Consultation with Candice

What does a Consultation with Candice around Autism, Sex, and Intimacy entail?

Consultation with me is often a time-limited, goal oriented approach to educating individuals and same/mixed neurotype couples about Autism as a neuro-culture, including the importance of understanding what intimacy is/is not, the importance of understanding one’s sexual sensory profile and tools for connecting with a partner non-sexually and sexually from a place that feels Self-led. For individuals healing from intimate betrayal, we look at the paralyzing trauma around this kind of betrayal trauma/violence, the rejection sensitivity in the partner who created the betrayal, how both can understand and communicate their needs non-sexually (e.g., needs around cognitive overload, emotional bandwidth, day to day tasks) and needs sexually (if they are at a place of healing their sexual relationship ). This is a very slow process where I weave in language and concepts from IFS and IFIO which are both incredibly gentle and disarming for high conflict neurodiverse couples.

Working through “Intimacy Stuck Points”…

Every human has intimacy stuck points, or challenges that require we seek guidance with clear-cut tools for achieving more clarity in order to connect better with our loved ones. In order to do this, I incorporate many tools from Internal Family Systems, Intimacy From the Inside Out, and The Gottman Institute. The Gottman’s use of scripts are incredibly helpful for an Autistic, ADHD neurotype. We do great with scripts! When we are exploring issues related to sexual intimacy, I often rely on the brilliant work of Esther Perel and Emily Nagoski (among others). I also weave in my sexual sensory profile e-book and concepts from my upcoming book (to be released Fall 2025!) along with specific questions to help an Autistic person or couple understand sensory sex better including what they like/don’t like surrounding sensory sex.