Making meaning from experience for adolescents and young adults with social communication differences: Empowering the Dis-empowered

Kennedy, E-K (Emma-Kate)
Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust, 120 Belsize Lane, NW3 5BA, London

 

Submission type

Oral and Poster

Scheduled

Room 208, 10-07-2019, 13:30 - 15:00

Keywords

Autism and mental health, exclusion, assessment, projective techniques

Summary

Adolescents and young adults increasingly attend specialist mental health services with ever more distressing needs, needs that significantly impact on their emotional well-being, social relationships as well as their education, training and employment opportunities. For those with additional communication and interaction differences, making sense of their experience is especially challenging. They often do not find making and maintaining relationships with others easy, and can find conventional information gathering assessments (yet another) difficult and occasionally unhelpful experience. 

Assessment approaches that support them to make meaning about their subjective experience of the world are of critical importance. Of equal importance is the degree to which we can support them in (i) learning new ways of thinking and feeling about themselves and their understanding of the social world and (ii) applying this learning to their current contexts – at home, in school/work, in the community. 

This workshop explores one such set of approaches, projective techniques, where a free-flowing response to a stimulus is used as the basis of a dialogue with the young person. A composite case study approach is used, contextualised within our broader integrated approach to psychological assessment, to illustrate a collaborative and empowering process that maximises person-centered change. 

Auteurs