Blog

When supporting neurodivergent clients, increasing numbers of practitioners are looking to bridge a gap left by many counselling and therapy trainings. Ruth Williams, a psychotherapist specialising in neurodivergence, including autism and ADHD, has seen both the damage done by ill-informed therapy and the transformative power of attuned, informed, flexible practice. She shares some of the reasons therapists seek specialist supervision in the area of neurodiversity – including the experiences of neurodivergent supervisees.

The school year is drawing to a close amid reports of rising pupil absences and warnings of a ‘national crisis in education’. But what is being done to understand and address the psychological aspects of persistent absenteeism, including unmet additional needs? Suzy Rowland, CBT practitioner, autism / ADHD specialist trainer and founder of the happyinschool project, reflects on the difficult emotional dynamics around what is still unhelpfully termed ‘school refusal’ – and shares some suggestions for improving communication between school, families and children.

Cooking, as a therapeutic intervention, encourages us to respond with creative instinct and purposive focus, left and right brain working together. Ahead of World Autism Awareness Day on April 2, attachment-informed psychotherapist Charlotte Hastings explains how her Kitchen Therapy practice was inspired by her work with neurodivergent young people and informed by Winnicott’s concept of ‘indwelling’.

For complex reasons, therapeutic support is often inaccessible or poorly attuned to the needs of parents caring for children with a disability. Joanna Griffin, author, counselling psychologist and parent carer, shares insights from her research – and her lived experience – of what counselling can be doing to help.

How many of your therapy clients are autistic? And what about your therapist colleagues? Caroline Hearst, who trained as an art psychotherapist and now works as an autism acceptance educator, suggests the numbers are far higher than we think. To mark World Autism Awareness Day, the founder of Autism Matters talks training gaps, internalised oppression, and the dangers of assuming neurotypicality and pathologising autism.