If you’re autistic, you’ll likely know how challenging it can feel going through your day with a constant stream of sensory inputs, each with the potential to overwhelm. Whether it’s a sudden wave of frustration, a burst of anxiety, or a sensory overload meltdown, managing emotions can feel like an uphill battle. If this is you, you’re not alone. Perhaps you’ve tried to manage your emotions without success and now you’ve found this blog post. So, let’s get started and hopefully by the end, you’ll have an answer to the question ‘Is therapy effective for helping autistic people with emotional regulation?’
Understanding your emotional regulation difficulties
As the old saying goes, knowledge is power. A big part of therapy is developing a greater understanding of yourself. This includes understanding certain patterns of thoughts, feelings, behaviours and your ways of relating to the world and others.
When it comes to emotional regulation difficulties, therapy can help you to understand why you experience them, what causes them and what your triggers and warning signs are. These can be really powerful to identify because then you can then work together with your therapist to explore different coping strategies.
If you find it difficult to regulate your emotions, this can contribute to all kinds of feelings such as overwhelm, anxiety, stress and depression. Therefore, having a safe and non-judgemental space to process and understand these better can be beneficial.
Focusing on mindfulness and self-awareness
You may have heard of mindfulness before. It can sometimes have negative associations with breathing or relaxation exercises which many people can find difficult or unhelpful.
However, mindfulness is not just about breathing (although some people do find this helpful!). A large part of it is learning to observe your thoughts, feelings or any sensations in your body without judgement. This can be particularly effective for autistic folx because you may struggle to recognise your emotions as they arise.
Working with a therapist can help you to become more aware of your body and how you feel, so that you can begin to recognise certain sensations and understand what they might mean. For example, you may begin to notice that you often have a racing heartbeat. Your therapist can help you to identify when this typically happens and how it might be linked to a certain emotion, such as anxiety or excitement.
Over time, you will feel more able to recognise and identify your emotional responses independently, which can help you to put things in place to regulate before your emotions escalate further.
Improving emotional regulation in social situations
If you’re autistic, emotional regulation in social situations can be particularly challenging. You may struggle with social communication and understanding social cues, which can make you feel anxious and unsettled. There can be so many things to navigate- interpreting body language, tone of voice, or facial expressions, to name a few. It’s no wonder that this can lead to feelings of overwhelm and emotional dysregulation.
One way that therapy is effective for helping autistic people with emotional regulation is that it can help to understand how you relate in social situations and find ways to navigate any difficulties you may face. Your therapist can also support you to communicate your needs with others and set boundaries where needed to reduce your risk of becoming overstimulated.
The relationship you have with your therapist in itself is a useful way to experiment with unmasking or relating in certain ways to others. It can take some time to feel comfortable and safe with your therapist. However, once you do, therapy is a non-judgemental space for you to try things out and to get feedback from your therapist on how you come across. This can help you to feel more reassured before you consider how you’d like to be in other social interactions.
Is therapy effective for helping autistic people? The importance of finding the right therapist
So, is therapy effective for helping autistic people with emotional regulation? The answer to this question will vary from person to person as we are all different and have unique needs. However, as explored in this blog post, it can be helpful for many different reasons.
It’s important that you feel comfortable and safe with your therapist, or can see yourself getting to a place where you feel this way with them, over time. One thing which can help a lot with this is finding a Neurodiversity-Affirming therapist because they will have an understanding of the unique challenges that autistic folx experience on a daily basis. This can help you to feel more supported because they will work with you to honour anything you may need to make the therapy relationship and space more accessible and comfortable for you.
You can find Neurodiversity-Affirming therapists on autism service directories such as on the National Autistic Society’s website. As a Neurodiversity-Affirming therapist myself, I’d love to hear from you and have a chat about how we can work together to support your needs and to help you feel better. You can send an enquiry or book an initial FREE 20 minute appointment below.