ASPIE launch - embracing diversity Pt 1.

Well the launch day was great! About 30 - 40 people turned up to Rutland House on the Tything in Worcester yesterday. The rooms were open between 1 and 9pm with ASPIE organisers - especially well organised by Julia and Sarah - working their socks off to make sure people were shown around, completed questionnaires, ate plenty of the mound of Marks and Spencer sandwiches and cakes and generally made to feel very welcome. John sat on the door to make sure anyone hanging around looking vague outside knew where to come into and did a fabulous job of making everyone welcome.

Julia and Sarah must have spoken at length to every single person who came in - there was absolutely no way that anyone was going to feel out of place or uncomfortable here! Bill - well Bill was just Bill - probably the most calm, likeable and approachable man anywhere (is it because he is a psychologist or is it because he's Aussie? - or both!) Michael, Mike, Linda, Jon, David, Glen and Liane (Sam chickened out - sorry - had an assignment to complete (actually he really did have an assignment to complete pretty quickly and thoroughly)) also popped in, out and hung around to talk to as many people as possible and try to find out just what they would like from a social support group for adults with Asperger's Syndrome and Higher Functioning Autism.

People with Asperger Syndrome turned up either alone or with parents/facilitators in tow to have their say on this new project to make sure as many people as possible get what they need, professionals and councillors came to find out what it was all about, support workers looked in and Jenny from Make Time Friendship Group arrived to talk to us about her valuable experiences in setting up a support and social group for people who are lonely and alone.

The questionnaires elicited some useful information about what Aspies wanted - whether it was confidence building, learning social skills, assertiveness training or just having a safe place to 'hang out' and not have to 'pretend to be normal'.

What was particularly noticeable with the number of people who came for a chat was the general diversity between people known, and not yet known (!), to have AS, and the calm acceptance and appreciation of everyone, of each other, who walked through the door.

And a joke I must share from Phil - who doesn't have OCD but CDO - because it has to be in alphabetical order :-) .... Perhaps you have to be an Aspie!

So ... ASPIE is open every Wednesday for adults with AS. Look forward to meeting you there!

Finding a Counsellor Pt 3 The first appointment

The Process.

Often your first appointment will be considered to be an assessment (for both of you) and will not be charged for. This is the time you get to decide if this particular counsellor or form of counselling is for you. Counselling is an extremely personal experience. If you don’t feel comfortable then you do not need to book a second appointment and it will have given you an idea at least of what does and doesn’t work for you. Some counsellors, especially those who work online and so need to be paid before counselling begins, will offer discounts for block booking appointments, working with you to determine how many will be best for you at any one time. Usually counselling will be weekly for a counselling hour (50 minutes!) so there is consistency, and will be planned for blocks of between 4 – 8 weeks at which point there will be a review with you to determine either how to end or to continue.

The first appointment also gives you both the opportunity to reach an agreement for your counselling. This involves times, places, costs and confidentiality, but also many other issues which are best understood between you in the beginning to ensure you can have complete confidence in your counsellor and counselling and feels safe and secure in what may become a vulnerable process. All qualified counsellors follow a professional code of ethical conduct from their governing body to ensure your best interests at all times.

You will also have the opportunity to talk about what has led to counselling in the first place and what you would like to achieve from it. You might have goals already in your mind, it might all be too much or a bit vague and you just need to talk to work out where you are and where you are going. Your counselling will listen and work with you in the best ways possible to make sure you get there!

Endings are as vital a part of counselling as beginnings. They are often things we do not do well and are a struggle and stressor in life. Avoidance is not an ending and therefore is not something we learn from for the future. Learning to cope with endings and having the opportunity to experience this in counselling should be valued and made good use of. Therefore, it is important to be involved in reviews and plan endings carefully.

Good luck, find the way to be the best you can, and remember – every moment is an opportunity for change!

Finding a Counsellor

Finding a counsellor.

Be aware that the first person you speak to may still not be the counsellor for you – then again they just might be! Just be sure that they are qualified and have experience in the areas you need to reflect on and deal with. The best way to do this is to look at their qualifications and professional memberships In the UK – MBACP, MUKCP, MBPsS C Psychol. You can ensure their qualifications in counselling and psychotherapy are genuine by using the Find a Therapist listings on the professional websites or using directories, such as Counselling Directory, that only list therapists that have had their credentials professionally accredited. If they claim to have a speciality ask just what their experience is in this area. Don’t rely on a short course qualification.

It is possible to get counselling help from GPs or charity organisations such as Mind. The counsellors will be qualified and properly supervised and the counselling will be free. The down side is that there are often long waiting lists, the counselling model (explained later) may not suit you or your issues and may be of very short and infrequent duration. Be very wary of online sites that offer free counselling – they are probably unqualified, at best willing listeners, and may do more harm than good.

Telephone and online directories can give you listings and details of counsellors you can meet face to face at their office or your home or, as becoming more frequent, online through Skype, MSN or e-mail. Online counselling gives you the opportunity to stay in the comfort of your own home and have a far more flexible arrangement regarding times and access to your counsellor. Like any investment or purchase, it pays to do some research. You may find a counsellor by word of mouth or by the endorsements of others on their websites and listings. This will also give you an opportunity to find the model of counselling that will suit you best. Most counsellors will work to a basic model but will adapt and combine their methods to ensure that you get whatever is most effective for you.

All counsellors will ensure confidentiality (with some exceptions which are legally necessary), empathy and a non-judgemental approach. In addition they may offer approaches which are more directive, such as C.B.T. or solution-focussed, and which are usually of fairly short duration. The approach may be non-directive, such as longer term Psychodynamic counselling, or more creative when it is difficult to find what and how you need to say what is important to you. There are many different models and many different combinations. There will be something that works for you!

Counselling, like anything that is worthwhile, has an associated cost. All those well trained and experienced counsellors who will do their best in working with you have had years of paying for that education and training themselves, often gaining many counselling hours of experience in unpaid positions, while also trying to keep their own homes and families. They then have the cost of continual professional and personal development (yes – they have to have counselling too), supervision to ensure the work they do with you is of the highest professional standards, on-going training, professional memberships, personal insurance and maintenance of a private practice and business. If counselling is offered free (unless through NHS, charity or approved agency and funded by other grants) then these things are probably not in place.

Most counsellors will list their costs per counselling hour on their website or directory listing and it will usually be comparable with others in their geographical area and level of expertise.

Remember that your mental health and your ability to function effectively every day is as important as your physical health - they may even be very closely related.

What is Counselling and what will it do for me? Part 1

We all have times where things always seem to be problems and difficulties, times when we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, and yes, often we bide those times and see it through to the other end. Sometimes, though, we feel we are so bogged down with more and more things that we think we have to cope with that it can eventually be a much smaller thing that is the one stressor too many and we become stuck.

This is where counselling can help.

What is counselling?

Counselling is a collaborative process between a counsellor and client to help an individual take effective control of their life. It involves talking and being listened to and really heard and understood; honesty and objectivity but never judgement or advice; and respect for the thoughts, feelings and concerns that are important to you. It offers the opportunity to say, confidentially, things that you may not wish to say to those who are close to you, and perhaps had not even considered admitting to yourself, allowing for a new openness to future personal development and coping. It can be a bit like looking at yourself in a mirror with a fresh pair of eyes that see things differently.

A counsellor will help you, through reflection, to examine patterns of behaviour and beliefs, to prioritise and throw new perspectives on situations that help to improve your resilience to future problems and life events. You will have the opportunity to carefully consider and appreciate your current skills and strengths and learn to build on these to enhance self-esteem, confidence and coping mechanisms. – And you will never be alone.

People seek counselling for many reasons. Bereavement may leave you feeling lost, unable to cope and not wishing to burden other people with your grief; depression can feel like a black pit out of which you cannot climb, anxiety and stress may leave you unable to function effectively, daily feeling ill, traumatised and unable to juggle all life or work constantly throws at you; low self esteem may make you unwilling to socialise and seek out other people, make you feel inadequate and unable to find and follow the life that would make you happy. You may not even know what it is that brings you to counselling – there is just a need for someone else to help you.

In Part 2 tomorrow we will consider how to find the best counsellor and counselling for you.

This is my brain, it's not perfect, but it's mine (courtesy of Mr Tim Minchin)

Last Night I watched the remarkably talented Tim Minchin and I cannot remember when I last laughed so much. His DVDs have just been added to my Amazon wish list.

I noticed, early on in his act a mention about Autism (I think it might have been having Autistic fingers or something). Anyway, I stopped noticing in the light of all the other things he talked about. However, today I discovered that one of his songs (Drinking White Wine in the Sun) has profits going to the National Autistic Society. I also discovered that he (like me) is connected on Twitter to the National Autistic Society, which got me thinking again. I wonder (nosily, but also with genuine interest) what his connection to Autism might be. Given his musical talent I wonder also if he lives in a world of maths and patterns linking with his music.

This occurred to me when I was thinking about how people learn and how people with Autism specifically think and so learn. Most people are mixed but are aware that they learn better through visual, aural or kinaesthetic methods. This can be a bit more profound when Autism is thrown into the mix.

I am a visual thinker, as is my son - we think in pictures. My husband seems to be a fairly equal mix of all thinking styles (lucky him ! ). A visual thinker tends to work kinaesthetically, needing to build things (like Lego) to see the result. They like things to be 'hands on'. They are fine with concrete maths but find great difficulty with more abstract concepts like algebra. Also, my spacial awareness - distance, speed, direction, scale - has to be seen to be believed (just how BAD it is !) They may also appear to think slowly because they actually have to translate what is said to them and then translate it back into a language they know others will understand. Pattern matching is difficult so almost everything has to be relearned from scratch. Being visual thinkers though there is often and appreciation of (me) if not a talent for (my son and my husband) art - and the world can be a beautiful place.

Those who think in terms of music, maths and patterns manage to find relationships between things everywhere. Musical talent is often self taught and they can see associations between, for example, numbers and musical notes. They might be able to play a piece of music after only hearing it once and may be on the savant side of calculation ability. You might also see the connection here as to why when it comes to either hearing music or doing accounts my husband looks at me blankly, unable to comprehend why I can't 'see' what he can understand so clearly.

Verbal thinkers are those that memorise everything. They may read voraciously, they understand statistics, they make and memorise lists, they may very quickly learn foreign languages (and I wonder how many actors use these skills for learning scripts) - and everything is remembered. I wish !

Where I am going with this is general thinking about ASD. There are as many different traits, ways of thinking and means of learning in people with ASD as there are in the general population. Often we read about Autism and the 'disorder' the triad of 'impairments' the 'disability'. I believe what we have just looked at is in fact wonderful ability. If we consider more carefully I'm sure we can all see ways of thinking above that apply to us. I've already described mine, my husband's and my son's (I don't have a diagnosis of AS and neither does my husband but my son does). What we should be focussing on then is not what we can't do, what we have difficulty with - but what we CAN do, and in many cases are very, very talented.

We should offer all opportunities possible to increase the richness of thinking and learning, stretch the boundaries (often painful but very necessary in ASD) to further the skills in those that are done well and experience those that can be done better, and recognise unique abilities.

Mr Minchin finished the gig I watched with a song which was actually very poignant. I will just leave you with the lyrics of the last verse to consider -

This is my brain
And I live in it
It’s made of love
And bad song lyrics
It’s tucked away behind my eyes
Where all my screwed up thoughts can hide
Cos God forbid I hurt somebody
And the weirdest thing about a mind
Is that every answer that you find
Is the basis of a brand new cliché

This is my brain
And it’s fine
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time
It’s not perfect
But it’s mine
It’s not perfect
I’m not quite sure I’ve worked out how to work it
It’s not perfect
But it’s mine