Have you ever felt simultaneously too much and not enough?

If you’ve ever felt like the world wasn’t built with your brain in mind, you’re not alone. 

Many people who are autistic, ADHD, or who simply experience life in ways that don’t fit’ typical’ expectations have been told they need to change, mask, or ‘fit in’. Essentially asking you to adapt who you are to fit society instead of considering how the world and its constructs can be made more accessible and accommodating of you. 

Neuro-affirming therapy takes a different approach. Instead of trying to make you less yourself, it starts with the belief that your neurotype is valid, valuable, and accepting and embracing you for who you truly are is essential to your wellbeing. 

Neuro-affirming therapy meets you where you are. It is curious and does not assume. 

‘If you’ve met one Autistic person you’ve met one Autistic person’

It listens to you with deep attunement and doesn’t pathologise but rather accounts for all parts of you and how you function. 

Being neuro–affirming means recognising that there is no single “right” way for a brain to work. Just as people have different personalities, strengths, and life experiences, our brains also process the world in unique ways. Neurodiversity is the term used to describe this natural variation, which includes autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and many other differences.

A neuro-affirming therapist doesn’t see these differences as problems to be fixed. This can be invalidating at minimum and even traumatic because it may be unintentionally re-affirming a historical experience of feeling like you aren’t enough or that you need to be different. Instead, the starting point is that your way of experiencing the world is valid, valuable, and worth respecting. Rather than asking you to mask or hide parts of yourself, neuro-affirming therapy creates space for you to explore your life in ways that feel safe, authentic, and empowering while also accounting for struggles and obstacles you may encounter.

This approach shifts the focus away from “What’s wrong with me?” toward “What do I need to thrive as myself?”

How Can Therapy Help?

Transactional Analysis is really valuable in this instance because it looks at the whole of you. The good, the bad, and all the bits in between. 

A fundamental of this style of therapy is the belief that we are all OK. When someone who’s lived experience sits outside the ‘norm’ it can often lead that person to feel like they are very much NOT OK because if they were they would ‘fit’ better into the world, with their peers, their colleagues etc. 

A Valuable Visual 

Therapy can help as a way to explore our life positions and how this belief about ourselves impacts, limits and harms us if left undetected. 

My aim is to make the therapy that I offer accessible and beneficial to all. I firmly believe that you don’t need to change who you are to be deserving support or to build a life that is worth living. 

If you are interested in working together and have any further questions about how I accommodate neurodivergence in the therapy room please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask. 

You can email me here – katycounsellingherts@outlook.com

Or send me a text/WhatsApp here – 07950 345363