DIY therapy that actually might work.

[Voltaic]

I don't prescribe to most types of therapies. I think they are helpful to a lot of people, but for some like me, they don't help all that much. The thing that helps me, is me. My way of self therapy is connected strongly with the majority of therapies in one way, talking.
Have you went to a therapy session, and even though you are struggling with crazy amounts of problems, and you think you have a lot to talk about, but when it comes time to talk, you can't? This is a problem for a lot of people, and I think most people. I don't think that the phycolafy is the person really helping you in talk therapies. I think it is the Peron talking who does.
Let me explain it this way. I think that the way we think is not in a localised way. We don't think with sentences and directly lines of thought that is based on speech. I think that thinking isn't based in speech at all, in a way it is a completely different language. If we have no experience, translating our thought from the language we think in, to direct lines of speech is something most people can't really do. It makes sense in our minds, but we can't put it into words. It doesn't mean the thoughts are wrong, it means we can't translate thoughts to speech.
Kids don't need to know how to speak to be able to think. People find this mind boggling because we think we think in English, but we don't. We think like babies, with feeling, and emotions, and un-verbalised ideas.
The problem with this, is that the language we think in, isn't a language that is easy to connect ideas with, and something that is easy to see the illogic in what we are thinking.
How speech therapy works, is not the doctor fixing telling you ways to deal with emotions, though a part. It is teaching people how to verbalize their thoughts. To teach them to translate what is in their minds into a language. From there, it is easier to understand, and to see why what you think is wrong, and to be able to see why the way you are thinking doesn't make sense, because it is extremely hard to find those flaws without putting the thoughts into words. The doctor is just their to teach you how to translate, and points out illogic thinking.
I came across this conclusion because I sucked at therapies. Getting my mind into words was something I couldnt do. I practiced by myself what I would say in therapy and got better and better. I started to see why what I was thinking didn't make science after I put it into words. I thought that what I expressed was not really going on in my mind, but it was, and the reality was my mind was being stupid. After a while, I started to fix my problems, just because I could see the things that didn't make sense in my mind that I latched onto before. Just by practicing what I was going to say in therapy, I was doing therapy.

So, my advice. Talk you yourself about what you are thinking. It is hard at first, but that is just the learning curve. When you are able to start translating ideas from your head into speech, you put your thoughts into a forum in which is easily understandable, from there, you can fix your own problems. If you are mad, ask and answer out loud why you are mad. If you are happy, ask and answer out loud why you are happy. Don't take what you first say as truth, criticise yourself, look for problems in what you said, look for ways what you said doesn't make sense. This is both a useful therapy tool and also a way to find out who you are as a person. Question everything, vocalize every thought and emotions, criticise what you say. If I learned this a lot sooner, I would be a 19 year old Ghandi.

I don't think this is something that is just useful for people who have problems, I think this is something that everyone can learn and find helpful.

 

[DogwoodTree]

I do this A LOT. It was hard at first, not because I couldn't carry on a therapeutic conversation with myself, but because I felt I was missing out on some kind of human connection by not involving my therapist in the process. But I've slowly come to the conclusion that there's no way the therapist can be sufficiently informed of what's going on in my head for him to have many real answers for me. And even when I did attempt to share the inner thoughts, there was still no emotional connection across the autistic chasm.

So I'm learning to use him as a sounding board only in the areas where I'm stuck, not in the areas where I'm making progress on my own. And even then, I'm learning not to expect much of anything in the way of emotional connection.

That's been a terribly difficult loss to learn to accept. But going in each week with the hope of feeling some kind of emotional connection, and it never happened, was devastating and pushing me to the edge every single week. If I go in expecting nothing more than a brainstorming session that might or might not be on target, then I can walk out with some ideas instead of reeling from the horrendous pain of feeling more isolated every time I failed to feel "connected", no matter how hard I tried to be open and fluent and authentic and whatever else I was attempting that week. At least if I have some ideas to work with, I've got something from the session. And then I rely heavily on my self-talks throughout the week. I've come up with some pretty decent ideas through this, and actually made some progress in some areas.

There are other areas, though, that I've not made any headway. I'm wondering if I might have to accept defeat in those areas. Even my therapist has said he's nearly out of ideas.