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 the international online collective Autistic Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ACP). It shares their main aims: to tackle the lack of appropriate therapy available to autistic clients and to challenge the common stereotypes about autistic people, which are still very much alive and can bar them both from therapy and therapy training. But, because the writers have lived experience of the issues they are working with, they are also writing about ways of working most effectively and helpfully with autistic people. And that is what makes it unique. Each chapter describes both how the writer perceives and processes the world and how they work with clients. Their stories provide incontrovertible evidence that the existence of autistic therapists, far from being problematic or even a contradiction, is quite simply normal. And that neurodiversity, just like biodiversity, 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 and supervisors. Their hope is that, in its small way, this collection may give readers the understanding that they need to join them in changing the world.