Behavioural Assistance Therapy

ose autistic individuals who also had an intellectual disability. As a result, therapists tend to work with parents, educators, and other relevant individuals, to avoid anxiety provoking sessions involving the client. Since 2006, when Autism itself was acknowledged as a disability, many more individuals with High Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome are being referred for anxiety and behaviour management support. Social Worker, Christine Shirley, has been working with individuals on the Autism Spectrum, and their families, since 1995. Christine has also gained valuable perspective from 30+ years of personal experience, living with, and providing care for family members on the autism spectrum. Through professional and personal experiences, Christine came realize that clinical interventions currently offered to those on the Autism spectrum have significant limitations and fall far short of those offered to the general population:

• Clients who are able to engage in cognitive therapies often forget what they have learned when they find themselves in a state of high anxiety.
• Anxiety and Language disorders regularly result in resistance to counselling.
• To avoid causing undue distress to the client, which can result in Meltdown or Shutdown,
therapists tend to work with the primary caregiver and educators rather than the autistic
individual. Therapy, therefore, is developed from the perspective of Parents, Educators and
Therapist, with minimal client contact or consultation.
• The focus of treatment all too often becomes “behaviour management”, rather than holistic and
person centered.
• The client can disengage from therapy, feeling disempowered, and often resistant to treatment. Necessity, it is said, is the mother of invention, and this is certainly true in the case of BAT Therapy. Recognising anxiety as the most debilitating symptom of Autism, and knowing that our emotions lie in our subconscious mind, Christine approached Leigh Skewes at the Center for Subconscious Research for advice. Three years later, Behavioural Assistance Therapy is proving effective in the treatment of anxiety, fears, phobias, and OCD’s in individuals with High Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. Subconscious
Recognising the immediate need to reduce anxiety, BAT therapy begins with ‘Subconscious Freedom Therapy’, a simple and painless subconscious technique that helps to reduce emotional meltdown or shutdown. BAT therapy recognizes that autistic individuals, and their primary carer, can suffer trauma on a day to day basis. Subconscious treatment is available to the primary carer where requested.

2. Autistic Profile
If autistic individuals are to gain lifelong behavioural changes, it is imperative that they gain insight into their own functioning. BAT therapists facilitate an environment where the individual and his/her primary support person can explore the defining features of the client’s unique autistic profile, and gain valuable insight into how autism manifests itself in the individual, and influences their behaviours. Individuals on the autism spectrum will learn that they have the ability to take full responsibility for their own behaviours.
3. Cognitive Treatment
The BAT therapist now works with the client and their support network in developing a Behavioural Assistance Plan. The ASD individual and his carer work with the therapist as a team, so all parties are empowered to walk away with new tools and skills in behaviour management. For further information on Behavioural Assistance Therapy or Subconscious Freedom Therapy, please contact Christine Shirley on 0410 845 587 Leigh Skewes on 0413 347 233 or email [email protected]