Autism and family quality of life

Abstract

The autism spectrum disorder is a is one of the great open questions of recent decades. The impact it produces on the subject involved and on the entire family sistem, on the wider social and economic fabric, the increase in the number of diagnoses, the multiplication of therapeutic and rehabilitative interventions, have increasingly pushed the scientific community towards this issue, which questions both the etiology and the efficacy and efficiency of treatments. This has allowed, to date, greater clarity with respect to preferential interventions. but if is it true for the early treatment, it is less true in the case of adult people. The project presented here was based on an integrated approach that includes: cognitive-behavioral therapy on the subject for the development of social skills and personal autonomy and integrated family psychotherapy. In particular, this therapeutic path with parent included parent-training sessions and gestalt psychotherapy sessions for the parental couple. In this way, the aim is to provide the family with the appropriate tools both to implement the development of the abilities of the autistic subject and to promote their generalization in the different contexts of life, just to encourage the creation of a safe container within the family itself. A space in which the subject is recognized in his personal dimension and finds space to experiment with his abilities, thus overcoming the welfare dimension that weighs so much on the quality of life of the entire family.

Keywords: Autism, Family sistem, Integrated Approaches