As a few earlier posts have referenced, I chose to specialize as a psychologist in treating specific mental illness (anxiety disorders) and working with specific folks with neurodiverse identities (like Autism). Not everyone does this and some psychologists are "generalists" and see a wide variety of folks including children and adults with various concerns and identities.
Some of the reason I'm a specialist has to do with the PhD program I was accepted into. I was accepted into a graduate training program that was research focused and required you to choose specific research interests in order to make the case that you were a good fit for your mentor. These research interests naturally kind of flow into becoming your clinical areas of expertise, at least that was my experience. However, that does beg the question- why did I identify anxiety and Autism as my two areas of interest?
Anxiety
Like I've mentioned before, I deal with pretty significant clinical anxiety. This made this a natural clinical interest. It is a cliché at the all therapists are only seeking to treat their own psychopathology but I guess all clichés come from somewhere. That said, I think having my own understanding of this level of anxiety, especially OCD spectrum anxiety, has made me a great clinician. It's had it's drawbacks too, but honestly, this has had more to do with others' perceptions of my anxiety than any degree to which it impacted my clinical work.
When I was preparing to see my first patient with OCD, I heard through the grad school grapevine that one of the older students was telling people she thought I was "too anxious" to work effectively with this patient. This wasn't true. I believe that everyone is on their own journey with their mental health. Just because a patient is ready to be further along in their anxiety journey than I am, doesn't mean that I don't have the knowledge to treat them effectively.
Autism
I don't know that I've ever officially disclosed this on this site but I identify as Neurotypical/Allistic (i.e., not Autistic). Given this, I try to be really mindful about what role it's appropriate for me to play in the lives of Autistic people and their families. I primarily work from a strengths based frame-work and from a Neurodiversity perspective. Part of my reflection as an Allistic person is- why? why do I want to work with Autistic folks? Do I see myself as some kind of savior? Do I want to 'fix' them?
I ask myself this often and am constantly trying to check myself to make sure none of those motivations are slipping in but, speaking as my best self, I just really like Autistic kids. I first realized this when I was teaching swim lessons in high school. I had a non-speaking Autistic student who was 9 years old and we had so much fun together! I'm introverted and this kid wasn't talking my ear off. I could communicate with him through gesture and touch and he started to make progress in his swim skills. I considered the possibility as I entered college that I might not like Autistic kids globally, I may have just really liked my specific student! To check this out I took my first job as an ABA therapist and learned that I did, in fact, really enjoy Autistic kids (as well as love my kids as individuals). I also took babysitting and tutoring jobs with Autistic kids during this time.
What do I love about these kids? So many things!
1. My non-speaking/partially verbal kids are an introvert's dream. I don't know if this sounds bad but it's such a relief to be around a kid who isn't chatting at me constantly. Of course with my verbally fluent kids, or Allistic kids I never mind when they talk to me. Often it's a lot of fun! But there's a real kind of peace for me when I'm with my non-speaking/partially verbal kids. It feels natural and comfortable.
2. It's fun to develop ways to communicate! I rarely feel like I can't communicate with my nonspeaking/partially verbal kids, it's just a different kind of communication. Often we develop a kind of shorthand. I learn what certain sounds or movements mean, as opposed to words, and the kids learn from me too. Often they can understand my verbal communication but more often movements, gestures, touches, and looks become part of an attunement to each other that allows for a kind of communication that's effective more often than not.
3. The intensity of their interests. I'm thinking about one of my kids who was ideal to babysit because he was totally entertained lining up lemons for an hour. You go kid. Make your own fun. An icon.
4. I learn helpful things from them. Allistic humans are wired to imitate and so often without thinking about it I find myself mirroring some of the movement based stims my kids do, and some of them are super effective! There's one particular repetitive hand movement that I find really soothing and I always hope it's okay that I'm borrowing this even though I'm Allistic.
5. They're funny and creative! These kids have to be creative to figure out how to connect with people who operate on a fundamentally different wavelength than they do. The ways their brains work differently from mine mean that I've met so many Autistic kids whose sense of humor is next level. Since humor is all about the amusing-ness of unexpected connections, this is a domain where I see these kids excel. Neurotypical/Allistic brains often don't predict the connections than an Autistic brain can make.
I hope this helps you understand why I chose the specialties that I did! Again, these opinions are my own and just based on my own experiences. I would never minimize the difficulties families can have in developing communication with their children. However, the purpose of this post was to highlight why I specialize in what I do which happens to come down to- I really like my kids.
Until next time,
Ashley
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