"When should I tell a client they have Autism?"

First of all, we don’t tell anyone they are Autistic or “have” Autism. Because we haven’t done a full assessment and therefore, we are speculating. And it is good that we speculate or have clinical intuition and many times, this information is helpful for our clients to hear. However, we must distinguish clearly that this is just an observation of traits we’ve seen in a client via our work with them and that full assessment/exploration is needed to be certain. 

The caveat here is that all of clients are Autistic so, by design, I don’t run into this issue often/at all. Anyways, if I did have a client who I suspected had Autistic traits, I would reflect on how best to share this information with this particular client. Many people have said that they were let down by so many medical providers never catching their traits. Therefore, I err on the side of telling someone what I am perceiving about them, even if they end up not being open to it or even having a negative reaction to it. 

My general approach is that I proceed gently, perhaps offering some reflection like "I notice that you get really stressed out when your schedule changes and (maybe list some other traits I've observed), have you considered Autism as an explanation?" And I would provide a brief description of Autism if they don't already have a sense of what Autism is (and especially if they have outdated information about Autism which is probably the majority of the human population). I also may offer the Intense World Theory as a way to frame it since many people identify as highly sensitive people and disregard that they could be Autistic when in fact they could be. If they shut that down or say, no it's really x, I don't push it but I leave the door open. I let them know that if they ever want to explore further if Autism is an explanation for some of their experiences, I offer to be there if/when they'd like to dive into it.

I do not come from a place of “everyone who is Autistic needs to know and accept it, identify with it, etc in order to live a meaningful life.” My job is not to convince people to embrace their neurotype or even get interested in it, that is a personal journey that only they can walk. While I personally find value in all of those things, we all approach life differently, have our own traumas to attend to that may not allow us to so readily dive into this paradigm. There is space for all of us here, the Autistic community is here whenever someone decides to embrace it.