Behavioral Health Therapy for ASD

EPISODE 66: Behavioral Health Therapy for ASD

With Sean Inderbitzen

 

INTRO:

Hi, everyone! Welcome back to My Autism Tribe. We’ll be speaking with Sean Inderbitzen on today’s show. He’s a mental health clinician who is on the autism spectrum, and reached out a couple of weeks ago because he wanted to share his voice. It makes me so happy when people reach out to me – it truly does. I want to make sure that everyone is able to share their voice, because that’s how we learn, how we expand and stretch ourselves, and at the end of the day – accept one another regardless if our views and opinions may sometimes vary from others. Thanks so much for listening!

 

SEGMENT:

Sean was diagnosed with autism at the age of 18, and is now a practicing behavioral health therapist. He’s so passionate about helping his clients, and letting others know about the importance of having counseling services available to people who have autism. He notes, however, that in a study 43 out of 44 clinicians are not comfortable in counseling patients on the spectrum. It’s pretty special that Sean has this personal experience as a way to relate and empathize with those lives that he touches. Please welcome Sean to our show!

 

CONCLUSION:

“The process of therapy for clinicians who work with individuals on the spectrum requires a unique subset of therapeutic skill that is not always taught in graduate training. While it’s important to utilize all of the common microskills (like showing empathy, active listening, open-ended questioning) with the ASD population, it’s also important to recognize these individuals may have an additional set of needs for the therapy room. For example, they may not have the cognitive capacity to follow metaphors and/or analogies that are often used in therapy.” Providing continuing professional development for clinicians will help increase the number of competent professionals in providing these appropriate services, and I’m so happy that individuals like Sean Inderbitzen are advocating. Thanks so much for being a part of My Autism Tribe, and I’ll see ya soon!

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Email: seabindie@me.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYJdX4NCous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYgqa_FbTok