What Does ‘Neuroaffirming’ Mean?

Neuroaffirming means to focus on someone’s individual strengths, talents and capabilities, regardless of their neurotype, instead of focusing on differences being a negative thing, or something that needs to be fixed.
Neuroaffirming means supporting the individual to be their true self and have their needs met in a service environment, rather that expecting the individual to adapt to the environment at great personal cost (energy/’spoons’, physical or emotional discomfort).

Neuroaffirming Therapy Looks Like…

Adapting the therapy environment to meet each client’s individual needs/preferences which could mean:

• Reduced sensory input- lower lighting, avoiding strong smells, headphones/Loops welcome

• Supporting individual needs for comfort and engagement- fidgets or colouring available, no/low/high eye contact is all welcome, having options for proximity to therapist (physical distance in the space), comfort items from home encouraged, having a therapist who is comfortable with shifting posture, seating position, bringing snacks and drinks, etc.

  Adapting the therapeutic approach to suit the individual:

• Getting curious about how the individual’s brain and emotions work. Welcoming feedback of what interventions/strategies work and don’t work. Looking at the whole context of the person, their goals and their needs (holistic care).

• Matching the session pace, communication style and structure to the individual- in some cases this can mean following thoughts/topics/ideas in a scattered way and bringing it together at the end in a summary. In other cases it may mean taking things slow and giving the individual extra time to process. In others, it could mean using a lot of visuals, written summaries or pre-planning sessions in advance.

• Celebrating strengths, accepting challenges and finding adaptations rather than encouraging the ND person to suppress their natural responses to fit the societal mould and the expectations of others.

• Often this means avoiding highly structured/prescriptive interventions like CBT, which can feel invalidating and ineffective to many ND people and instead going for more flexible/integrative/relational approaches.

What is ‘Masking’?

Many of us with ADHD or Autism have experienced rejection, judgment and have been put in situations/environments where we have felt we need to hide our true reactions/responses and traits (called ‘masking’), to make other others feel comfortable or to meet their expectations and standards.

Masking is incredibly tiring for neurodivergent individuals, and is even more common in women and AFAB people, which is why women/AFABs are often late-diagnosed. Late-identification often happens when women/AFAB enter a period of heightened stress/intense change, academic/work burnout, pregnancy/becoming a parent, or entering perimenopause are all common events that can lead to a reduced ability to mask (and identifiable traits to become more clear). For some women/AFABs the inability to maintain their mask can be distressing, overwhelming or even lead to a sense of crisis. If this is you- you are not broken, and you are not alone!

Late-identification/diagnosis leads to a huge shift in self-understanding and identity in adulthood, which comes with a range of difficult emotions and questioning around how life could have been different had their neurodivergence been recognised and supported earlier.