Some first thoughts about what I may come to call “Special Interest Therapy”. As with so many things (everything?) I have my clients to thank for this.
Long pathologised as “Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus”, autistic Special Interests are not just interests, they stem from and give access to the deepest part of the person.
It is so easy, when a client talks about their hobbies or the events of the day, to think they are avoiding the essentials. But what if, in fact, they are doing just the opposite? Not an escape from, but an escape into? When seen through the lens of monotropism, this starts to make a lot of sense.
By the end of this session you should have a clearer idea about the nature of monotropism and of autistic Special Interests, and of the link between the two – and maybe some thoughts about how this may change the way you do therapy.
Course Content
Presenter
Max Marnau is a person-centred therapist living in the Scottish Borders. As the autistic daughter of refugees from Hitler’s Nazis, she feels a particular affinity with all the exiled, the othered, and the displaced. Among whom she counts both autistic people and survivors of abusive cults.
Her parents quite consciously did not transmit their culture to her for fear of making her an outsider. That’s quite funny, given that she’s autistic! She sees herself as a second-generation exile who never quite fitted anywhere, and that may have made her particularly vulnerable to the attractions of an apparently friendly and supportive cult with clear rules.
With the understanding that she is autistic came the discovery of her tribe, and Max has become an “out, loud and proud” autistic psychotherapist, activist, writer, and trainer.
