Full Course Description
Autism Assessment in Adults: Differentiating the Complexities of Autism from Co-Occurring Mental Health Issues
Autism diagnoses in adults are on the rise.
Adults are now reporting that their childhood diagnosis of anxiety, ODD, OCD, alone doesn’t make sense – autism is suspected.
How do you separate the complex characteristics of autism from common co-occurring mental health diagnosis?
In this session, autistic psychologist, speaker, and author, Dr. Wenn Lawson will teach you to how to assess for autism and separate it from other co-occurring mental health issues in adults.
Watch and learn:
- How to interlace a neurodiversity affirming lens with DSM-5™ diagnostic criteria
- The interplay between poor mental health and autism and impact of unmet needs
- How autism presents differently in different gender identities
The impact of a diagnosis in adulthood can lead to self-injury, employment and relationship problems, other mental health issues including suicidality.
Program Information
Objectives
- Integrate a neurodiversity affirming lens with DSM-5™ diagnostic criteria to assess for adult autism.
- Appraise whether exhibiting symptoms are related to autism or a co-occurring mental health diagnosis.
- Determine how autism presents differently in different gender identities.
- Evaluate the interplay between autism and poor mental health and the clinical implications including when to refer.
Outline
- Autism Assessment in Adults
- Teasing out autism from co-occurring mental health diagnosis
- Integrating a neurodiversity affirming lens with DSM-5™ diagnostic criteria
- How autism presents differently in different gender identities
- The interplay between poor mental health and autism
- Reasons for a referral
Target Audience
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Occupational Therapists
- Physicians
- Psychologists
- Speech-Language Pathologists
- Social Workers
- Teachers/School-Based Personnel
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
03/24/2022
Cultural Competency as Suicide Prevention for Autistic Adults: Clinical Solutions to Help Clients Feel Heard, Visible, and Validated
Discover the unique challenges faced by autistic adults, where 66% experience suicidal ideation, surpassing general population rates and rapidly increasing. Traditional clinical treatments often lead to unintended harm, leaving individuals feeling unheard, invisible, invalidated, and confused—significant factors in this form of harm.
Join Mary Donahue, PhD, and Lisa Morgan, MED, CAS, for an enlightening training on embracing autism as a culture. Through a lens of cultural competency and humility, learn how to skillfully:
- Understand and navigate the autistic perspective
- Recognize warning signs of suicide in autistic individuals
- Validate and support the experiences of autistic clients
- Apply culturally competent suicide prevention interventions
Transform your approach to autism care and prevent unintentional harm. Register now for this essential session!
Program Information
Objectives
- Recognize the differences in how autistic people think, communicate, and experience the world &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Demonstrate an increased understanding and acceptance of a need for cultural competency &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Apply culturally competent suicide prevention interventions in your clinical practice &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
Outline
Autism in Everyday Life: Lived Experience &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Unique challenges autistic people encounter every day &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Identify heterogeneity of autism &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Increased exposure to harm &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Risks and limitations of research and techniques &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
 &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
Cultural Competency: The Cure for Unintentional Harm 
- Prioritize the differences in how autistic people think, communicate and experience the world &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Validate the experiences of autistic people &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Utilize the available autism specific resources &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
 
Making Mental Health Care Not Just Available, but Accessible &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Unique risk factors and warning signs of suicide of autistic people &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- How to support the experiences of the autistic individuals &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Ways to validate the autistic person through cultural competence and humility &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
 &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
Cultural Crisis Supports and Suicide Prevention for Autistic People 
- Recognize the unique risk factors of autistic people &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Assess autistic people using warning signs of suicide for autistic people &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Apply culturally competent supports and practical applications &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
Target Audience
- Licensed Clinical/Mental Health Counselors &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Social Workers &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Psychologists &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Marriage & Family Therapists &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- School Administrators &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Speech-Language Pathologists &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Teachers/School-Based Personnel &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Case Managers &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Addiction Professionals &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Nursing Home/Assisted Living Administrators &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Occupational Therapists &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Occupational Therapy Assistants &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Nurses &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Physical Therapists &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Physical Therapist Assistants &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
- Dieticians &²Ô²ú²õ±è;
Copyright :
04/18/2024
Unmasking Adult Autistic Burnout: A Clinician’s Guide to Supporting Clients
Message from the presenter Amy Marschall, PsyD
Traditional non-affirming autism therapies often force clients to mask their autistic traits leading to PTSD, highlighting a flawed approach that aims to “fix” rather than support.
When autistic individuals won’t or cannot mask they face unimaginable discrimination and abuse profoundly impacting their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
There’s a much better way to support autistic clients!
Watch me, Amy Marschall, PsyD, an autistic clinical psychologist and author, as we delve into the essential topic of exhaustion and burnout experienced by adult autistic individuals. In this training, we’ll challenge existing standards of care and explore modifications to traditional treatment plans. I’ll compassionately guide you through:
- What autistic burnout looks like in adults
- Current research to address burnout, co-morbidities, and suicidal ideation
- Modifications for traditional treatment plans
- How to help clients safely unmask with neurodiversity-affirming interventions
Be the change your autistic clients deserve—watch this training and revolutionize your practice to better support autistic adults. Purchase today!
Dr. Amy Marschall
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze current standards of care for autism and the limitations associated with these approaches.
- Utilize current research around autistic burnout to conceptualize cases.
- Choose appropriate treatment recommendations to alleviate symptoms of autistic burnout in adults.
- Modify existing interventions to reflect a neurodiversity-affirming approach to mental health care with autistic adults.
- Identify 10 evidence-based and neurodiversity-affirming interventions to use with autistic adults experiencing burnout.
- Formulate neurodiversity-affirming treatment plans with autistic adults experiencing burnout.
Outline
Video Testimonials: Trauma and Harm Caused by the Deficit Model “Treatments”
- Current standards of care, incl. associated limitations, trauma, harm
- The prevalence of trauma symptoms over non-autistics
- Autistics who undergo traditional “treatment” vs. those who do not
- The goals of traditional “treatments”
Neurodiversity-Affirming Care: A Shift Away from “Fixing” to Supporting
- What neurodiversity-affirming is/is not
- Rethinking autism and mental health care
- Affirming and trauma-informed
- Affirming and intersectional
- Centering autistic voices
Video Testimonials: What Autistic Burnout Looks Like in Adults
- Differentiate from other diagnoses
- Screeners, symptoms, warning signs
- Burnout and suicide
- Risk assessments: passive vs active
- Talk to clients about suicide
Neurodiversity-Affirming Interventions to:
Prevent Adult Autistic Burnout
- What’s within the therapist’s and client’s control
- Proactively identify and address unmet needs
- Fight barriers to getting needs met
- Find manageable levels of responsibility
- Help clients unmask safely
- Recognize burnout levels and provide support before escalation
Treat Adult Autistic Burnout
- New and creative sensory safe spaces
- Find alternative communication
- Fidgeting and stimming
- Meet body survival needs
- Teach positive self-talk and self-monitoring skills
- Prevent future burnout episodes
- Accommodations requests
Case Studies: Neurodiversity-Affirming Interventions
Nonbinary Autistic Adult, Age 25
- Graduate student who hit burnout while in school
- Determine what’s manageable and what changes are needed for ongoing well-being
- When a client can no longer use previously effective skills
Autistic Female, Age 19
- Childhood sexual and emotional abuse
- History of behavioral issues and participation in a punitive behavioral program
- Emergence of suicidal ideation upon entering adulthood
- Balancing burnout symptoms, immediate safety concerns, and trauma history
Autistic Male, Age 44
- Recent diagnosis, realization of how much he was masking
- Unpack history and process how much he was compensating
- Sudden decline in “functioning”
Limitations of Research and Risks of Interventions
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Art Therapists
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Speech-Language Pathologists
- Occupational Therapists
- Occupational Therapy Assistants
- Behavioral Intervention Specialists
- Psychiatrists
- Probation Officers
- Clergy
- Other helping professionals who work with autistic adults
Copyright :
12/16/2024
Therapy with Autistic Clients: Empowering Teens and Adults through ACT, CFT, DBT, and Self-Compassion
The correlation between autism and anxiety, phobias, suicidality, depression, and other mental health disorders is well-established.
But the complexities involved in treating autistic and other neurodivergent clients often result in less-than-ideal clinical outcomes.
Watch Jennifer Gerlach, LCSW, a neurodivergent psychotherapist and author, in this one-of-a-kind course focused on giving you the confidence and specialized intervention tools you need to maximize your therapeutic results in working with teens and adults with diagnosed or suspected autism.
You will finish with the ability to:
- Recognize signs of masking in your assessment process to get to the underlying diagnosis
- Apply neurodiversity-affirming ACT, CFT, DBT, and self-compassion interventions for depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns
- Minimize verbal and non-verbal communication barriers and sensory processing differences in the therapeutic process
- Employ interventions for families, couples, and group work with neurodivergent youth and adults
Purchase now to effectively meet the critical needs of this growing population.
Program Information
Objectives
- Utilize assessment strategies to identify neurodivergent clients.
- Choose interventions to improve self-compassion, self-acceptance, and self-validation in neurodivergent clients.
- Use community interventions to reduce isolation and social exclusion.
- Determine how to adapt traditional psychotherapy strategies to meet the needs of neurodivergent clients.
- Choose strategies to build self-advocacy skills in neurodivergent youth.
- Utilize compassion focused strategies to reduce rejection-sensitive dysphoria.
Outline
Core Concepts of Autism and Other Neurodiversities
Foxes and wolves: experiencing the world differently
- Diagnostic features
- Neurodiversity-specific phenomena
- Executive functioning
- Sensory processing
- Alexithymia
- Intense world theory
- Intersectionality with gender identity
- Common mental health comorbidities
- Counseling with a neurodiversity-affirming lens
Neurodiversity Screening and Assessment
- Red flags of undiagnosed adults
- Intake screening tools for common comorbid conditions
- Depression and anxiety
- Eating disorders
- School dropout
- Addictions
- Suicidality
- Social anxiety
- Assessment strategies using a neurodiversity-affirming lens
- Characteristics of autism vs. mental health diagnoses
- The impact of masking on diagnostics
- Case study: Autistic college student, presenting with severe anxiety
Autism in the Therapy Room
- Create safety through sensory and communication techniques adopted from DBT and CFT
- Set up the environment and capitalize on the need for routine
- 3 must-use rapport-building activities
- CFT strategies to increase a client’s emotional and somatic awareness while building self-compassion
From Knowledge to Practice
Address the Fall-Out of Living in a Neurotypical World
- Five executive functioning skill-building strategies to reduce autistic burnout
- Compassion-focused approaches to minimize rejection-sensitive dysphoria
- Community interventions to reduce isolation and social exclusion
- Strategies to minimize meltdowns and shutdowns through dialectical approaches
- Double empathy and its impact on relationships
- Limitations of the research and potential risks
Counseling Autistic Adults
Practical Applications of Inclusive Therapy Modalities
- ACT strategies to create self-compassion
- LAND: a DBT-inspired framework for selfadvocacy
- Adaptive strategies to elicit value-based goal setting
- Address sexuality and romantic relationship challenges
- Couples’ work – 3 strategies to enhance empathy and communication
- CBT approaches to support employment and move toward value-based goals
Counseling Autistic Teens
Interventions with a slightly different approach
- Strategies for family therapy
- Bully-proofing ACT strategies
- Play therapy approaches to build resilience
- Refocus activities to calm the mind storms
- Talk to kids about their brains
- Exercises for self-advocacy and self-efficacy
- Tools to help kids build genuine social connections
- Case study: Youth Talking Circle
Target Audience
- Social workers
- Counselors
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Addiction Counselors
- Art Therapists
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Behavioral Health Nurses
- Psychiatrists
- Occupational Therapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
06/14/2024
Inclusive Therapeutic Practices to Work with Autistic Adolescents & Adults: CBT Modifications to Target Executive Functioning and Improve Meltdowns, Social-Emotional, Anxiety, & Other Comorbidities
Research shows that only 2 out of 44 clinicians feel competent working with autistic clients.
This unfortunately creates a huge gap in accessible treatment and services for this population. It also contributes to a negative stigma in the world of mental health that is not empowering or inclusive for autistic individuals.
Let’s bridge the gap in accessible services for autistic individuals who desire and deserve the same mental health access as everyone else and become a part of the solution!
Join Tosha Rollins, MA, LPC, ASDCS, to discover evidence-based strategies that create an inclusive therapeutic experience and environment as well as improve positive treatment outcomes for your autistic clients. In this session, you’ll learn how to effectively:
- Build rapport with your autistic clients
- Assess areas of functional impairment
- Set individualized goals and objectives for treatment planning
- Apply modified CBT interventions to target 11 areas of executive functioning to:
- Identify function and context for behavior
- Improve emotional identification and regulation
- Develop social/emotional communication skills
- Improve executive functioning, emotional intelligence, theory of mind, self-regulation
- Treat GAD, depression, OCD, ADHD, adjustment disorder
- Adapt clinical environment: In-office and online
- Prevent insurance claim denials related to autism diagnosis
- Improve your autistic clients’ overall quality of life
After this training, you’ll have a sense of confidence which ripples beyond the therapy room, into a positive mental health stigma for autistic individuals.
Program Information
Objectives
- Establish a solid understanding of three different competencies required to modify and apply CBT interventions in an inclusive environment.
- Determine and practice at least three clinical skillsets required to build rapport and confidently implement treatment plans tailored to individual autistic client’s needs.
- Utilize best practices with continuum of care to meet the needs of autistic clients.
Outline
Create an Autistic Inclusive Therapeutic Experience
- Competencies, clinical skills, continuum of care, community resources
- Barriers to autism intervention in the mental health setting
- Importance of integrating the 11 areas of executive functioning in autism intervention
- Assessment considerations
CBT Modifications to Target 11 Areas of Executive Functioning to:
- Identify function and context for behavior
- Improve emotional identification and regulation
- Develop social/emotional communication skills
- Improve executive functioning, emotional intelligence, theory of mind, self-regulation
- Treat GAD, depression, OCD, ADHD, adjustment disorder
- Adapt clinical environment: In-office and online
- Simulation: How to overcome challenges with EF
- Limitations of research and potential risks
Target Audience
- Licensed Clinical/Mental Health Counselors
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Occupational Therapists
- Occupational Therapy Assistants
- Psychologists
- School Administrators
- Social Workers
- Speech-Language Pathologists
- Teachers/School-Based Personnel
Copyright :
04/21/2023
Neurodiverse Couples in Therapy: Clinical Interventions to Improve Communication, Intimacy and Connection
Neurodiverse couples and partners seeking therapy frequently report feeling disappointed and harmed by the care they received due to the lack of understanding about neurodiversity and its impact on relationships. This presentation will help you recognize, understand, and treat neurodiverse couples so that both partners better understand themselves, each other, and their relationship dynamics. You will leave this presentation with concrete tools and strategies you can use to help neurodiverse couples improve their communication and connection.
Program Information
Objectives
- Describe how neurotype impacts clinical practice with neurodiverse couples
- Implement the three main components of the Myhill/Jekel model to provide care through a neurological lens.
- Utilize1-2 strategies to help facilitate improved communication between neurodiverse partners.
Outline
- How neurotype impacts clinical practice with neurodiverse couples
- Myhill/Jekal Model for working with neurodiverse couples in therapy
- 12 Autism Trait Categories
- 3 concrete tools and strategies to help facilitate improved communication between neurodiverse partners
- Risks & limitations of the research and techniques
Target Audience
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Licensed Clinical/Mental Health Counselors
- Psychologists
- Social Workers
Copyright :
03/30/2023