Professional Consultation
As the Neurodiversity Paradigm has become more well-known as a general concept, many helping professionals have started to use the term “neurodiversity-affirmative” without truly understanding what being neurodiversity-affirmative means. This is called “neurodiversity-lite” – using the language of the neurodiversity movement without putting in the personal work that it takes to avoid perpetuating the systemic harms of neuronormativity. If you work with Autistic, AuDHD (Autistic + ADHD), or PDA clients and haven’t yet done a deep-dive into neuronormativity and your own internalized ableism, you are doing your clients a disservice (no matter how good your intentions may be).
The professional consultation I offer for fellow helping professionals focusses on building understanding of neurodivergent perspectives from my own lived experience as a late-identified Autistic ADHDer, and from my work with numerous neurodivergent clients whose brains work similarly and differently to my own. I use the lens of radically neurodivergence-affirming care and the principles of Neurodivergence-Informed Therapy.
Depending on where you are at in your own professional and personal growth around neurodiversity, professional consultation can include:
- general learning about Neurodivergence-Informed Therapy and radically neurodivergence-affirming care
- discussion of a particular teen or adult client case (without identifying information) and how to approach their therapy from the non-pathologizing lens of radically neurodivergence-affirming care
- discussion of how to adjust therapy modalities (IFS, Brainspotting, EMDR) to better fit neurodivergent people
- if you are neurodivergent yourself, discussion around the experience of being a neurodivergent therapist
- may be one-time or ongoing, depending on your needs
Fees for professional consultation are $150 (plus GST) for 50 minutes. Consultation appointments occur online (using Zoom) unless otherwise requested. Consultations may be booked at https://neurodivergentcounselling.janeapp.com wherever there is space in my schedule. Please add yourself to the waitlist on Jane if there is nothing currently open.
Scope of Consultation: Our consultations do not constitute clinical supervision and you remain completely responsible – ethically and legally – for the decisions you make in your own clinical case situations. I will provide you with an opportunity to discuss clinical cases and issues about which I may have some expertise, and I may help you consider options for responding, but the comments made for your consideration are not supervision mandates. Although we may sometimes need to discuss personal issues that may be relevant to your clinical work, these consultation services do not constitute psychotherapy.
I also encourage fellow mental health professionals to join Facebook groups where you can learn from individuals with lived experience in neurodivergence, such as Neurodiversity Collective Canada – Professionals and Peers or Canadian Neurodiversity Affirming Therapists.
