‘On Being An Autistic Therapist’ is about working as autistic counsellors and psychotherapists. It is a collection of stand-alone chapters put together by members of the international online collective Autistic Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ACP). My chapter focuses on autism and comorbid chronic illness.

It shares our main aims: to tackle the lack of appropriate therapy available to autistic clients and to challenge the common stereotypes about autistic people, which are still very much alive and can bar them both from therapy and therapy training. But, because we have lived experience of the issues we are working with, we are also writing about ways of working most effectively and helpfully with autistic people. And that is what makes it unique. Each chapter describes both how the writer perceives and processes the world and how we work with clients.

Our stories provide incontrovertible evidence that the existence of autistic therapists, far from being problematic or even a contradiction, is quite simply normal. And that neurodiversity, just like biodiversity, enriches, broadens and benefits all. It offers readers – autistic, allistic, therapists and would-be therapists, clients and would-be clients – the chance to meet the contributors and see them as humans, therapists and supervisors. Our hope is that, in its small way, this collection may give readers the understanding that they need to join us in changing the world. 

[Description from PCCS Books]