Clarkson

I appreciate this is an old post. But hey it's still posted so I will respond. Hypnotherapy can be effective with individuals with AS, but many hypnotherapists tend to use metaphorical scripts (and we know individuals with AS can have difficulty with figurative speech) and strategically use eye contact (and we know that some indviduals with AS can find eye contact anxiety generating). Please ensure any hypnotherapist has first hand experience of communicating with individuals with AS and preferably has some academic and/or professional qualification that is autism related. Also please, please read the following advice for choosing a hypnotherapist: Choosing a therapist Is the therapist: 1. appropriately qualified and experienced? Your therapist should have qualifications and experience that satisfy the criteria of practitioner membership with an appropriate Professional Association. What constitutes an appropriate Professional Association is outlined below in question 4. It is reasonable for you to request to see copies of your therapist’s qualifications. Your therapist should be quite happy to arrange this for you. 2. engaging in effective ongoing professional development? It is important that your therapist keeps up to date with new developments in their core therapeutic discipline and continues to expand their toolbox of broader therapeutic techniques. It is quite reasonable for you to ask your therapist what courses, workshops and research they have been involved in during the previous year(s) 3. subject to appropriate clinical supervision? Your therapist must be clinically supervised. Clinical supervision is where your therapist has their professional competence and emotional wellbeing monitored, by a suitably experienced clinician, to ensure that you receive effective therapy. 4. a member of an appropriate Professional Association? One of the most important factors in choosing a therapist is ensuring that your therapist belongs to a reputable Professional Association. Your therapist should be able to provide you with a currently valid certificate that provides evidence of such membership. There are many Professional Associations and they vary greatly in how rigorously they monitor their members. The best Professional Associations will require that their members have undertaken approved/recognised qualifications; are undertaking a specified amount of ongoing professional development and clinical supervision and abide strictly to a professional ethical code. The list below offers some examples of Professional Associations which have a rigorous membership criteria and ethical code: • The General Hypnotherapy Register • The British Association of Therapeutical Hypnotherapists • The Hypnotherapy Society This is just a small sample of reputable associations and you may find www.hypnotherapyregulation.co.uk useful in assisting you to identify others. 5. registered with the Information Commissioners Office? Your therapist will be keeping case notes of your sessions. They must keep these notes securely and confidentially. Due to the personal nature of case notes your therapist must be registered with the Information Commissioners Office and adhere to their standards. The Information Commissioner’s Office is the UK’s independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals 6. professionally insured? Your therapist should be professionally insured and it is reasonable for you to request to see their certificate of insurance. 7. treating you in a venue that is fit for purpose? Different clients prefer different venues. Some can have a preference for the clinical feel of an office in a surgery; some can have a preference for a more informal domestic environment. Whether the venue is a clinic or a private domestic residence it should be fit for purpose. Is the venue clean and welcoming? Is it relatively quiet? Is there safe, easy to use parking on site or nearby? Does it feel right? 8. charging a reasonable fee? Nationally you can expect to pay between £50 and £100 per session. This will reflect factors such as the therapist’s experience, the local economic market and the therapist’s business costs. You may find some therapists charge fees outside of this range. If a therapist charges under this range it not necessarily a refection of the quality of service. Some ‘low fee’ therapists can, and do, provide excellent treatment and their low fees may simply reflect low market place pressure, low running costs and/or philanthropic business motives. You should only expect to pay over this range where the therapist has a high degree of competency in a specialist area and/or is a particularly renowned therapist. You may have noted that some therapists charge significantly more for smoking cessation session sessions and often claim justification for these fees with 90%+ success rates. Independent research, however, suggests that a realistic success rate for hypnotherapeutic smoking cessation ranges between 30-40% which makes the justification for ‘marking up’ the smoking cessation fees questionable. The good news is that with a little shopping around you should be able to find an effective therapist who will provide smoking cessation therapy at fees within the range identified above. 9. business like? In addition to being treated as a clinical client you should expect to be treated as a valued customer. Do your emails get answered within 48hours? Are staff courteous and helpful? Are any concerns you have about the service dealt with efficiently? 10. easy to have a rapport with? Finally, therapy is most effective when there is a good relationship between the therapist and the client. Your therapist should be a good listener, treat you with respect and be approachable. Do they seem like someone who is easy to get on with and whom you feel you can trust? Remember that hypnotherapy tends to be a short term therapy and there will be little time to repair a therapeutic relationship that does not start off well. Hope this is helpful for any members looking for hypnotherapy for an individual with AS Kind regards Stephen

Hi Lizzie. Interesting question. Is there a lower age limit at which point it isn't so effective? I have never heard a particular lower age or developmental point cited. Different professionals are likely to have their own criteria. IQ can be relevant. And so can 'demand avoidance'. I would also add a lot of the time the most important factor in any therapy (and this is research proven) is the relationship between the therapist and client...rather than the type of therapy per se. My experience is that if a child on the spectrum does not very quickly trust and accept the therapist the outlook for a good therapeutic alliance is not so good. And sometimes the best therapist is actually the carer. I have currently been reflecting on the potential of coaching parents to facilitate CBT to their own children. I am aware some parents have implemented their own programmes based on the self help books by Dr Tony Attwood (Exporing feelings, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to Manage Anxiety). Trouble is that the books are a bit sketchy and if you have not got a grasp of CBT basics a reader might feel a bit lost without some good advice. Before I sign off I would just like to reflect on your son's age. Often AS + puberty = ANXIETY! Even children who have settled down can have anxiety relapses at this age. It's a tough phase, but it most probably will come to pass. Also before I forget one particular challenge for therapy with AS is that it can be difficult for an individual with AS to export skills learnt in a clinic or classroom to the outside world. For example I have heard a of one child who could tell the time on a clock in his bedroom, but not in the living room. Sometimes this means that therapy has to be done in each new environment. Stephen

Hi Denise My heart goes out to you. I empathise. We met very similar challenges to you with our son Peter at that age. The culmination of the challenge was ‘expulsion’ from his school, a year out of school and eventually a placement at a school that could work with him successfully. While things were particularly difficult we exhaustively explored what professional services could help but we found that the professional input we received was very disappointing. Many were well meaning but poorly informed. I was also horrified how judgemental some professionals were about mums of children with AS. Sadly some professionals still hold onto the outdated conception of the ‘refrigerator mother’. Getting a statement was a nightmare. Eventually we gave up relying on the professional-amateurs and started to look for our own solutions. I became one of those parents that ended up becoming a therapist because I could not find one who could offer the support my child required. The turning point for us was using some very simple Cognitive Behaviour Strategies. When Peter learned to simply ‘stop and think’ and anticipate long term consequences his ability to manage anxiety greatly improved and his behaviour transformed within a few weeks. I was so won over by CBT (quick, easy, safe and inexpensive) that I am now incorporating it into my own professional practice as a hypnotherapist. Now I am not suggesting CBT is a panacea. Every child, every family has different needs. But it might help. One last thing I would say is in my professional experience one of the most important issues is not so much what support is available for the child but what support is available for the parent.My experience is that AS mum’s often heroic efforts to support their children can leave them exhausted, distressed, frustrated and disappointed. AS mums can often lose sight that sometimes they are the ones that need support even more than their child. Time and time again I have been overwhelmed by AS mums' compassionate selflessness in the care of their child. But I have also been saddened by the lack of support they are offered for their own personal wellbeing. I do hope you find your turning point sooner than later. It can get better, much better. Sometimes it can be something very simple that can change lives. Kind regards Stephen