What does neuroaffirming therapy look like?

In recent years we have seen large shifts in the treatment of autism and other neurodivergent conditions. A lot of these shifts have been centred around the media coverage in the NDIS noting that some practices under Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) can either be too extreme or alienating and trying to get neurodivergent people to conform in a neurotypical way. Due to the NDIS and the increased diagnosis and awareness of autism and other neurodivergent conditions, such as ADHD have also helped increase and awareness and advocacy around treatment.

Neuroaffirming therapy changes many aspects of treatment. When we work with a child and adult, the language we use needs to change to be less focussed on deficits and more focussed on a person’s strengths. It is still important to acknowledge the barriers people face, as this drive’s effective treatment but the way we do this can be more powerful when coming from affirmative lens. This also should focus on new ways of doing things, such as teaching a song as a mantra to do a task, such as cleaning our teeth.

This moves away from traditional treatment where the person will be walked through a series of steps and rewarded, or not, depending what aspects of the behaviour they perform. For neurodivergent people living more regional remote such as the Central West, Cowra, Young or even Wagga Wagga supports can be limited face to face or have extensive waitlists, with some places in the ACT having closed books! Remote therapy can be a good support here as it means we can still aim to do neuroaffirming therapy to ensure you can still access treatment, we might just get more creative and change things up a little bit!

It can also be important and useful to call and chat to some prospective therapists and see how they discuss and communicate things with you, as well as asking how they practice. This is important as the sooner you have peace of mind of being comfortable with working with a potential therapist, the therapy relationship can begin to build.

Also taking time to explain your needs and wants is also important! Therapy should be about goals you feel are important to you and where you at in life, hence why we try to meet people where they are at! It is also important you feel heard and that you feel a connection to the therapist of choice, as this has been shown time and again to be the core factor that can make or break therapy success.