Neurodiversity-Affirming Therapy: What Every Mental Health Provider Needs to Know

An essential guide to the paradigm shift required to empower your neurodivergent clients. Many mental health professionals are learning to recognize the ways in which neurodivergence can be part of someone’s identity, rather than a disability. While many neurodivergent individuals have unique support needs, they are not broken, nor do they need to be cured of their neurodivergence. This neurodiversity-affirming model of care is not a specific set of therapeutic interventions, assessments, or steps a clinician must take to fit into a model. Rather, it is an underlying philosophy that recognizes individuals as the experts on their own lived experience, who can collaborate with mental health professionals to improve this experience. Those who want to support neurodivergent clients will learn the historical, practical, and clinical contexts of neurodiversity-affirming care. Reaching beyond autism (what many people exclusively associate with the term “neurodiversity”), the book encompasses the wide spectrum of differences in brain function and behavioral traits that form part of the human experience, and which include ADHD, dyslexia, and certain trauma responses and forms of anxiety. The book explores the nuances of affirming care in practice and the considerations that any provider should be aware of when working with neurodivergent clients. Everyone deserves appropriate support and freedom from the expectation to conform to neurotypical standards; with this trailblazing guide, clinicians can take the first, crucial steps towards meeting their neurodivergent clients’ needs. Read more