Before we can approach the idea of Neurodiversity-Affirming Psychotherapy, we have to take a step back and understand the ideas of neurodivergence and neurodiversity.
What do Neurodivergence and Neurodiversity mean?
If I asked you to imagine a typical person with a typical brain, you could craft an idea of someone of average intelligence, with average social skills, who could adequately perform many standard tasks that we come across in public life and education. This typically-brained person is called neurotypical, which just means that the descriptions of their brain’s structure, capacity, and behaviors all fall roughly in the middle of the bell curves that our society uses to quantify ways brains work. Their brains are typical…they are neurotypical.
When someone’s brain is structurally or practically different than typical, especially if that difference is one that impacts the person’s ability to participate with ease in this culture, that brain and person can be called neurodivergent. Their brain diverges from the norm and this divergence impacts the way they think, feel, or perceive the environment. There is not inherent value or judgment in neurodivergence, it is just a descriptor that indicates variation from the norm. Examples of neurodivergence include: ADHD, high intelligence, autism, dyscalculia, high sensitivity, being a visual thinker, and dyslexia.
The broad spectrum of brains and all the ways they show up and operate— neurotypical and neurodivergent ones—we call neurodiversity.
What is Masking?
It can be uncomfortable and frustrating for a neurodivergent person to exist in a neurotypical society. Understandably, many neurodivergent people and their advocates seek to ease this tension by masking neurodivergence, which means hiding neurodivergent traits and masquerading as neurotypical. Therapists can collude with this as well, even specializing in the practice of stifling neurodivergent characteristics. Over time, masking alienates a person from their real self and causes stress and stress-related conditions, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality.
What is Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy?
Neurodiversity Affirmative Psychotherapy is an active stance in support of neurodivergence as a natural and beneficial phenomenon and helping it flourish. Of course it holds that the experience of neurodivergence can be challenging, especially when undersupported. But the emphasis in Neurodiversity Affirmative Therapy is on supporting the neurodivergent experience instead of extinguishing it.
For example, a Neurodiversity Affirmative therapist might help a person with ADHD embrace a non-linear way of thinking and speaking while also supporting executive functioning hacks that make life easier in this society. The same therapist might normalize the daily frustrations of a person with high intelligence and help them manage these feelings without negating them. Dyslexic clients would be supported in undoing the belief that listening to a book isn’t the same as reading it and autistic clients supported in their special interests and need for a supportive environment. In all of these cases, clients of a Neurodiversity Affirmative Psychotherapy model would be supported in deepening their self-acceptance, interwoven with any useful supports or changes, instead of shame-driven masking.
Many neurodivergent people manage a layer of shame and self-hatred after years of feeling not quite right or good enough. In a world where they are repeatedly shown their differences as insufficiencies or faults this makes so much sense. This trauma is treatable. Deeper approaches like Brainspotting and Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy as well as the container of a supportive therapeutic relationship can nurture self-acceptance and heal these wounds. If you are interested in exploring what Neurodiversity Affirmative Psychotherapy would be like for you, please contact me in my Folsom, CA practice.
