Eye Contact Is Hard For Me As An Autistic Therapist

Do you want to see ableism in action? I asked ChatGPT if a psychotherapist should have appropriate eye contact and it wrote: Yes, appropriate eye contact is quite important for a psychotherapist. I then asked it if it would be a problem if a therapist avoided eye contact and it responded: It could be a problem if a psychotherapist consistently avoids eye contact during therapy. Eye contact is a key component of effective communication and helps build a therapeutic alliance. Without it, clients might feel disconnected, misunderstood, or less valued, which could hinder the therapeutic process.

I have received comments on my videos saying that people have been told that there are no autistic therapists, and that autistic people cannot be effective therapists. Even AI seems to agree. Well, guess what? I am autistic, a therapist, and eye contact is hard for me.

You see, traditional therapy was not invented by openly autistic people. It was created for allistic people by allistic people. The idea that we can take this therapy that wasn’t made for us and learn a bit about neurodiversity and then re-label it as neurodivergence affirming is naive. Therapy is not neurodivergence affirming from the root up. If we are to make it neurodivergence affirming, we need to start at the root.

I can’t say that I have successfully attained “neurodivergence affirming” therapy because I am still too steeped in what I was taught during my 18+ years of education and clinical experience in psychology. I want to, though. I want to learn how to provide therapy without feeling the push to mask my autistic traits and give eye contact even when I would rather not. Will I ever achieve this? I hope so.

Perhaps this is why many autistic therapists burn out, most likely far more often than their non-autistic peers. The therapy world wasn’t built for us or our autistic clients. I truly believe we need to forge our own path and re-create therapy that is far more radically neurodivergence affirming than what currently exists. Simply offering to turn off the camera is not enough. We have to dismantle and rebuild this whole thing from the ground up.