Normativity In Mind: Neuronormativity In Therapy

Collected thoughts and responses of two neurodivergent professionals

Jade’s Thoughts

David Gray-Hammond set me the task of comparing and contrasting types of therapy that may or may not be helpful for neurodivergent people, and how neuronormativity has impacted the therapies that are offered most frequently.

I sat with this for a while and came across a few barriers. I’m an integrative counsellor, which means I pull from different modalities depending on the needs of each individual client. There are dozens – probably hundreds – of different therapy modalities, and I’m only trained in techniques from a few of them, so I wouldn’t be able to compare and contrast many to a depth I would be happy with.

In my experience, what matters far more is the positionality of the therapist themselves, rather than the modality being utilised. (Unless it’s applied behavioural analysis (ABA) which is neuronormative by definition. ABA’s stated purpose is to make Autistics appear indistinguishable from their neurotypical peers, and it has been shown to have caused PTSD for many Autistic people.)

That said, neuronormativity runs through the core of most therapies, even if nowhere near as explicitly as with ABA. As I touched on in the first piece in this series, Carl Rogers’ person-centred counselling approach lets the client take the lead, and everything is supposed to be centred on their experience. Under this model, counsellors meet their clients with the core conditions of empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard.