Myth: Autistics ”Process Slowly”, Implications in Therapy

What if Autistics don’t process slowly?

Then what is happening when an autistic is perceived as processing slowly?

First, it’s not about speed: not fast, nor slow

Second, language is profoundly reductionistic

Third, what’s the rush, there’s so much to say?

• For autistics, communication comes with grief, the inner world is rich, complex and evolving; and only some of it can be represented with words. The selection process is demanding.

  
  

• Autistics cannot parse out data, it’s everything all the time. There is simply more information to sift through or integrate to come to a response.

If you are a clinician who works with autistics, or if you are an autistic seeking therapy or an autistic in therapy, I recommend bringing these elements into the therapeutic space to move beyond the myth that autistics “process slowly”:

1. Autistic clients need time to release their inner worlds, not because they are “slow processors”, rather because verbal language is inept and it takes time to negotiate what is happening inside with the language available to communicate.

   
   

2. Autistic clients may benefit from a myriad of options to release and communicate without the constraints of “normal” communication. Explore imagery, bring in generative and creative questions, speak to limitations felt in the moment as communication is happening, ask what is left behind, and consider symbolism.

   
   

3. Autistic clients may find it helpful to send their therapist artwork, thoughts, or writings, for example, in-between sessions. Suggest asynchronous communication, in case the autistic client could benefit from it.

   
   

4. Depth Psychology, or Psychology of the Unconscious may aid the therapeutic conversation by bringing in language that honors the unconscious-dreams, symbolism, archetypes, the more-than-human. Clinicians working with autistics could read Gloria Anzaldua and James Hillman, for example. I believe that the unconscious content of autistics is more fluidly entering the conscious than it does with allistics (non-autistics). Depth Psychology can give clinicians a literacy that helps them travel with language and with their client more creatively, opening up the dialogue.

Thanks for reading! For more from Ecologies of Autism, go to the YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/@KristinaBravoLMFT

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