Resources
These tools help self-advocates learn about mental health therapy. They show how therapy can help people with dual diagnosis. Therapists can make changes to better support each person. Self-advocates can tell therapists what helps them. These tools can help people get the support they need in therapy.
What Does Research Tell Us About Mental Health Therapy for Adults with Intellectual Disability (ID)?
This resource is about research on mental health therapy for adults with IDD. Mental health therapy for adults with IDD can be helpful. The right supports need to be used. Therapists should use plain language and visual supports. Therapists should ask clients if they want to use a support person during sessions. People with IDD need to have control over their therapy sessions.
This resource is about research on mental health therapy for adults with IDD. There is a video and a PDF. Both talk about the same thing. Therapists and people with IDD talked about what is helpful and unhelpful in therapy. These are some important topics:
- There are barriers to good therapy.
- Having someone to talk to is helpful.
- Building a good relationship is important.
- Understanding privacy is important.
- Including support people can sometimes be helpful or unhelpful.
- Accommodations make therapy easier.
- How therapy is done needs to be different for each person.
- Setting goals together is helpful.
- Learning self-advocacy in therapy can be helpful.
- Group therapy is helpful for some people, but not everyone.
Mental Health Therapy Toolkit: A personal guide for adults with intellectual disability
This toolkit is for people with IDD who are in therapy or starting therapy. Use this toolkit to help your therapist know how to best support you. You can fill out the toolkit by yourself or with a support person. Then you can share the toolkit with your therapist. You can watch the videos to help you fill out the toolkit.
This toolkit helps people with IDD to communicate with their therapist. There are three worksheets in the toolkit. The first worksheet helps you to prepare for your therapy session. You can fill this out before your session. The second worksheet helps you at the end of your session. You can fill this out with your therapist at the end of the session. The third worksheet is to practice skills between sessions with your therapist. The next part of the toolkit talks about how to practice therapy skills. These are skills like breathing exercises or ways to identify emotions. There are videos to help you understand and practice the skills.