What does a neuro-affirming practice look like in the therapy room?

As awareness of neurodivergence grows, many therapists want to work in ways that better support their neurodivergent clients. But moving beyond theory and knowing how to apply neuro-affirming practice in real life can feel challenging.

In this episode of Good Enough Counsellors, I'm delighted to welcome back Louise Lucas who described how she'd discovered her own autism and ADHD in episode 7, and how this had transformed her personal life and practice.

Since then she's continued to develop her Neurodivergent Wellbeing Model and has written a book: A Therapeutic Workbook for Supporting the Wellbeing of Neurodivergent Clients.

In this conversation, Louise explains how her own experiences shaped her work and why neuro-affirming practice is about far more than understanding a diagnosis. We explore how therapists can help clients move from shame and self-criticism towards self-understanding, compassion and a sustainable wellbeing.

Takeaways:

• What neuro-affirming practice means in everyday therapy
• The Neurodivergent Wellbeing Model and the Two Spirals
• Why knowledge, understanding and acceptance all matter
• Understanding "spiky profiles"
• Why context is essential when working with neurodivergent clients
• Helping clients move from shame to self-compassion
• Supporting regulation through basic needs and sustainable self-care
• What every therapist should understand about working with neurodivergent clients

About Louise Lucas

Louise Lucas is a therapist, supervisor and trainer specialising in neurodivergent wellbeing and neuro-affirming practice. She developed the Neurodivergent Wellbeing Model to help therapists and clients better understand regulation, self-compassion and sustainable wellbeing.

Her new book, A Therapeutic Workbook for Supporting the Wellbeing of Neurodivergent Clients, is published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers in September 2026.

You can find out more at Louise's website curiosityspot.co.uk

Links:

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You can also find me here:

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My website: josephinehughes.com

The information contained in Good Enough Counsellors is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this podcast are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this podcast. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this podcast.

Josephine Hughes disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this podcast.

It's like you're processing a lifetime's worth of trauma, of grief, of feelings, of everything. And it's like going back and reprocessing your whole life just through a brand new lens.

Yeah, that's gonna take time and that's gonna look different than you were taught therapy looks.

Sometimes that looks like we're just gonna talk about your special interest for the whole session because that's gonna regulate you and it's gonna make you feel heard and it's gonna dissipate some of that shame and it's gonna tell you you are welcome in this space. And that's.

Welcome to Good Enough Counsellors, the podcast for growing a private practice without the pressure to be perfect. I'm Josephine Hughes, counsellor and creator of Therapy Growth Group, helping you get the clients you want and create the practice of your dreams.

I'm really pleased to welcome Louise Lucas back to the podcast today.

Louise joined me a couple of years ago now to talk about her own experience of discovering that she was autistic in adulthood and how that shaped both her life and her private practice.

It was one of those conversations that stayed with me because Louise spoke so thoughtfully about identity and self understanding and creating a way of working that really fits with who you are as a person.

And if you want to go back and listen to the podcast, it's right back at the start because Louise is one of my very first guests and it's episode seven, so back in single digits. But since Louise and I spoke, she's continued to develop her work with neurodivergent clients and therapists.

And she's got an upcoming book that's coming out in September called A Therapeutic Workbook for Supporting the well Being of neurodivergent Clients. And I was very lucky. I got haha the Joys of being a Podcast Host. I got to read the book before the publication.

So today with Louise, we're going to talk about the journey from being a therapist to an author, explore some of the ideas behind the workbook, and hear about what's happened to Louise since I last saw you.

Gosh, that's a lot to pack in.

So what's happened since we last saw each other on the podcast? It's been, oh, two years at least, I guess.

When we last spoke I was, I just kind of launched the model.

Kind of starting to realize I was working with neurodivergent clients, whether I'd chosen to or not. That was the niche that had found me. And it was the place where I really found my joy in. In my work.

Yeah.

So kind of it was out in the world.

Yeah.

But I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it. And it's. I just kind of started sharing things a bit more widely.

So I'd been to an event run by the BACP for supervisors where I'd shared some things on neuroaffirming practice in supervision.

And I was, I think at that stage I was probably just in the stages of planning, going to the Pink Therapy conference, which that year was all about the intersections of queerness and neurodivergence. And that's where the book started, really. So I attended the conference.

I was part of the opening panel of a group of queer and neurodivergent therapists who kind of did a panel piece. And then I also presented a workshop that was a bit more personal about my own experiences of coming out as both queer and neurodivergent.

And actually, despite it's happening kind of decades apart, the process had actually had lots of similarities. And it was a really interesting but very personal piece.

I even brought my Lego pieces into it, which gave me immense joy to kind of share my personal journey through the medium of Lego. And it was somebody who'd attended that workshop who knew somebody who worked at Jessica Kingsley Publishers. And then I got an email.

It just popped into my inbox one day of a. From an editor saying, would you be interested in maybe having a chat about doing something?

I've heard about your work at the conference and let's see what might be there. And it's the sort of thing that doesn't happen. You know, people want to write books and it takes time and energy.

And there's part of me that feels a little bit guilty because it kind of landed in my lap at a time when I wasn't expecting it and wasn't really looking at it. It was. I remember, in fact, in the therapy growth group, we'd done an exercise.

Gosh, this would have been some time before, probably looking at future goals and probably just planning for the kind of coming year. And at one point you'd said, and just write down one thing that you would love to do. Not a now thing, not a next year thing, but in five, 10 years.

What would be the thing that would make you feel like, I've really made it, this is the thing I want to do. And this little voice in my head, just write a book, just put it down.

I remember writing it really small and it felt like a really audacious thing to put out into the universe. And yeah, probably 12 months later the opportunity came knocking.

Yeah, because it's actually a really practical book, isn't it? It's actually called a therapeutic workbook. Would you like to tell people a little bit about why it's called a workbook?

Because that's what it is. So, yeah, when I was doing this work, that was the gap that I found.

There was lots of academic stuff, there was lots of medicalized stuff on neurodivergence. There was lots of kind of introduction to neurodivergence for therapists.

But what I wanted was someone to say, this is what you do in the therapy room. And it just didn't exist at that time. Now there's been lots of developments in the area since then, so there now is lots more.

But that's where the model came from and that's where all these workshop came from. So there's. The book is kind of. There's four sections. Three sections.

So that there's the introduction and kind of the model itself, the two spirals model, which anyone that's heard me speak will know all about because I never shut up about it.

Because to explain it in a little bit. Yeah, go on. You've got an explanation model.

Yeah. And kind of overview of neuroaffirming practice and how we might think about that.

And then there are these three strands that I kind of weave through my work with neurodivergent clients. And that's knowledge, understanding and acceptance. And the knowledge is all about the getting the right data. So that's knowledge for the individual.

How does my neurodivergence show up? What's my experience of my neurodivergence? What are the traits that I experience, but also the wider contextual stuff? So how is this impacting me?

What's the society I live in? What is the systems and structures, structures that I'm moving through? How does my neurodivergence impact with those?

It brings in kind of intersectional identities.

It brings in an understanding of the wider kind of neurodiversity paradigm and how that kind of fits in and kind of disrupts some of the medicalized Models. So there's this really big. I always call it data gathering. It's like, we don't do anything with it. Let's just figure it.

Like, what's the lay of the land? We don't have to touch it, we don't have to change it. We just have to kind of recognize what these different. It's there here. Yeah, absolutely.

The observance.

Yeah.

And then the understanding is, okay, so if these things are true, what does that mean? And at this stage, we're not trying to change it. What we're doing is going, okay, so if, for example, I have auditory sensitivity.

So if I have auditory sensitivity, what does that mean for me? As I move through the world, what kind of environments are going to be more difficult for me? When does it show up?

What are the things that exacerbate it? What are the things that make it easier to manage? What are the supports that I can find? Just that noticing. When is it different?

Because neurodivergence, part of the wonderful thing about it is it's constantly changing. So there's never a. This is the answer and this will fix things. We don't fix it.

We learn to work with it and work with its rhythms and its shifts and its changes. Yeah. And the final part is the acceptance part. And that's where change happens. And that is that. Okay, I know all of this to be true.

I accept myself as I am. Therefore, what does this mean for my life? And how do I create a world and a life that is sustainable for me? It goes back to Carl Rogers.

When I accept myself as I truly am, that is when I find I can change. Yeah.

And we can't do that without the knowledge and the understanding bit, which makes it sound like it's, oh, well, you do the knowledge, then the understanding, and then the acceptance. And of course, you don't. They are all woven together, and at different times, different ones come more easily and grow more. It's a. It's a process.

And all of the book, all of the exercises in it, it's a really practical workbook. So kind of each of these strands has a number of exercises that has a. Okay, here's often a worksheet. This is how I've used it.

These are some things that might cause it to be difficult for some clients because obviously neurodivergence is a huge umbrella. Nothing's going to work for everyone. And this is how you might want to integrate it into your practice.

But I. I've tried to do it in a very gentle kind of offering of here's what I've done and here's what I know. You will know other things, your clients will know other things.

So but I'm going to share my bit with you and then kind of take it off and integrate it into your practice. So it's not modality specific. It's very much these are tools. How do they work with you and how do they work with your clients?

And it's, it's different with every client because every relationship is different.

Yeah. And every client is different as well. So, you know, we sort of mentioned that people might well have heard of the neurodivergent well being model.

But for those that haven't, could you explain about the sort of spirals and how they work?

Absolutely. I love talking about these things. I could do it all day. You might have to stop me, Josephine.

So it started really from my own observance of what was going on for me around my neurodivergence and patterns that I was seeing being repeated with clients. And I found myself drawing out this same at the time, it was a cycle and it was when we are dysregulated, our capacity just shrinks.

So when I am dysregulated, for whatever reason, my auditory sensitivity becomes greater, I become more sensitive to things. My executive function often decreases.

I can get more demand avoidance things like for me, when I'm particularly dysregulated, I can lose access to words. You wouldn't think that was true listening to me speak right now, but there are times when words are just not available to me.

It can come out physically and that then feeds into a. I'm not able to do the things I want to do because everything is harder, because my sensitivities are more pronounced.

So I'm spending more of my energy, more of my capacity just managing, existing in a world because everything suddenly feels harder and harsher and more difficult. So I can't do the things I want to do and need to do. And that can really lean into the negative self talk that so many neurodivergent people develop.

That lots of reasons for all the messages that so many of us are told. And you know, you're not good enough. Why can't you just do this? But you did this last time. You just need to try harder.

You just need to push through everybody else is able to. You're too much, you're not enough.

All of those kind of voices that we can have going on for people, it can come from educational trauma, sometimes from family systems, just from Being in a neuronormative society that has certain expectations of us. And when we can't do the things even that we want to do or that we need to do for ourselves, that just gets amplified.

And of course, when we don't feel good about ourselves, we don't do the things to look after ourselves.

So when I'm feeling low like that, when those voices are very loud, it's like, well, of course I'm not going to engage with my special interests because I don't deserve to do that. You know, I might be. Well, I can't stop to eat because I have too much to do. So I'm just going to push through. I don't attend to my basic needs.

I'm going to stay up late to get this thing finished or I'm going to have to get up really early, early to do these things. So we get even more dysregulated. And of course, the more dysregulated we get, the less capacity we have, the less we're able to do things.

And it very quickly became apparent that this wasn't a cycle, this was a spiral. And when I first thought about it, it very much came to me as like a Helter Skelter.

Once you're on that spiral and you're just going down and down and you get gets faster. And I don't know if you remember when I was a kid, I remember being on a how to skelter and being told, you know, you must just keep everything in.

If you touch the sides, you're going to get birds. I mean, why. I don't know that you're allowed to go anymore. That seems so unsafe on these little hessian mats, kind of going down at great speed.

And just that fear of, well, I can't do anything. I've just got to ride this through until you get to the bottom. And at the bottom is burnout.

And it burnout for so many neurodivergent folks and neurotypical people. You stop being able to do everything. The brain and the body just says, no, this isn't okay anymore.

Yeah.

And that resonated with lots and lots of people. But. And it was a client actually who said to me one day, but is there something else? And I was like, because this isn't.

And I remember the conversation, I was saying, you know, but this sounds really awful, but this isn't all. It isn't always negative feedback loops. And they were okay, but what's the positive one?

Yeah.

And I said, I know there is One. But let me go away and think about it. And so that kind of really brought the second spiral in.

Yeah.

Which is the one that feels like the place where hope lives. So in the downward spiral, there feels like there's a lot of grief, There's a lot of sadness, there's a lot of frustration.

The upward spiral also contains some grief, but also holds hope and joy and possibilities. It's. For me, it's. Yeah, I get really excited when I think about it. It just. Yeah, it's. It is. Yeah.

It's the place that says, okay, even if we know these things to be true, what can we do about them? And I'm a bit of a fixer. I'm practical. If there's a problem, okay, how are we managing this?

I can wallow with the best of them, but ultimately, I want to find a solution. And that's what lives in the upward spiral for me.

Yeah.

Because the upward spiral starts at. It starts at the same place. It starts at that place of regulation. But it's rather than that message that so many of us have been told of.

Just try harder and kind of really focusing on behaviors. You just need to do things differently. You just need to get on with it.

It says the place where we manifest change is in how we speak to ourselves and how we take care of ourselves.

Because when I speak to myself with compassion and kindness, when I get curious about what are my needs, when I allow myself to attend to those needs, I become more regulated. When I have slept, when I've eaten, when I've engaged with my special interests, when my sensory needs are taken care of, I feel better.

I feel more regulated. My capacity increases. I'm able to tolerate distress much more. Kind of don't quite know what the word is. I'm just able to tolerate it more, I guess.

Yeah.

And that then makes everything not necessarily easier, but we find an ease. So I'm more able to do the things that I want to do and need to do. It doesn't mean I can do everything.

There are some things that, for me, will always be hard, but because I'm in that place of regulation, I'm able to engage those more rational parts of me that are able to go, okay, this is what's happening in this moment. What can we do? What is possible? How are we going to move forward with this?

And because I'm doing the things that I want to do and need to do, I feel better about myself. So those negative voices aren't getting fed. What are getting fed? Are there? We're okay.

Yeah.

Who we are is okay. And so then I'm more likely to look after myself, engage in the self care that I need to keep myself regulated.

And so again, it sounds like a cycle, but it's a spiral. And it takes us up and it takes us to a place of balance and sustainability. And what that looks like is different for everyone.

Yeah.

What I can achieve is very different to someone whose neurodivergence presents in a different way or who has a different support system around them or is living with a different intersectional identity and different pressures on them. But the model is about finding what does balance look like for the individual. Because our upward and downward spirals, they always exist together.

It isn't a we replace the downward spiral with the upward spiral. It's we find the balance between them. There are always things that will pull me down. There are.

There will be a loud noise that I cannot control that will come out. The heat this week has been. Yeah. It plays havoc with my sensory needs, with my fatigue.

When my long Covid was particularly bad, which hopefully, touch wood, is better now. That massively impacted on what I could do. So those things were never going away.

The living in a neuronormative society, the systemic oppression so many of us experience doesn't go away. But what we do is we add in the positives and we find a way to balance them out.

So we strip away as much of the downward pressures as we can, we add in as much as the upward pressures, and somewhere in the middle we find a. Okay, this is sustainable.

Yeah. What came up for me actually just sort of listening to you then was, you know, that sort of sense of maybe being able to interrupt the self talk.

Yeah. And show yourself compassion.

And what I quite often find is that it's very difficult for me to do that, but somebody else being compassionate really can break through. And I wonder if that's sort of part of the role of the therapist with.

Absolutely.

When helping people to use this model.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And actually it's something that I often will say to clients. I'm going to hold on to the hope. I'm going to hold on to the compassion. I'm going to give you the reframe, I'm going to give you the other voice.

And some of the exercises in the book are very much about the finding the scripts. So you're not having to.

Because in that moment when we most need to take care of ourselves, often we haven't got the capacity to try and figure out, well, what does taking Care of myself. Look, like if at that point when your capacity is really low, you've got even poorer interoception. So, I mean, I, I never know when I want to eat.

I have to eat on a schedule. Otherwise it doesn't happen because I either think I'm always hungry or never hungry. I cannot trust those signals from my body.

Yeah.

But having structures in place helps me to make sure that bit of my life is regulated. Having. And sometimes it's recruiting other people. So my wife will say to. Or I'll say to my wife, I feel really dysregulated and I don't know why.

And she'll be like, have you drunk any water today? And it's like, oh, no, I just need to go and do that. And that will be the thing.

Yeah.

And that's the knowledge part. The more we understand the things that cause dysregulations and the more we can understand the things that will help it.

And so a lot of it is building those structures and strategies. So even when we feel like, well, I don't know what I need and I don't know what's going to be helpful.

And even though, like, if we're particularly with some my neurodivergent clients, where now is the only time that exists is. So it has never felt any different. It can never feel any different. We've got the script of okay. But I know when I feel like this.

In the past I have done things that have been helpful and they have been these things. And so one of the things that I really love to share is like, just go to basic needs.

Like when you don't know what's wrong, you don't know what to do. Go back to the basics. Have you had anything to eat? Have you had any liquid? Are you tired? Are you the wrong temperature?

What's going on for you sensory wise? Like, just do those bits and get that baseline sorted.

Yeah.

And you're unlikely to do harm by having a little bit of water, a little bit of something to eat. I think a nap makes everything better.

Yeah.

Just kind of giving yourself that permission to just go, okay, well, what can I do right in this moment? What's the most accessible thing to me? And then we build from there and as we get more capacity, we become more able to challenge the thought.

So even when I really don't like myself, I can usually find the wherewithal to go. I'm just going to close my eyes because actually it might feel better. Even if I just get 20 minutes, something might Shift in that.

Or I really don't like myself, but I'm gonna give myself some water because. And sometimes I will drink water to spite myself because I don't want the stupid water and I'm not drinking it, but I am going to drink it.

And that's the thing that works. And it's learning to trust the structures. Even when you don't trust yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot in that, isn't there? Because it sort of feels hopeless. Yeah. A lot of the time.

And you just sort of think, no, you can't do it. Not worth it.

Yeah. And it's. It's using the times. When you're in a place of regulation and you have capacity to. What can you do to support your future self? I'm forever.

Okay, I don't want to do this right now, but future Louise is going to really appreciate that. I've batch cooked this week. Or as I'm kind of meal planning for the week ahead and going to do the shopping and grumbling about it all the way.

It's like, okay, I don't want to do this, but on Thursday, Louise is going to be thrilled that she knows exactly what she's cooking and she doesn't have to use any executive function because it's all there and laid out and ready.

Yeah.

And it's just that. And sometimes that can really help with that. Okay. I'm not being nice to myself. I'm being nice to this future version of me that isn't quite me now.

So it's a little bit of externalization that just makes it a little bit more accessible. I'm doing this for future Louise.

Yeah. Just sort of like to externalise it.

Listening to Louise talk, you can really hear how passionate she is about this whole subject of being neurodivergent and what it means and how she can support her clients. It may surprise you to know that when Louise initially worked with me, she didn't know that this was going to be her niche.

And that's often what happens. Sometimes you don't realise who it is that you can help. And it can be difficult to put it into words, how you can help people.

But with Louise, what happened is that over time, her interests and her experiences and values shaped the work that she does today.

So over the course of next week, I'm going to help you create a profile that feels authentic, reflects your strengths, and speaks to the people that you're best placed to help.

You'll find the details in the show notes, and if you can't make that or you're listening to this after July 6th, you may also be interested in my niching workshop that I run on a regular basis. And I'll put details of that in the show notes too. And now back to Louise. One thing I think is really interesting is the idea of the context.

Yes.

Because you talk about this. What I mean, I think you've probably covered it a little bit. But why is context so important, do you think?

Because context is everything. It's without context. What does it mean?

It's if we don't understand the society our clients are living in, the family structures, the systems, everything that's going on around them, we're going to miss so much. You know, you can't therapy someone out of poverty, and you can't therapy someone out of systemic oppression.

But if you're not taking these things into account, you're going to miss the things that you can do that can support clients to learn to exist in. Sometimes it's about harm, minimization. What is the least harmful way for you to exist in this situation?

You know, particularly around things that are maybe beyond their capacity to change in that moment.

Because it's no good me sitting with a client and saying, well, everything can be fine because look at all the things I'm doing when their context is something that's completely different from mine. And even if on the surface it's like, oh, well, that sounds like we're the same, it's not going to be the same. You know, I'm an identical twin.

There's literally another version of me walking around in the world. But even though kind of on paper, you know, we were born at the same time to the same parents, into the same family with the same genetics.

Even with all of that, our contexts are still completely different. Our neurodivergences show up in slightly different ways. We've made different choices at different times in our lives.

Even just the who's the older twin and who's the younger twin? That 20 minutes in between our births has caused differences in the way we're treated and moved through the world.

She likes to remind me, although she doesn't like to remind me she's the older twin quite so much. As we're in our 40s now, the shine's gone off it a little bit, but all of that. And it's understanding the.

Not just the things we can see, but the things that we can't see and the things that maybe are out of our awareness that we don't know about. You know, there are extra experiences that I just do not have that I don't know what's going on. I need to learn from my clients.

I need to go and away and do my own work. I can know what it is to be a CIS woman. I know what it is to be a queer woman with my particular brand of queerness.

I have an experience of chronic health difficulties, but that's not the same as lots of other people's. I also have parts of my identity that carry a lot of privilege. My sisters carries privilege. My whiteness carries privilege.

Having to understand it's like a. Another spiky profile is sometimes how I describe it.

In the same way that a neurodivergent experience is a spiky profile, we have a spiky profile of privilege that impacts how we move through the world.

And it's the areas of my identity that carry privilege don't cancel out the areas that aren't privileged, but they do change the way in which they're perceived. And if we don't understand how that is for our clients, we can end up doing harm unintentionally because we miss parts of their experience.

And we may suggest things or ask them things that just aren't appropriate and aren't clear.

So it's, I guess it's our, as therapists, it's important, and I say this in the book, actually, like do your own work on your own privilege, your own context, understand that, because that will help you to understand the bits of your client's context that maybe you might miss and those kind of potential danger zones where you could miss the step or miss something that's really important to how they move through the world.

You mentioned then about spiky profile, can you explain what a spiky profile is?

So a spiky profile, is this the kind of the mapping of how neurodivergence shows up for us? And I guess the easiest way to think about it is in terms of sensory stuff, although it covers a much wider range of that.

So in terms of the places where you have a hypersensit sensitivity or a hyposensitivity.

Right.

So generally the thinking is that for most people who fall into the kind of neuro typical category, it's fairly flat, kind of. And things like your experience of the world, things like kind of Ability to access educational stuff. All of that is a. There's a fairly standard.

Like if you're good at things, you're often good at lots of things. And there might be some variation between, but generally it's a fairly standard.

These are the things that you're good at, these are how you experience them, or these are the things that aren't great. And you know, we get streamed at school.

Not by individual certainly I didn't when I went to school it wasn't individual subjects, it was just a general. You're in this set, you're in that set. And it kind of works like that. Whereas with neurodivergent folks, often you have massive inequalities.

So you'll have things where there's real hyper awareness or where they have a really pronounced kind of trick talent or they're really good at something, or something comes with an ease, which interestingly is often discounted by neurodivergent people because if it's easy to them, then obviously it doesn't count as something that's worthwhile. And then you'll have things that you might have hyposensitivities or things that you just find really difficult. So trying to think of a good example.

So in my family we have a range of experiences of pain. I was talking to someone about this today. So I've got a family member who has a hyposensitive sensitivity to pain.

So just doesn't recognize pain until it's at what would be quite a high level for somebody else. Yeah, and somebody else who has a hypersensitivity. So is a bit like the Princess and the Pea.

For both of them, their experience of pain is an unreliable narrator.

It doesn't tell you very much about what's actually going for them on for them physically because it doesn't match up with those kind of neuronormative expectations of what our experiences of pain are. So both of them can end up being dismissed or missed or diminished in their experiences because of that.

And that's because of their spiky profiles in other areas they will completely switch around and one will have a hypersensitivity and one will have a hyposensitivity. And just to make it even more confusing, these fluctuate.

So I can be very sensitive to something, but at some times I can tolerate more of it or tolerate less of it, depending on what else is going on.

So for example, when it's hot, if I'm hungry, if I'm sick, if I need a wee all of that can make my ability to tolerate certain things much, much less than it would be at a time when I'm the right temperature. I'm not hungry. All my basic needs have been taken into consideration. So we don't just have these static, spiky profiles.

They fluctuate, which is part of the joy and the trickiness of working with neurodivergent focus. It never seems stays the same.

Which again, is why context is important, because context will massively impact on what is happening with those spiky profiles.

And one of the ways that spiral as well, I should think, because that's absolutely the dysregulation spiral, aren't you?

Yeah, that's exactly it. Because actually what happens when we're dysregulated is the spiky profiles get spikier, so we get.

The hypersensitivities become more sensitive and the hyposensitives can become even less sensitive.

So we get even bigger gaps between our experiences, which just makes it harder to move through a world that expects us to have this kind of static and consistent kind of experience across all areas.

I was thinking it just must be amazing for someone who's neurodivergent to actually, you know, just have that opportunity to be really understood and to have something like your model just to really get why they are the way they are. Because, you know, like you say, I think historically, over time, you know, you're told you're too much or you're not enough, blah, blah, blah.

So to have someone like yourself who can sort of put it into context and explain what it's all about, it just must feel like such a relief to a lot of people, I would have thought.

It's certainly the feedback that I've had from people.

Yeah, I guess so much of it comes from my own experience of figuring this out for me and actually how it felt for me to suddenly realize, oh, there's a reason for all of this. And I was lucky that I already had quite a lot of the kind of knowledge about the neurodiversity paradigm.

I'd worked for years as a disability advisor, so I had a lot of the building blocks ready.

But for somebody who's not got that background, not got that context, doesn't have that language and that framework, you're just floundering until you find something and a space where it's okay to just go, well, I think this is my experience, and I think this is what was. Because so many of us don't trust our own experiences because We've literally been told we're wrong. You can't feel like that. That's not how it is.

We learn not to trust ourselves often from quite a young age.

And it's why the first exercise that I created was the spiky profile mapper in the book, which is literally an opportunity to go through lots of different areas. So looking at kind of sensory stuff, cognitive stuff, kind of physical processing, and really map out what's going on for you in this.

And the thing that I love about that exercise is it's not just like this part of me that's just really interested, like, tell me what your experience is. I love it. Every now and again, a client will be like, and I do this. It's like, oh, I haven't heard about that before. Tell me, what's that like?

Yeah, because this is my special interest subject. I get really excited about it. I love hearing about it.

But it's also a space where we can go, oh, yeah, I know other people that do that, or, you know, oh, I know someone that has this experience and it feels like this for them. Is that what's going on for you? And you can just see these little light bulbs going off of, oh, oh, it's not just me.

Yeah. It's such a People. So reassuring to people, isn't it? I was wondering as well, do you find that you know so much out there?

There's a lot of stuff on social media about you, maybe adhd, maybe this, maybe that, and then people might be recognizing themselves in it. But there's also this other sort of dialogue going on as well, which is, oh, there's too many people saying they're adhd.

I mean, do you find that people come in almost like in a place of shame, sort of thinking, oh, maybe I'm not, you know, I'm making too much of this. Is that part of what happens when you see people?

Absolutely. For some people. And actually shame and blame are the things that really power that downward spiral.

Yeah.

It's so prevalent. So many neurodivergent people have felt shame for most of their lives because of the things that they've been hearing. And then it is amplified. The.

Well, it's not adhd. You're just making excuses. You're just lazy. It can't be that again, that. That diminishing, that dismissing of their experiences.

And it's why the compassion, the kindness, the curiosity is all about dissipating that shame. With shame, I always go back to Brene Brown. It's. It lives in the darkness. We've got to bring this stuff into the light.

We've got to bring it into safe spaces and allow ourselves to talk about it. And again, that's part of that spiky profile mapping tool is you are allowed to talk about this and you're not just allowed to talk about it.

I really want you to talk about it. I'm going to get excited when you talk about it. It's a place to. And because we're doing it from a place of. We don't have to do anything about it.

We're just noticing. Noticing what's the data? Let's take some of the emotion out of it, if that's possible.

Let's do it as lightly as possible so that we can start to get used to. Okay. This isn't actually a shameful thing. Like, there may be shame out there.

People may be doing things that feel like it should be shaming, but actually there's nothing wrong with this. This is just, this is how brains work. We've all got different brains. You know, neurodivergent behaviors are human behaviors.

You will find them across the population. They're nothing to be ashamed about. It's just, let's figure them out because once we know about them, we can do something about it.

So how do you help people then? To move from. There's something wrong with me, you know, so I'm lazy, for example, a really horrible judgmental word that we put on ourselves to.

There's a reason this is hard. How do you help people?

Means time.

Yeah.

Patience, knowledge. I'm very much one for. Let's name these things and let's name where they come from.

It's a running joke with some of my clients that they'll say something. It's like, is that your belief or is that, you know, capitalism, patriarchy?

Name your systemic oppressive structure of your choice in this place, like, let's call it out for what it is. There is nothing innately wrong with people. We also sometimes do some. Well, would you say that about your friend, your partner, your child?

Sometimes working with parents is a gift because it's like, well, while you're parenting them, you're re parenting yourself. So we can really use that. If that's okay for them, then that has to be okay for you.

And actually, if you're not applying this to yourself, you're not teaching them that it's okay to apply them to you. So I'm not beyond a little bit of poking at the levers that I can find. And always with Challenge. Yeah, Always with acknowledgement.

But a really clear. Actually, that's not my experience of you. That's not what I think is going on in the world.

Like, we know these structures exist, so there's some psycho education that goes on about these systems and structures, and I guess that's where the context piece is naming them, particularly the oppressive ones and those narratives that. That kind of get drawn out.

And for some people, that can then be incredibly destabilizing, particularly when you think about these spiky profiles of privilege.

Because if we start unpicking and saying, well, actually these systems and structures are the things that are wrong, then it's like, but those are the systems and structures that are letting me do this thing. Or these are the systems and structures that give me privilege here. And if these parts of it are wrong, then these parts of it are wrong.

Or sometimes if they're in family systems and structures or workplaces education, which are holding up these kind of. Because these are implicit and insidious within all areas of our society. Yeah.

You start scratching away at it, and suddenly lots of things can feel like they're falling down. So we have to be really careful. A lot of my clients come to me, and Because I'm very open about this and I talk about this all the time.

A lot of my clients come to me because they want to talk about that stuff, and they're already embedded. But for clients who this might be new or unknown territory to. We've got to go through slowly in terms of kind of scaffolding that knowledge.

And, yeah, okay, what does that mean for you and the way you live your life? And, you know, it can feel shaming, particularly for those people who experience areas of privilege. And that's the opposite of what we want to do.

So it's about saying, okay, these things exist in the world. You are not to blame for them, but this is the way that they're impacting on you and just making sense this space.

And so we might start off really gently. It might be something that I throw in. It isn't all of my clients that I sit there going almost with a buzzer. No, that's patriarchy.

No, that's capitalism. No, that's white supremacy. There are some with which I can absolutely do that, and they appreciate that.

Yeah.

But there are others for whom it's. We drop it in. Oh, that's really interesting. I'm wondering where that comes from.

Yeah.

Where did you hear that? Or what makes you think that's the way things are supposed to be? And we can slowly start to. Yeah. And shift and change with them.

Because actually, in this work, often there is just so much grief.

Yeah.

The grief for what was, the grief for how the world is, the grief for what wasn't, the grief for what might have been or what might never be now, like. And we've got to make space for that. So there's got to be a real gentleness. You know, this. I've been doing this work for a long time.

I'm embedded in it, and these beliefs and values are very much kind of in line with my core values. But for clients who they are, it's just taking that time. Just being gentle. Just going slow.

Yeah. And letting them sort of work it out, I suppose, as well.

Last time we spoke, you said that discovering you were autistic was one of the most healing things that ever happened to you. So as you look back now, how has that understanding continued to shape you and your life?

Taped everything. It's changed everything.

Yeah.

It's the thing that allows me to go, I'm not doing this thing. It's the thing that allows me to go, no, this is important, and this is worth trying.

It was not long after we last spoke, and in fact, just after I kind of agreed to write the book, that I had quite a lot going on in my personal life. And it was that understanding of what my being autistic meant to me and my capacity that allowed me to go, I need to step back.

And I took about 18 months where I just shrunk everything down because I knew, actually I haven't got the capacity to do all of the things that I was doing and showing up in my personal life in the way that I want to. And I think me seven years ago, would have just pushed through.

Yeah.

Because that's what you do. And I would have ended up in burnout, and I would have ended up even more poorly.

And actually, what I was able to do was go, okay, I don't have capacity to do that. What can I do? How do I make this work? It's just literally practicing what I preach. I have to live by this stuff.

You know, it hasn't just come from an academic knowing I live and breathe this way of working. It's okay. I've suddenly got this huge pull on the downward spiral that could really send me into a place of burnout. What do I need to add in?

What do I need to take out to really strengthen that up? Would spiral.

And I played so much Stardew Valley that I gave myself tennis Elbow, which my wife thinks is hilarious, that my sporting injury comes from playing too many computer games.

But for six months, that was the thing that regulated me and allowed me to show up for my clients, show up for my supervisees, do that core piece of my work, and then do what I needed to do in my personal life. And it was. Yeah, yeah. And it's that. It's the compassion.

That's a really sort of really strong theme that comes through in your work, isn't it? The self compassion. And the compassion is absolutely central to what you do, I think, isn't it?

Absolutely. It's.

Yeah.

I couldn't do any of it without it. And it's really hard sometimes. I'm not very good at it. I have to really work at it.

But you need your wife there to say, have you had a drink of water?

She's very good at prompting me. We kind of work for each other, which is part of the work that you do with clients. It's. Where do you get the support from?

Who are the people that can support you? This or sometimes it's not people, sometimes it's pets, sometimes online communities. It's. Yeah.

There's so many different places that we learn to look after ourselves through looking after others and kind of those reciprocal arrangements.

Yeah. So if you had one thing, this is where I try and typically try people down.

What do you wish every therapist understood about working with neurodivergent clients?

Oh, gosh, that's a complicated question. Oh, no, it's a really simplicate, simple question.

You don't need to make it really.

Complicated that it's different, that the context is so important and not just the individual context, but the societal context and the historic context. This is when you're working with any kind of minoritized identity, that kind of impact of systemic oppression.

And it's not necessarily about those kind of acute traumas, but it is that systemic trauma of being in a world that isn't designed for you. So so much just becomes compromise.

It becomes twisting yourself into a shape that isn't your shape to try and fit in, to get through, to keep yourself safe. There is so much trauma that goes on in this existence for neurodivergent folk that isn't necessarily seen because it's. But we just do that.

We just get on with that. That's just what people do. And it may be what some people do, but that doesn't mean that doing it is the same and has the same cost. So it's.

And it's the Gentleness and the time, the holding of the grief of that and making space for it. The thing I so often hear from Supervisees is, but we're stuck, but we're not doing anything.

It's like you're processing a lifetime's worth of trauma, of grief, of feelings, of everything. You know, it's often it's.

I was describing it to a client this week and it's like going back and reprocessing your whole life just through a brand new lens.

Yeah.

That's gonna take time and that's gonna look different than you were taught therapy looks.

Sometimes that looks like we're just going to talk about your special interest for the whole session because that's going to regulate you and it's going to make you feel heard and it's going to dissipate some of that shame and it's going to tell you, you are welcome in this space and that's therapeutic. Even if I did that in a triad when I was training, I probably would have had words about whether or not that was what therapy looks like. Like.

Like. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really sort of important point, actually. You know, I think that's a lovely sort of reflection.

So, just going back to the book, what are you most proud about? With the book?

That I wrote it.

Yeah. It's amazing because how do you find the time to write a book? That's what I want to know.

I do not know is the answer. It was a. Yeah. A labour of love. And I was kind of writing it at this time when I'd shrunk the rest of my practice down.

So I. I had to time, but not necessarily energy. I had a massively supportive editor who was just so helpful.

Actually, the most supportive thing she said to me was, like, remember that you're writing this for neurodivergent people and they won't all be the autistics who want all the information. Write it for the adhd. Write it for the person quickly dyslexic.

Write it for the person that wants bullet points and wants things to be straightforward because I overwrite everything. I go so far over all my word limits. And that just helped me to go, oh, I don't have to have all the answers, I don't have to have everything.

Yeah, what are the important things? And that was massively helpful. And it's.

So, is it going to be a book two, do you think, too?

I have told my wife and anyone that will listen that if I even suggest writing another one, they are to tie me down and have very strong words with me.

I just wonder if, you know, you have you overwrite everything, you know, that might go into book two, couldn't it? Yeah.

At the moment there are no plans. I. But I also am not holding myself to any promises I make in the moment. I'm still in that. Get this one out first.

Yeah, brilliant. Yeah. So remind us when the book's coming out.

So 21st of September, but is available for pre order now from all the usual places and you can find details of it on my website along with all the other things that I'm doing.

Tell us what your website is.

Curiosityspot.co.uk and there's lots of resources on there that you can download as well.

So there's a copy of the 2 spirals model that you can download and some other bits and pieces and yeah, all my blogs if you really want to read more of my ramblings about things.

So final question, if somebody listening today is where you were a few years ago and they're feeling exhausted, confused, different or wondering what's wrong with them, what would you want them to know?

That you are okay. That there will be reasons why you're feeling like this. And there is lots of information and lots of different ways of getting it to support you.

So figure out what works for you in terms of processing and also give yourself a break like go and rest. Basic needs, eat something, have a nap, drink some water. Just figure out what do you need in this moment. You don't have to have a forever plan.

Sometimes it's the for now plans.

Yeah, I think that's so helpful.

I love a for now decision. It keeps me from getting into all sorts of trouble.

Excellent. Oh Louise, it's so lovely to see you again. Yeah, it's been really great to chat and good luck with the launch of the book. Yeah.

And I'll put all the details in the show notes as well so people can see proper title of the book, where to get it from and how to find your website as well. So thank you very much for coming.

Thank you so much, Josephine, it's always so lovely to chat with you and thank you for having me. It's been. Yeah, really lovely. I feel like I've just info dumped on you which is.

Well, I think it's. What if people find helpful and who knows, perhaps another two years you'll have something else to come talk to me about.

We shall see. No promises.

It's lovely to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Do come and join my Facebook community. Good enough counsellors.

And for more information about how I can help you develop your private practice, please Visit my website, JosephineHughes.com if you found this episode helpful, I'd love it if you could share it with a fellow therapist or leave a review on your podcast app. And in closing, I'd love to remind you that every single step you make gets you closer to your dream. I really believe you can do it.