Autism and Trauma

If you were to do an internet search for Autism and Trauma, you would get a ton of results.

Many autistic adults have had repeated traumatic experiences. Some of those are emotionally/physically violent - young autistic individuals can be at risk of vulnerable situations. However, more frequently, the traumatic experiences are nonviolent, yet emotionally and mentally crushing.

Traumatic Experiences

• Childhood – autistic children may be punished at school and at home for misbehaving, having temper tantrums, speaking out of turn, saying something hurtful, etc. That itself is not necessarily traumatizing, but what is more harmful is when these children repeatedly try to do better, to no avail. The accumulation of these experiences can teach children that they cannot be successful and further, that maybe they should not even try.

• Friendships – Autistic adults have often had a lifetime of craving relationships, but too often, those relationships end up going away. Similar to their childhood experiences, they may put a lot of energy into trying to do better but not see improvement. The accumulation of these experiences teach them that they will not be able to find anyone they are compatible with and that the only way they can have friendships/relationships is to completely change how they act.  

• Romance – Autistic adults in cross-neurotype relationships can experience perpetuation of the above-mentioned perceptions. When things go wrong in the relationship, the autistic individual may get the sense that they are the one at fault. Even when cross-neurotype partners go to relationship therapy, many have experienced clinicians who indicate that the responsibility lies with the autistic partner to improve the relationship.

  
  

  For example, a couple is in relationship therapy and one of the problems is that Partner A (neurotypical partner) wants Partner B (autistic partner) to go out more often with Partner A and their friends. The therapist will (hopefully!) not say to the autistic partner, “this is your fault, you have to change,” however, the therapist may say to the autistic partner, “what do you think you would need in order to be able to go out more with your partner’s friends?” This question would not necessarily be a bad question if it was in the midst of a larger conversation, but if it the first thing out of the therapist’s mouth, this sends a clear message to Partner B that “the problem and the solution lie with you.”

Therapeutic Assessment and Autism

Although a therapeutic assessment can be helpful for anyone, it is most helpful for autistic individuals who have significant trauma histories.

1.        Therapeutic assessment is collaborative and self-empowering – rather than being one more place where someone is just telling you that something is wrong with you; this process allows you to be a collaborator with the psychologist and your needs/questions are what drive us in a certain direction.

2.        Therapeutic assessment builds compassion – compassion for yourself helps to re-write those harmful perceptions that have built up over the years and compassion within your cross-neurotype relationship helps to re-write the beliefs each of you has and replace them with empathy and understanding.

3.        Therapeutic assessment answers questions, it does not pathologize – rather than thinking about your characteristics as “bad” or “good,” we explore your characteristics just as they are, without valuation, and start to explore alternative choices based on your values/goals.

4.        Therapeutic assessment makes your world bigger instead of smaller – the assessment process and outcome make clear your values and desires, as well as your potential to attain those.

5.        Therapeutic assessment can be a key part of post-traumatic growth – the assessment does not ignore or discount any of your experiences. We explore the perceptions/behaviors/emotions that were the result of your traumatic experiences and honor that part of you in the journey toward transformation.   

This is clearly just a brief overview of some of the traumatic experiences that autistic people can have that lead to certain adaptive behaviors as they age. I encourage you to consider a therapeutic assessment if you would like to be assessed for autism, if you are in a cross-neurotype relationship that is in need of an intervention, or if you are about to embark on therapy and would like to give your clinician a good sense of the goals of therapy.