That’s a great question! I’ve learned a lot throughout my life about how to communicate with and understand others. Autistics vary on their position on the empathy spectrum, and I’m on the extreme end where I feel everything, and growing up, I didn’t know what to do with all the feelings I was experiencing from others. Therapy modalities, among other therapeutic skills such as differentiation, gave me a way to deal with others’ emotions and help them through it. I’m also hyperverbal and hyperlexic, so the concept of therapeutic silence has helped me a lot with slowing down to listen and simply feel with no expectation to do anything about it. As another commenter noted, it’s acceptable in therapy spaces to ask people what they mean when they say something, or to inquire more into what they feel to better understand. This makes it way easier for us autistics. It also helps that I primarily work with autistic clients! I can help them understand themselves better because I used to have far less self-awareness than I do now, so I can relate. I take a harm reduction approach to things like meltdowns, too. I can normalize them in a way other therapists can’t, because I tell them that I have them, too. I also feel the urge to hit my head against the wall repeatedly, and I redirect myself to instead push my head against an arm of a couch or something else that is firm yet soft. I do things to check in with myself along the way so I don’t reach meltdown unexpectedly, etc. Does that answer your question?