Find a therapist to help with autism

There has been a recent increase in late-diagnosed autism for "high masking" women.

This increase in diagnoses has led to a debate in the mental health community.

The debate centers on whether this is due to social media influences, or more information about autism traits.

The history of the diagnosis, as well as how women have been treated in mental health, should be considered.

Four years ago, I saw “Sara” for a therapy intake. When asked what brought her in, she tearfully recounted that she had been using social media to watch videos about her interests, and videos started filtering in content related to being a late-diagnosed autistic adult. Wondering why these videos were showing up in her feed, she watched a few. As she watched, she had the realization that she was likely autistic. She had scheduled therapy with myself in order to learn more, and scheduled testing with a clinical psychologist, who gave her an autism diagnosis.

While Sara was the first “high masking” woman to come to me for therapy, she was not the last. I had others come in due to:

Realizing they were autistic after their child(ren) were diagnosed

Struggling with autistic burnout

Reviewing the latest research on the female autism phenotype

I personally fall into the latter category. When I researched how neurodivergence presents differently in females and began to realize that I was likely autistic, I was embarrassed. How could I have worked with autistic people for over 20 years and not know? I then reflected that most of the research was less than 5 years old. I already knew that historical research on autism previously focused on males. This was why I was researching autistic women/girls in the first place. Now, I was seeing the impacts of this missing information, not just in my therapy practice, but in my own life.

If you are unfamiliar with this history, in the United States, Leo Kanner led research on autism starting in the late 1930s and published his findings on early infantile autism in 1943. His sample only included white males. Hans Asperger in Germany included girls in his studies, but then focused on the........

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