Autism & the Therapeutic Relationship, with Alison Edwards (Feb. 2016)

There was a good turnout for our morning seminar lead by the experienced Integrative Arts Psychotherapist, Alison Edwards.

I particularly enjoyed and benefited from Alison’s “grass roots” experience. The delivery of the seminar was with simplicity and directness – in parity with how those on the autistic spectrum communicate and express themselves.

Alison shared her deep and extensive experience in working with mainly children, in school environments, with vignettes of how her autistic patients react and behave to situations (which would be viewed and experienced very differently by the Neuro Typical population). She is passionate about her work and Alison feels greatly enthused by the steps now being taken in the fields of Education and Science to formulate ways of assisting our autistic population to live full and enjoyable lives in exactly the way they need to do so.

We talked about our perceptions of what autism is, the generalisations and labelling many of us retain. Alison dispelled some myths, for example; not all autistic people are highly intelligent, nor hugely creative; many DO have empathic skills and DO want to relate to others. Alison shared some of her own techniques used to work with autistic patients to enable the therapeutic relationship in communicating, build trusting and empathic relationships.

Neuro Typicals need to search “outside the box” too, to think in different ways, to engage on other levels – an enriching experience for the therapist as well as the autistic patient.
A thought provoking seminar, which has led to further self-reflection and reading on this subject.

Jo Turner, Feb 2016
PG Dip. Mar Th., MBACP (Accred.)
Relationship psychotherapist

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We are pleased to announce that delegates gave this seminar the following average scores from 22 feedback forms:  4.43 out of 5 for the speaker; and 4.4 out of 5 for overall assessment of the event.  Thank you to all who attended this and previous seminars, we appreciate your participation and your feedback.

Written comments from delegates:

“I really have learned a lot and gained useful ideas of how to work therapeutically”
“Alison’s enthusiasm is great”
“very knowledgeable speaker”
“venue fitting and a good size”
“engaging, knowledgeable, informative speaker”
“venue great, speaker fantastic”
“well organised and relaxed atmosphere”