Neurodiversity-Affirming Therapy: What Every Mental Health Provider Needs to Know
Apr 2025 · W. W. Norton & Company
Ebook
336
Pages
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
An essential guide to the paradigm shift required to empower your neurodivergent clients. Many mental health professionals are learning to recognize the ways in which neurodivergence can be part of someone’s identity, rather than a disability. While many neurodivergent individuals have unique support needs, they are not broken, nor do they need to be cured of their neurodivergence.
This neurodiversity-affirming model of care is not a specific set of therapeutic interventions, assessments, or steps a clinician must take to fit into a model. Rather, it is an underlying philosophy that recognizes individuals as the experts on their own lived experience, who can collaborate with mental health professionals to improve this experience.
Those who want to support neurodivergent clients will learn the historical, practical, and clinical contexts of neurodiversity-affirming care. Reaching beyond autism (what many people exclusively associate with the term “neurodiversity”), the book encompasses the wide spectrum of differences in brain function and behavioral traits that form part of the human experience, and which include ADHD, dyslexia, and certain trauma responses and forms of anxiety.
The book explores the nuances of affirming care in practice and the considerations that any provider should be aware of when working with neurodivergent clients. Everyone deserves appropriate support and freedom from the expectation to conform to neurotypical standards; with this trailblazing guide, clinicians can take the first, crucial steps towards meeting their neurodivergent clients’ needs.
This neurodiversity-affirming model of care is not a specific set of therapeutic interventions, assessments, or steps a clinician must take to fit into a model. Rather, it is an underlying philosophy that recognizes individuals as the experts on their own lived experience, who can collaborate with mental health professionals to improve this experience.
Those who want to support neurodivergent clients will learn the historical, practical, and clinical contexts of neurodiversity-affirming care. Reaching beyond autism (what many people exclusively associate with the term “neurodiversity”), the book encompasses the wide spectrum of differences in brain function and behavioral traits that form part of the human experience, and which include ADHD, dyslexia, and certain trauma responses and forms of anxiety.
The book explores the nuances of affirming care in practice and the considerations that any provider should be aware of when working with neurodivergent clients. Everyone deserves appropriate support and freedom from the expectation to conform to neurotypical standards; with this trailblazing guide, clinicians can take the first, crucial steps towards meeting their neurodivergent clients’ needs.
About the author
Amy Marschall, PhD, owns a private practice, RMH-Therapy, where she provides services to children and adolescents. Her clinical specializations include trauma-informed care, neurodiversity-affirming care, rural mental health, and telemental health. She lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
