Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.
Today's article points you to maybe the most important criterion there is for choosing a therapist: trust. If you can't trust your therapist, you aren't going to be as open or truthful with them, and that limits their ability to help you and give you useful advice.
This study is what's called a meta-analysis, which is what they call it when the researchers examine a whole bunch of existing studies around a single subject and look for patterns. It's studying studies, effectively. The hope with these kinds of studies is to find patterns in what works and what doesn't over a broad range of circumstances.
In this case, they studied the therapeutic relationship between people and their mental health professionals, over 400 studies. That is a truly staggering amount of reading and note-taking, by the way.
They found, in the end, that the better the relationship between the therapist and patient, the better the therapy works. This was true regardless of how severe the patient's condition was, whether the patient had done therapy before, and even what style of therapy was used.
That last one is rather remarkable, to my mind. Interpersonal synergy trumps technique.
This might explain why it's so hard to find good help in the mental health field. Not only do some folks not actually want therapy but are required to receive it, but also even if you want the help and find a skilled therapist, your personalities might not match.
It's starting to taste a bit like the pharmaceutical medication roulette, quite frankly. No wonder, "I tried therapy, it didn't help" is a trope in pop culture. Like the medication roulette, if the first one doesn't work, try, try again.
This has implications for parents trying to get therapists for their kids, by the way. Especially if the kids are autistic and/or have communication challenges. The parent might feel comfortable with a therapist, but if the kid doesn't, that therapist will not be a good use of money. At least, if the aim is to help the kid thrive.
There are some parents that make their kids go to therapy to try to cure of them of being LGBTQ+, which is A) pointless, and B) disgusting and damaging. So at that point it's not about the kid's welfare, and I guess the money doesn't matter. Please don't be those parents.
My personal therapist wears many hats, but the reason I continue to give her money for years is not merely her vast quantities of expertise and resources. It's because she knows how to be kind but direct about helping me through my problems. She's had a lot of opportunity to get to know autistic people, and over time, me in particular. So being factual and direct (without being rude) is a smart way to go. That works well for me.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
No comments:
Post a Comment