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What is neurodivergent-affirming therapy, anyway?
Neurodivergent affirming is a phrase that you'll increasingly see used to describe counselling. But what does it actually mean for you as the person coming to therapy?
at its simplest, it means that I won't begin with the assumption that there is one correct way for you to think, communicate, related, regulate, experience the world - or do therapy, for that matter.
This mini will tell you some of what this might look like, sound like or feel like.
The idea of counselling can feel pressuring - that there is a right and a wrong way to do it. A counsellor and a client sit opposite each other, make a lot of eye contact and talk about feelings.
Sure, this is how some people do therapy. And sure, this is the way that it is often shown on TV and in films. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Neurodivergent-affirming therapy makes room for the fact that people communicate differently, respond differently to their environment and need different things in order to process a conversation. What helps one person think, engage or feel comfortable might make things harder for someone else.
And this doesn't mean looking for a label of autism, ADHD or another neurodivergence. It means being curious about you — how you experience things, .
Being neurodivergent-affirming doesn't mean assuming that every difficulty is connected to neurodivergence, either. Whatever brings you to counselling, we can be curious about what it means to you, rather than deciding in advance what explains it.
So, if you walk into my therapy room and I ask whether the lighting or seating is okay for you, it's more than me being polite. It's an invitation to tell me what works for you - dimmer or brighter lighting, the window open or closed, some background noise, a different seat... or something I haven't thought of.
If you walk into the room and notice there are fidget tools, or a notepad and pens, or a game of solitaire on the table, they are there for you to use if you wish - or not.
More than this, these things aren't just offered if you have 'earned the right' because you have the right label. Neurodivergent-affirming acknowledges that you and I might need different things in a session. As the therapist, you might sometimes see me with a fidget in my fingers or needing to adjust my surroundings too.
This is two-way. This is relationship. This is real therapeutic relationship.