar/comfortable treating people with _______ - when asking this question, it is often better to go with symptoms/history than diagnoses

what is your view on self diagnosis - important to ask if you are going to come in with any self diagnoses you want to talk with them about. that said, personally, I think the best response to this is something along the lines of seeing them as important self-reflections and things to look into - its not bad, maybe even good, for a therapist to want to interrogate your self diagnosis. There is a difference between interrogation and dismissing it.

The best psych I’ve had in my entire life was initially dismissive of my self diagnosis of autism but she still helped me schedule testing and then, after reading the official report and talking to the neuropsych tester came around. She was able to understand where her preconception had been wrong and explained why she came to the conclusions she did and what she understood better.

Psych’s are people and the best ones will be honest about that fact.

This question is even more important if you have a developmental/ neuropsychological disorder.

Also, if you have a compounding non-psychiatric disorder - this includes most chronic conditions - ask about it and how they handle that sort of thing.

do you tend to address things on a symptom by symptom bases or work with diagnoses as a whole? – neither answer here is bad, per se - both have the potential to be pitfalls that a lot of therapists fall into - diagnosis based treatments sometimes latch onto one explanation for things and can lose sight of other possibilities or treatments, but symptom based treatment can sometimes fail to see a more systemic problem. This question will effect you most if you have atypical presentations or co-morbid disorders that complicate things.

It is, in my opinion, important for both you and your psych to understand that diagnoses are tools, not hard and fast categories that should dictate who you are, what your symptoms should be, or anything else. Diagnoses are tools to help you find the right treatment or to reflect on your symptoms and behaviors. A psych should understand this, but its often hard to ask this sort of thing directly.

these are just some ideas, not the be all and end all of what you should ask. 

If you have or think you might have any of the more “controversial” disorders in psychiatry, you might want to ask specifically about their opinions on those disorders. Note that you don’t have to agree with them, but that they have to be willing to approach your understand non-dismissively. 

These include: 

personality disorders - honestly some of the best psych people I know find the category extremely problematic and prefer to treat symptoms and not use these labels. They are more than willing to treat someone with those symptoms but they find personality disorder label to be more harmful than helpful - this is a position that is fairly common and there was a a rather large push to get the entire section removed from the DSM 5 and all disorders there in renamed and recategorized.

dissociative disorders: I live in a city with two of the highest ranked, most famous psychological/psychiatric institutions in the country and they have very different views on dissociative disorders. One understands dissociation as primarily a product of anxiety (including trauma) and the other sees it as primarily an issue of identity formation and integration. Both of these views are views of some of the most prominent psych professionals in the country. Neither is entirely correct all the time, so it may be worth while to figure out where they stand on this. Note - some psych professionals still don’t believe in DID as anything other than iatrogenic.

obesity - like any health professionals, psychiatrists may zero in on your weight as something they need to treat or deal with. some psychiatric systems i’ve been in require therapists to address weight if it is outside of the “norm” even if there is no sign of disordered eating and it isn’t causing distress (though some stretch the definition of disordered eating to fit).

i’m sure there are others but that’s what come’s to mind off the top of my head. i hope some of this helps and i’m also always willing to answer questions anyone has.

Wow thank you so much for this addition it’s perfect & I agree 10000%

Anon I hope this is also helpful to you!!!

Ending things with a therapist?

realsocialskills said:

I don’t know a good script for this — I bet some of my readers do, and I’m hoping y’all will weigh in.

What I do know is that it’s completely normal to end things with a therapist. People do it all the time, for all kinds of different reasons. You have the right to end therapy, or choose a different therapist, for any reason you want. You don’t owe your current therapist an explanation. 

If you’re working with a good therapist who just happens not to be a good fit for you, it can be helpful to tell them what’s going wrong. Good therapists understand that no therapist is a good fit for every client. Good therapists can often help you find someone else who will be a better fit. (Eg: if the problem is that you need someone with more trauma expertise, someone who has a different gender than your current therapist, someone with more experience working with LGBTQ clients, someone who takes your insurance, or something like that.). So while you’re never *obligated* to give an explanation, if you have a good therapist, it may be advisable. 

But not all therapists are good therapists. Some therapists aren’t very competent, and some therapists behave unethically. If the problem is that you have a bad therapist, giving them an explanation is less likely to help you. Bad therapists aren’t generally very good at helping you to find better therapists. If you’re ending things with a bad therapist, it’s probably better not to get into the reasons too much. You’re not obligated to explain to them what they’re doing wrong as a therapist — they’re responsible for being ethical and professionally competent. It is not your job to teach them how to be a good therapist. 

It’s also not your responsibility to take care of their feelings. If they feel hurt by your decision to end therapy, that’s their problem and not yours. Clients end therapy all the time, for all kinds of reasons. Therapists often have feelings about this — and part of what therapists are trained to do is deal with their own feelings. Feeling hurt about a client’s decision to end therapy is never the client’s problem. If therapists can’t handle that on their own, they’re expected to seek out help — from colleagues or supervisors, not from clients. (Again, not all therapists are good therapists, and some bad therapists do not handle endings appropriately.)

Anyone want to weigh in? If you’ve chosen to end therapy with a particular therapist, how have you had that conversation? What’s worked for you?

You may not be comfortable telling them in-person that you are no longer using them as a therapist, for any number of reasons. You also don’t have to tell them at all, though if it’s likely they’ll become concerned and follow up, it might be good to have a quick reply ready. If you want to tell them, prepare a script and leave a voicemail, email them if that option is available, or if they have a website you could use the contact form. 

Make sure you’ve paid them for all your sessions before leaving, just as a practical matter - it’ll be harder to get in touch once you leave and who enjoys getting and paying bills (not to mention paying bills is difficult executive functioning wise). 

As to what should be in the script, you can tell them a variety of things. Depending on how polite you want to be here is a text-based script: 

“Hi, [therapist name], 

I have decided to move on to [a new therapist, not being in therapy, your practice]. [optionally put reasons here - any of the following may or may not be true. Either way, you could say these things anyway

[For those reasons,] I will not be seeing you again. [optionally request no further contact: There is no need to keep in touch with me, as I do not require further assistance.]

Best,

[your name]

The therapist may ask or pressure you to have a final session after you’ve said you’re leaving (to “wrap things up,” or “for closure,” etc). You do not have to agree to a final session unless you want to. 

psa

you are not morally obligated to see any doctor or therapist, take any medication, go to any hospital, or undergo any treatment for any illness you have

you are not morally obligated even if it’s “for your own good,” even if you have a heavily stigmatized mental illness like schizophrenia or psychosis

anyone who tells you otherwise, does not value your autonomy over your own medical and psychological care

you deserve control over your own care. you have the right to refuse any treatment.

this is a great message but i just want to clarify re the last sentence: you SHOULD have the right to refuse any treatment, and you should not be made to feel difficult or stubborn or selfish for doing so, but legally speaking you do not always have that right. the unfortunate truth is that many people with psychotic disorders are coerced into treatment via forced institutionalization or mandatory outpatient treatment orders. let me stress again: this SHOULD be a right. but it’s not enough to stop at saying that. we need to continue to fight in order to make that freedom of choice a reality

^^^ yes!

Why Triggering Someone Is Not Therapeutic

Because apparently some concern trolls don’t get this: systematic desensitization and flooding are not what you’re doing when you, say, force someone with social anxiety into a social situation (for instance, a party). Here’s why:

Keep reading

What is missing is what happens when you do this sort of thing without the explicit consent and active participation of the participant. Which is to say, if you force someone into therapy they don’t want, you tend to reinforce the issue that you are trying to correct. At best, they simply start internalizing it.

one of the most amazing things that has been said to me in therapy is that self esteem doesn’t exist.

and that floored people and the psych went onto say that what she meant was that self esteem is a concept that actually includes a vast array of things and labelling them all as one thing is really limiting and prevents actual improvement

you could have real strong pride in the things you create and hate your body

you could hate your creations but also want to share them with people

you could not hate yourself at all but not take care of yourself, engage in reckless self endangerment

thats all bundled under ‘self esteem’ but saying ‘i need better self esteem’ doesn’t mean anything

whereas if you say ‘i need to work on ways to keeping myself safe, refusing to act on destructive urges’ or ‘i want to be in a place where i believe compliments trusted people give me’

thats concrete, thats a goal.

having it said in therapy helped a lot of people in my group stop saying ‘i have low self esteem’ and start specifying about the actual issue they have

Wow, that is so, so helpful.

one of the most amazing things that has been said to me in therapy is that self esteem doesn’t exist.

and that floored people and the psych went onto say that what she meant was that self esteem is a concept that actually includes a vast array of things and labelling them all as one thing is really limiting and prevents actual improvement

you could have real strong pride in the things you create and hate your body

you could hate your creations but also want to share them with people

you could not hate yourself at all but not take care of yourself, engage in reckless self endangerment

thats all bundled under ‘self esteem’ but saying ‘i need better self esteem’ doesn’t mean anything

whereas if you say ‘i need to work on ways to keeping myself safe, refusing to act on destructive urges’ or ‘i want to be in a place where i believe compliments trusted people give me’

thats concrete, thats a goal.

having it said in therapy helped a lot of people in my group stop saying ‘i have low self esteem’ and start specifying about the actual issue they have

Wow, that is so, so helpful.

For those who wanna talk to a therapist online for free.

I’ve been needing to talk to a therapist for a while now, and i’m thankful I found a few that I could talk to online for free! So i’m sharing them with you guys, in case you need them. (There’s a girl that asked me for some and i couldnt message her back because something’s up with her ask, so i hope she sees this):

Actual Therapists:

www.talkspace.com

www.7cupsoftea.com

www.teen4help.webs.com

Good listeners to help you:

www.Blahtherapy.com

www.7cupsoftea.com

http://www.thehopeline.com/Chat?tabId=1

http://aplaceforthesoul.tumblr.com/

If anyone knows more sites, please add them! And if you need help with anything, feel free to message me. Thanks for everything <3

I know some followers/friends who could use this info <3

Difficult therapy vs harmful therapy?

I’m not entirely sure (in part because I haven’t had many good experiences with therapy), but here are a few things that I think are good indications:

Attitudes towards pain and suffering

Respect for your autonomy:

Respect for where you are now:

Explaining what’s going on:

My main experiences with good therapy have been from sports medicine stuff. What I noticed:

I’m going to put a trigger warning here just in case, because I know that discussions about ABA can be very triggering for autistic people.  

TW: Ableism, discussion of autism therapy, including a brief mention of aversive therapy (and the JRC)

To start off, here are a few pieces of information so you know where I’m coming from.

So, now you have all the background info you need, let’s talk about what ABA is.  ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis, and is a form of autism therapy.  Wikipedia has this definition:

You can read more about ABA and what it is in theory here, at the Wiki page.  I found it to be fairly accurate. 

ABA for us operates on a positive reinforcement model.  Essentially, it takes place mostly at our dining room table.  The therapist and my daughter sit down and work on a number of previously set programs. The following are some things that they have worked on in the past 8 months:

The thing is that for every child, these things will be different.  Their goals will be different, but the method of teaching is the same.  Where the controversy comes in is the techniques used in punishment.

Our ABA therapists do NOT prevent stimming.  They allow for choices, for breaks (if my daughter says “break, please”), for a few moments of stimming, for play time outside.  We had one ABA therapist who tried to withhold food until she did what the therapist wanted.  She also tried to stop stimming, and I fired her the same day.  

Our therapists do punishment from time to time, but this is after my daughter has done something that is very clearly wrong, such as slap or kick the therapist (without any indication that she was upset/had made some sort of indication that she wanted out of the activity or was upset prior to this - these were unprovoked sorts of attacks).  And the punishment? Time out in her favorite chair for 2 minutes.  Nothing different than what I would do with any child that I taught (when I was a teacher) of the same age.  

Why do we do ABA? Well, part of it is because the school system for autistic kids in this district is terrible, and it’s sort of supplemental education.  Her teacher this year had eight students in the inclusion classroom, 6 of which were autistic.  She wasn’t great with them, and didn’t really know how to handle them, I don’t think. 

We also do ABA in order to help her find productive ways to channel her stimming. If we let her do whatever she wanted, she would tear to shreds every single piece of paper in this house and peel the paint off the walls.  But she has learned alternative methods of stimming that still fulfill her needs without destroying her environment.  She currently uses sturdy pipe cleaners to stim, and so far, it’s working.  She has paper tearing times, too, but we have limits to that, and she must clean up after she’s finished.  

We do not do ABA in order to make her less autistic.  We do ABA to give her the tools to be more successful — with her friends, in school, in life.  It doesn’t get rid of negative behaviors, at least not entirely.  She isn’t treated as though she’s a robot.  But just like any discipline method that parents do, teaching her what is more socially acceptable (like not touching people without their consent, for example) is the goal.  

So, that’s been our experience with ABA.

Is it for everyone? No.  My son will likely not benefit from ABA.  As a child, I wouldn’t have benefited either.  And that’s not because my daughter is more “severe” than me.  It’s because my son and daughter’s educational experiences over the past year have been different.  My son also doesn’t need the special ed classroom as much as my daughter does.  His needs are different, just as my needs are different.  

Now, let me say that I know that we are lucky to have therapists like this.  There are a lot of therapists that are NOT like this, that use aversive therapy (think Judge Rotenberg Center — major trigger warning for aversive therapy and abuse if you click the link). They withhold food, they use horrible abusive techniques in order to force a child to comply.  

There are ABA therapists that use drilling, that basically treat their clients as robots, and expect something specific in return.  

There are ABA therapists who will see themselves as failures if a child remains nonverbal.

There are ABA therapists who will ignore the fact that behavior can be an attempt to communicate.  

I’m not going to sit here and say “well, my daughter’s therapists are nothing like that” and think that’s enough.  The entire industry’s thought processes need to change.  They need to not look at ABA as a way to make autistic people less autistic (and I say people rather than children, not only as a way to be more inclusive, but also because though it’s mostly children, the company we use serves several adults as well).  They need to see that aversive therapy is abusive, and punishments, if they exist, should be extremely limited.  They need to understand that autistic children are not wrong as they are, and that their role is to help them be more successful by being themselves and learning social rules that they may not be aware of (in addition to the academic goals) and learning how to navigate them.  

And regardless of who tells you differently, ABA therapy is not going to “recover” your child from autism.  Because autism is something hard-wired into my brain.  It is as much a part of who I am as the color of my hair.  It colors every part of my existence.  Whether you think that’s a good or a bad thing is a matter of opinion, and well, my own opinion on the matter changes from day to day.  But we all have some sort of challenge in our lives, so I don’t find that a unique perspective as an autistic woman.  

I am. I am. I am.: My thoughts on ABA therapy (and our experience with it)

this is a pretty reasonable discussion on it and I’m glad I got this kind of instruction as a kid instead of the abusive type. social skills/help with executive function/learning alternate stims were all toolsets that have helped me navigate the world greatly, especially since a lot of my stims when i was younger were really bad and injuring to me.

i think the autistic community too often hears about education like this and assumes it’s always meant to stamp the autism out of the person instead of giving them useful tools to navigate the world and gain independence. obviously as ghr noted a lot of aba is abusive but I think that the kind she describes giving to her daughter should be a part of the lives of any autistic who wants it (note the use of “wants it”- consent is still important) and who can handle it. 

Precisely! I agree with the bolded especially.  I got a lot of praise from allistic parents in my local community when we (as a family) decided to try ABA, while at the same time receiving a lot of skepticism from my autistic friends.  To be fair, there are two major companies that provide ABA here in my local area.  One is very rigid and aims to make an autistic child less autistic, and the other is newer and is the one we’re using, and has been less like that.

I think that ABA can be helpful, if a person wants it.  I think that it needs to be closely monitored, and I absolutely do not think that it’s something that should happen where a parent is not present at all times (unless that’s unavoidable or it’s built into the child’s education, where a parent can drop by at any time in order to check up on the environment).  And obviously, ask lots of questions.  We didn’t know much about ABA at the beginning.  But I researched (as I do with just about every decision I make) and found out some pros and cons and asked questions like “how do you deal with stimming?”, “what is your aim as an ABA therapist?” and “What is your personal goal for my child’s progress?”  These answers are often very telling as to the therapist’s approach.

I want all ABA therapy to be good.  I do.  I want it to be one of the options a person can choose if they want to work on social and academic skills.  My daughter actually was very upset at the beginning of the school year because she was having trouble with some girls in her mainstream classroom.  Turns it out was because she was playing with their hair and they didn’t like it, and they weren’t really clear about her needing to stop.  So my husband and I discussed it, I discussed it with her teacher and her SLP/OT at school and got as much input from her as possible, and decided that hey, maybe we should at least give ABA a shot.  And you know, now she has some very good friends who like her a whole lot, she knows some more social rules in playing with the neighborhood kids (our therapist takes her out to just play with some of the neighborhood kids a good 30-40% of the time they have together each week), and her academics are above average (she’s doing math at the level of someone who has just completed 1st grade).  

My stance on ABA is this: that it should be used as a teaching method, for children and people who learn in that manner, and in a respectful way of a person's communication and needs.  If it doesn't work for the person, then it shouldn't be used, and a different teaching method should be tried. 

Decompensation is better than "regression"; more accurate a term and, I don't know, less stigma/negative feels about.   I need to use this more.  Thanks Luka, for teaching me a new word! Same reasons as you, things just fall apart for no reason at times and I kick myself trying to pull myself back together. I always had wondered whether regression was the right word for it, since I didn't stay "regressed" and didn't need to relearn skills, but just needed some help to pick up all the pieces and get myself back together again. 

Also, I recommend reading this: "Help! I Seem to Be Getting More Autistic!" on autistics.org

theskinofourteeth:

Screams, Slaps & Love A surprising, shocking treatment helps far-gone mental cripples

This is ABA, and we will never forget, never EVER forget where it came from.  We will never forget what it does to children, teens and adults.  We will never forget, and we will not rest until ABA is merely a term in the history textbooks of abuses against autistic people.