Talking Therapies for Autistic People : A Neuroaffirmative and Person-Centred Approach

A journey into the autistic brain, a window onto the difficulties of living in a world designed for others, and a practical roadmap for any practitioner who wishes to move from 'treating' autism to truly seeing and supporting the autistic person.

Talking Therapies for Autistic People is a compassionate guide designed to transform how professionals understand and work with autistic clients. Written from the author's dual perspective as an autistic person and a mental health practitioner, it presents a neuroaffirmative, person-centred and trauma-informed framework that exposes longstanding assumptions about autism and the harm they can produce. Rather than seeing autism as a deficit, Heather Connolly-Smith book positions autistic processing as a natural variation in human experience, emphasising that distress arises not from autism itself but from structural ableism - neuronormative expectations, inaccessible environments and repeated interpersonal misattunements. Drawing on social models of disability and the neurodiversity paradigm, she uses three running case studies to explore simple ways in which therapists can support autistic clients to live more authentically and in ways which work with, rather than against, their neurotypes.