Very specific counseling in San Francisco

April 15, 2015 5:36 PM

I would really appreciate recommendations for a counselor for my daughter. She is in the last stages of a long and demanding academic degree. She is brilliant but has always had some difficulty in reading social cues and tends to alienate people with her abruptness. More inside.

She feels that no matter how hard she tries she can never get the "dealing with people" part quite right and this makes really sad and like giving up. She would like to talk to a counselor and learn to work on this but she works crazy hours and has asked us to do the research. We live far away so we turn to you for your personal suggestions. Many many thanks.

posted by garbanzilla to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

Would your daughter be open to talking to someone who could screen her for Aspergers/Autism?
posted by Hermione Granger at 5:59 PM on April 15, 2015 [6 favorites]

I would second Hermione. This really sounds like sutism/aspergers. The difficulty reading societal norms /relating to other coupled with academic excellence are typical in those cases. Another thing to consider when looking for a therapist, I would think that since your daughter has been raised and treated in a way girls/women are (which emphasizes conforming to norms, being expressive, and relating well to others) that this may be some of the additional stress your daughter feels and you may want a therapist who'll address that as well.
posted by CosmicSeeker42 at 6:42 PM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for the thoughts. Any recommendations for counsellors in SF would be most welcome.
posted by garbanzilla at 8:20 PM on April 15, 2015

If she's in school, I'd imagine she could visit the counselling center on campus and either see someone there or get an outside referral from them.
posted by désoeuvrée at 1:26 AM on April 16, 2015

Response by poster: She is nearly 30, so whether she would be diagnosable as on the autistic spectrum may or may not be helpful, but she is who she is and she could use help, understanding, and hopefully some basic tools to help her keep from inadvertantly offending people. Maybe practice sessions for people who suffer similar issues although it would be difficult to simulate because I am sure the problems come forward more when she is under pressure and has tasks that need to be completed- problems that need to be solved- she becomes the task- whether leading or following. She is nearing the end of her training. She has so much to offer and gets excellent reviews in the areas that are actually "job related" not that interpersonal skills are not essential. She will see patterns that others miss making work easier or come at something from a different angle. She can be very abrupt- but it isn't intended badly and one on one when not rushed or in the middle of a task -she is interesting, witty, and fun. She is a deeply sensitive, loyal, true friend.

As a parent it is heart wrenching to have her feeling so low- the people who she most admires and would like to work with when she is finished have only notice her abruptness. "I am flawed- broken. You have given birth to a freak! All my life I am working on this and I just can't get it right. I want to give up. When they said "jump" I said "how high?" and rushed to do what they asked." She is filled with sadness that although she can do the very complicated work that she has been trained to do and studied for years to accomplish, she keeps ending up spending her time with instructions to herself like- today I will make more eye contact or today I will be a good learner- meanwhile when she gets reviews it is always the same issues-

If she is autistic she is very high functioning- and I don't know if it would be a comfort to hear that- she some good friends- although not a big number. She has been an excellent fiction writer although she doesn't have time for that now. With music- not her field although she considered it- she can listen to another player and follow- play harmony put a back rhythm- swap the lead back and forth like a conversation. She has always had this in kindergarten her teacher got a big refrigerator box and put pillows in it and said it was for children who wanted quiet book time that they could go in there whenever they wanted to look at books- it was there for the whole classroom but she put it there because she could see that my daughter needed it.
posted by garbanzilla at 4:59 AM on April 16, 2015

Best answer: My heart aches for her, especially with what you've quoted her saying in the latest comment. I'm sorry to hear she's struggling so much with this. I agree with the folks in this thread that a counselor who specializes in adult ASD might be helpful. When I was in my early twenties, I was diagnosed with ASD, and I ran into a similar problem... if I was on the spectrum, I was so "high-functioning" that all of the therapeutic techniques aimed at helping adults with autism spectrum disorders weren't really effective for me--they addressed problems that I either didn't have or had already overcome on my own. Seeking a formal diagnosis probably isn't helpful to her for the same reason it wasn't helpful to me: she's already managed to be successful in navigating her life in all measures (academically, professionally, etc.) but this one social one.

But: it sounds like your daughter is really struggling with the self-esteem parts of this, feeling different from other people and having the weight of that crushing her down. So, even if she's too high-functioning to be helped by ASD-specific therapies, having a professional to talk to who understands what that experience is like and can help her cope with and eventually neutralize those feelings of being a "freak."
posted by Kosh at 6:48 AM on April 16, 2015

A neuropsychological evaluation might be helpful in this situation. The evaluation can pinpoint ASD and/or any other issues your daughter has. It will also give feedback about what sort of therapy or training will be useful to her.
posted by carrioncomfort at 7:41 AM on April 16, 2015