Emotion-focused therapy for clients on the autism spectrum: a preliminary study

People on the autism spectrum can experience difficulties in emotion processing. Challenges in affective empathy for self (emotion-regulation) and other (empathy) and cognitive empathy for self (self-reflection) and other (mental representation) often result in emotional injuries and trauma-related experiences. In this presentation, findings from three groups of emotion-focused therapy for autism spectrum are presented. Nine participants undertook three 4-person groups of a 9-week Emotion-Focused Therapy group treatment. All sessions were video recorded and Therapy session 1 (T1), Interpersonal Process Recall session 1 (T2), Therapy session 7 (T3) and IPR session 8 (T4), were independently rated using the Client Emotional Processing Scale for Autism Spectrum (CEPS-AS; Robinson & Elliott, 2016) an empathy observer measure. The repeated measures ANOVA showed that, for the 9 participants, change in overall emotional processing over sessions was statistically significant on all four dimensions and overall. Qualitative data is presented to illustrate the change process across treatment: activation, deepening and transformation of emotions, accessing of core pain and associated unmet needs, use of adaptive emotions such as empathy for self and others. Triangulation with HAT and change interview data lends support for emotion-focused therapy as an effective intervention for people on the autism spectrum. The small number of participants in the study mean that the findings have limited generalizability. However, preliminary findings are promising but replication and further research are required.