Emotion focused therapies

Key Considerations

• Autistic adults often experience emotional difficulties and may have differences in their abilities to recognize their own emotions, express and regulate their emotions, and recognize others’ emotions.

• Autistic adults are more likely to have co-occurring psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression.

• Emotion-focused therapy, a humanistic therapy approach, has been adapted to help adults on the autism spectrum who struggle with emotions and past traumatic experiences.

• Several studies have also targeted emotion regulation impairment in autism using mindfulness-based and cognitive behavioral approaches

• Future research in this area should examine which treatment works best for whom on the spectrum, how or whether to adapt interventions for those on the autism spectrum who do not have intellectual disability, and how to make interventions adaptable to those on the autism spectrum with an intellectual disability.