A Commitment to Authenticity and Validation

This approach fundamentally rejects the idea of "fixing" the client, instead providing the tools and perspective necessary for you to navigate life from a place of genuine authenticity and strength:

• Embracing your authentic self: helping you learn to love the skin you're in, providing you the validation and tools to move beyond negative impacts and the exhaustive effort of masking to embrace your true cognitive style. The goal is to facilitate congruence of self and fully validate your unique way of being.

• Mastering the neurotypical World: Penny provides essential tools and understanding for learning to live your neurodivergent self in a neurotypical world. This powerful perspective involves identifying and addressing the systemic and environmental barriers that cause distress, rather than mistakenly assuming the problem lies within you.

• Targeted Skill Building: We actively address practical and emotional challenges often faced by neurodivergent individuals, such as effectively managing executive function difficulties, navigating overwhelming sensory sensitivities, and healing from the physical and emotional exhaustion of burnout.

• Holistic Support: Penny utilises her expertise in Trauma Therapy and general mental health practice to compassionately address common co-occurring issues like anxiety, depression, and trauma related to lifelong experiences of not fitting in or being misunderstood.

• Healing the Injustice Effect: We work to heal the effects of injustice sensitivity by identifying and understanding your unique "hair-trigger" response to perceived injustice. The goal is to reduce this sensitivity and prevent the cascade toward dysregulation.

• Working through triggers and boundaries. Reducing dysregulation and meltdown intensity, frequency and duration.

Penny’s therapeutic approach is fully tailored to the individual, employing flexible and evidence-based methods like Narrative Therapy and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) to support meaningful growth and authentic living.

People come to Neuro-Affirming Therapy (or Neurodivergent Counselling) when they are seeking support that validates their unique way of processing and helps them navigate challenges without trying to "fix" their core identity.

They are typically looking for solutions to issues caused by the mismatch between their processing style and the neurotypical world.

Why clients want Neuro-Affirming Therapy

Clients seek this specialised therapeutic approach because they want a space that understands and validates their lived experience, allowing them to achieve congruence of self.

• Recovering from masking and burnout: They seek help in recovering from the exhaustion, anxiety, and depression caused by spending a lifetime "masking" (hiding natural neurodivergent traits) to fit into neurotypical environments. They want to learn to embrace their true cognitive style.

• Addressing systemic distress: Clients recognise that much of their distress stems from systemic and environmental barriers, rather than an inherent flaw. They want support to live their neurodivergent self in a neurotypical world and master those environments.

• Developing Authentic Self-Acceptance: The primary goal is to move beyond shame and self-criticism to learn who they are and love who they are. They are seeking congruence of self and validation of their unique way of being.

• Targeted Skill Building: They need practical tools to manage specific challenges that standard therapy often overlooks:

  • Executive Function Difficulties (e.g., planning, initiation, organisation).

  • Sensory Sensitivities (e.g., managing sensory overload).

  • Improving relationships, boundaries, and self-advocacy.

• Holistic Support for co-occurring Issues: They need to address complex co-occurring mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, or trauma related to lifelong experiences of being misunderstood or feeling belonging.

Ultimately, people choose Neuro-Affirming Therapy for a safe, specialised space that rejects the idea of "fixing" them and instead supports their journey towards authentic living.

"Many people go through their life working through their neurodivergence. We need to learn who we are, how we process information, and how to work with it. I call it Neurodiversity Life Hacking.

Let's sit down and explore who you are, let's validate who you are, and let's hack your neurotypical world so you can exist in peace and comfort.

It's very much like Shirley Chisholm said: 'If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring your own chair.' Only, we need to make the chair first."

— Penelope Dickson