Adult Autism
Our team at The Cavendish Clinic has many years of experience of working with people who have autistic traits, and autistic people, in varied community and hospital settings.
All of our clinicians have been involved in doing autism assessments with adults who have a range of diverse preferences, strengths and needs, including with adults who have mental health and physical health conditions.
We have all offered different types of post-diagnostic support - including individual sessions with the person themselves, meeting with couples and families where one or more people have neurodiverse traits or a diagnosis, and facilitating groups.
Adapting psychological therapies to make these more accessible and acceptable for autistic adults, and adults who have autistic traits, has been a core component of our clinical roles in mental health, physical health and specialist services.
We have regularly provided psychological therapies to:
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treat co-occurring mental health conditions, including low mood and depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder
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offer a supportive space people can use to talk about the impact of physical health conditions
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identify extra ways of managing impactful symptoms, and enhancing emotional wellbeing and quality of life
Some of our team has published scientific articles, that are highly cited, about how to develop and adapt psychological therapies for autistic children, teenagers and adults, including focusing on cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), compassion-focused therapy (CFT), eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) and family therapy.
Adult autism assessment
We offer autism assessments to adults, aged 18 and upwards, living across England.
An assessment takes approximately 7.5 hours, split across several appointments (that are scheduled in advance) and that take place within a 2 - 3 week period. If we think it is clinically important to meet for additional appointments, such as to ask about particular themes in more depth, we offer these at no extra cost.
The assessment usually takes place online. We sometimes suggest meeting for one appointment in person, and we use offices in one of four locations: Central London, Leamington Spa, Cambridge and Bournemouth.
Please note we do not provide autism assessments for children and teenagers at The Cavendish Clinic. If you would like an assessment for someone under aged 18, we recommend our clinician colleagues at the Effra Clinic. There is more information here: https://www.effraclinic.co.uk/
Autism post-diagnostic support
Some people find post-diagnostic support useful.
In our clinical experience of working with many autistic adults across a range of health services, preferences for what post-diagnostic support involves (such as the content and focus of conversation) and how it is offered, vary widely between people. So, we have three different approaches to post-diagnostic support:
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Individual sessions with the person themselves
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Sessions with couples and families, when at least one person has neurodiverse traits or a diagnosis
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A group for adults who have recently been diagnosed as autistic
Working with couples and families
There is no uniform response to receiving an autism diagnosis: each person in a relationship and within a family unit can have similar and different thoughts and emotions about this.
Most of our clinicians at The Cavendish Clinic have completed formal postgraduate therapy training in working with couples and families. We believe it is important to offer each person within a couple or family a supportive space to talk about what an autism diagnosis means to them, and how this may influence communication, relationships, activities and day-to-day life.
We offer sessions to couples and families to talk through issues that are relevant to each person, with emphasis on strengthening relationships.
Psychological therapy with autistic adults
Clinicians at The Cavendish Clinic have substantial training, skills and experience of offering evidence-based psychological therapies to adults who have autistic traits and an autism diagnosis, focusing on co-occurring symptoms or conditions, and their impact.
As standard, we offer a formulation-based approach - we take the time to develop a shared understanding of factors that may increase vulnerability for co-occurring symptoms developing and persisting. The formulation guides our decision-making about what approaches are likely to be most beneficial for addressing therapy goals and helping people to have improved emotional wellbeing and quality of life.
Autism training for professionals
Some of our team at The Cavendish Clinic have extensive experience of developing and delivering training about autism to multidisciplinary team trainees and qualified clinicians (including psychiatrists, clinical counselling and forensic psychologists, psychological therapists and nurses).
Examples of training that we can offer include:
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ADOS-2 (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule - 2)
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Clinical assessment of autism in adults
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How to adapt health services so these are more accessible and acceptable for autistic people
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How to adapt psychological therapies for autistic adults
We welcome bespoke training requests.
Testimonials
You have both been incredibly kind and nothing has ever seemed too much trouble. The information, guidance and signposting to more sources of support will be invaluable.
It was a real pleasure to talk to people who really understood the complexity and subtlety of my son’s autism...it was great to see how you got beneath the surface to get the real story from him. You were kind, empathetic, encouraging and generous.
Very pleased that we were able to take advantage of their skills to assist [our son] in getting the diagnosis and help that he needs.
This was the best interaction I’ve ever had with professionals, they were super supportive and consistently made sure I was comfortable, and really took the time to understand me and my needs.
Kindness, Compassion, Non-judgemental, Ethical, Collaborative