Here Liz Pilley, an Autistic Counsellor and friend, talks about her experience of working with Neurodivergent clients.
Working with Neurodivergent (ND) Clients
One of my favourite things about being an autistic counsellor for clients who are autistic or have ADHD is helping them find the language they need to articulate their internal experience and then be able to communicate that to other people. Without the words to describe the concept, people can’t explain their internal world to another person and then often fail to make a connection. Finding the words to describe the inside of your head to yourself and to other people is a powerful and liberating experience.
Quite often, ND people have never had those experiences validated by another person, and have had a lifetime of feeling like they’re different and somehow wrong.
Truly internalising that they’re not broken or wrong, and learning ways of working with their neurotype, instead of trying to push it into a shape which it will never fit, can be transformative.
Many traits which we typically associate with autism and ADHD in our society are actually to do with an autistic or ADHD person being in distress, stressed, traumatised, overwhelmed or burnt out. Learning about dysregulation, and how to keep ourselves better regulated, less stressed and overwhelmed, can help us feel better and enjoy our lives more. Often we need to give ourselves permission to stop trying to be something we’re not, and learn to create the life that is sustainable for us and our neurotype.
Having our trauma acknowledged and validated is a first step to understanding and accepting ourselves, before going on to make changes to our lives so that they work better for us.
Having a counsellor who really “gets” our experiences and the way we think can be so helpful
– so many autistic and ADHD experiences can be mistaken for issues which need solving, when in fact they’re just part of who we are as an ND person, and the issues we need help with can be things which non-ND people may not have even thought of. It’s amazing what can progress clients can make when an ND counsellor and ND client work together as a team.