Rediscovered: A Compassionate and Courageous Guide for Late Discovered Autistic Women (and Their Allies)
By Catherine Asta
Published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers | Release: 21st Feb 2025 | ISBN: 9781805011507
A powerful and timely new voice emerges in the autism narrative with Rediscovered, a groundbreaking guide by psychotherapist, podcast host, and late discovered autistic woman, Catherine Asta. This isn’t just a book, it’s a movement.
Late discovery can be life-changing - a lifetime of mysteries finally making sense. But there can also be a deep accompanying sense of grief.
This is a book about coming home to yourself.
Part memoir, part guide, part narrative non-fiction - the book weaves Catherine’s deeply personal late discovery story with the lived experiences of over 100 autistic women spanning seven decades, while offering therapeutic insight, practical tools, and a powerful cultural critique of the systems that continue to overlook autistic women.
Rediscovered centers and compassionately explores what it means to discover your autistic identity later in life - and what comes next.
“This book is about what happens when an autism discovery comes late - often after a lifetime of masking, misunderstanding, and misdiagnosis,” says Catherine, who herself discovered she was autistic in her 40’s and wrote the book while climbing the breast cancer mountain, not once, but twice.
A Personal Guide, and a Collective Manifesto
The book features a dedicated chapter titled "Powering Progress", which lays bare the systemic gender gap in autism diagnosis and care, and exposes how countless autistic women have remained invisible due to outdated stereotypes and male-biased diagnostic frameworks.
From missed diagnoses to medical gaslighting, Catherine calls for a seismic shift in understanding, allyship, and support. The chapter ends with a Manifesto for Change - a bold, practical call to action for healthcare professionals, educators, policymakers, and allies to close the diagnostic gender gap and build neuro inclusive, affirming systems of care.
This isn’t just a book for women - it’s a handbook for everyone ready to co-create a more compassionate and inclusive future.
What Rediscovered Offers:
- The emotional landscape of post-discovery: unmasking, grief, self-compassion.
- The vital importance of strengths-based, autism-affirming support.
- Lived experiences from over 100 autistic women across seven decades.
- A trauma-informed lens on identity, sensory life, relationships, and work.
- A blueprint for allyship, and a roadmap for societal change.
This guide is not pathologizing. It is identity-affirming, therapeutically grounded, and deeply humanizing, challenging outdated narratives and offering a vision for what truly inclusive understanding can look like.
Catherine's empathetic guidance supports you to advocate for yourself with a greater degree of self-awareness. With chapters on everything from masking, mental health, meltdowns, and menopause, to burnout, sensory processing, emotions, relationships, and work – it helps you to nurture your strengths as an autistic woman.
Most importantly, it shows you that you are not alone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Asta is a psychotherapist, speaker, and founder of The Late Discovered Club, the No. 1 ranked global podcast and community for female autism, now with listeners in over 125 countries. Recognized as one of the UK’s Top 50 Influential Neurodivergent Women (2023), and a trainer on the groundbreaking NHS National Autism Trainer Programme, she’s helped hundreds of late discovered women navigate their stories. Rediscovered is her first book.
REVIEWS
Thoughtful, insightful and compassionate. Packed with the latest research, this book skilfully combines evidence with practical tips and personal insights. It will help so many people discover or rediscover who they are. -- Professor Rory O'Connor, University of Glasgow
As an adult autism psychiatrist I believe "Rediscovered" is an essential handbook for autistic women and people of all ages and backgrounds. Catherine invites you alongside her in this gentle yet persuasive manifesto for rediscovering who you always were. -- Dr. Alison Lennox, Consultant Neurodevelopmental Psychiatrist
Beautifully weaves images of loss, grief, hope and healing. Catherine joins her own voice here with others' to create a guide and signposting for autistic women and indeed, any autistic person who has been left to rediscover themselves without role models or guidance, to a healthier future, one that includes self-understanding, self-worth, and tools for self-care. -- Dr Catriona Stewart OBE MCPP Researcher, Advisor, Founder SWAN
Full of important information for those of us who want to be re-discovered and heal as well for those of us who want to neurodiversity informed, kind and accountable professionals, friends, partners, colleagues. -- Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou, Director and Co-Strategic Lead Anna Freud's National Autism Trainer Programme, Associate Professor University College London
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