Therapist often approach a client from a specific model - goal oriented, support oriented, etc - and not all of these work equally well for any given person. One case I know of had a person with Asperger's like problems going to a goal oriented therapist who was completely focussed on the patient defining a specific goal to resolve and inadvertantly making the patient's problem *worse* because the 'problem' the patient picked ('difficulty communicating with others') was the symptom, not the problem.
Usually, therapists aren't covered (or are only partically covered) by medical plans, so the experimentation needed to find the right therapist may often be too expensive for a person who might benefit from it. Worse, unless you're in the entertainment industry (kidding), seeing a therapist is considered a negative thing - especially to the kind of person we're talking about here; it's seen as a kind of failure.
So, this is a lose-lose situation for most people. We have to change how we see psychological illnesses like this (and here, I'm not just talking about Asperger's and Asperger's like conditions - but all psychological illnesses). If you broke a leg or had a congenital heart defect, no one would think badly of you for it. Yet clinical depression (which is chemical in nature and can't easily be self-treated), schizophenia (which tends to be genetic in nature) or even just bad social conditioning - all of these are seen as 'personal weaknesses' or 'personal failures'.
The American 'self-blame' mindset doesn't help here either. There's very much a culture of 'all failure is your own fault' in American society that makes finding needed support - or even admitting to needing support difficult.
We live in a short attention span society where help is superficial and almost a hobby - where we feel good for patting someone on the back and saying 'there, there' - but rarely have the fortitude to stick by someone's side when they need long term support. When someone does need more help, we grow tired and resentful of those people and hope they go away.
Sadly, sometimes they do.
And life, for some at least, goes on.
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