Being Neurodivergent in a Neurotypical World

6 Law & Ethics CEs; Also meets the Cultural Competency CE requirement for WA & OR

Have you noticed that more and more of your clients have begun to suspect that they are neurodivergent? During the past year-and-a-half of the Covid pandemic, many folks have had time to reflect and learn about themselves and others. That time of learning and increased self-reflection has led to what seems like an explosion of self-diagnosed Autistic and ADHD clients. It seems hard to believe that there are suddenly so many more people who are identifying as being neurodivergent. You may have asked yourself, “What is going on?”

The difference is the shift to using the ethical approach of “centering lived experience” in identifying neurodiversity. Using this term and approach as applied to neurodiversity, this presenter explains the rise in neurodivergent diagnoses, especially among those who have initially those self-identified. The presenter suggests that we have only recently begun to LISTEN to voices of those have had “lived experiences” after being diagnosed in the current mental health field, including countless reports of feeling increased emotional distress and of experiences of marginalization due to being labeled– and subsequently stigmatized– as neurodivergent.

B Lourenco will provide attendees with a “centering lived experience” model of assessing and supporting clients who suspect that they have been living as a neurodivergent person in a neurotypical world. This presenter will support your learning how to incorporate a “centering lived experience” model in your own mental health practices. With this new paradigm, mental health practitioners and educators can shift their focus away from a deficits-based approach to identifying the strengths and adaptive characteristics of those who are neurodivergent, especially those identified as autistic or ADHD.

This workshop will demonstrate how the current model for identifying neurodivergence—particularly those with Autism and ADHD–is considered both outdated and ableist by experts who choose to use the “centering lived experience” approach to assessing clients. This course will outline the ways that the current model harms neurodivergent people, in addition to offering workshop attendees a more client-empowering, more affirming way to identify and interact with this unique population of people.

Utilizing the Neurodiversity paradigm, you’ll leave this workshop with a much better, more strengths-based understanding of Autism and ADHD, as well as gaining effective tools for interacting with and supporting these clients (of which you have, even if you or the client doesn’t know it yet)!

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES Course attendees will:

• understand the umbrella of neurodivergence, including innate and acquired neurodivergence
• have a clearer understanding of Autism and ADHD—as viewed through an ethical, neurodiversity-affirming lens
• identify limits of the medical model of neurodivergence
• understand ways in which the current medical model is unethical and harmful to neurodivergent people–by its focus on perceived deficits through a neurotypical lens
• apply a strengths and differences approach in identifying autism and ADHD
• understand and consider using the “centered life experience” model of identifying and supporting neurodivergent clients and populations
• gain new skills to better assist Autistic and ADHD clients
• possess a clearer understanding of the ethical need to approach clients with an anti-oppression lens in mental health care agencies and private practices
• feel empowered to challenge current systems of harm by supporting clients in their preferred methods of processing sensory input and communicating with others in a neurotypical world

After attending this workshop, attendees will be able to:

• Discuss the ethical violations that come from employing Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) as an intervention with neurodivergent clients/students.
• Become familiar with the metaphor of Applied Behavioral Analysis as being the why the “conversion therapy” of the neurodivergent community and the ethical ramifications of continuing to use it in schools and clinics.
• Understand that the practice of ABA is based upon a “foundation of compliance, coercion, and behaviorism.”
• Identify that current “evidence-based practices” may not be effective with the neurodivergent client.
• Comprehend the ethical mandate under cultural competence standards to respect and validate the culture and norms of the neurodivergent population.
• Respect the neurodivergent client as a person worthy of respect and individual civil rights legally protected from discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
• Understand the ethical mandate to assess clients with a culturally competent assessment tool and grasp the ethical violation of using current inadequate or inappropriate assessment tools with neurodivergent clients.
• Discuss the widespread misdiagnoses of neurodivergent clients/patients when practitioners use a neurotypical standard of behaviors and development to diagnose a neurodivergent client.

EPDC CE Hours: 6

Presenter: B. Lourenco, LMHC

B Lourenco is a licensed mental health counselor, educator, advocate, and activist. B has been working in community support for 15 years and is committed to social change on all system levels. Seeing mental health as a way to serve the community, she earned a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology, with a Systems Emphasis, in 2015 and began her private practice in 2017. B has also worked in the public school system, providing support to students with behavioral issues that made attending school challenging for them. Highly trained in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), B became a district-wide expert in supporting neurodivergent students. It was during this work that she began to be critical of the current models of support for neurodivergence, including ABA. Making the shift from the medical to the affirming model has allowed her to finally identify her own neurodivergence, including Autism and ADHD. Combining her lived experience of neurodivergence, along with years of anti-oppression work, B is passionate about helping others untangle themselves from harmful practices and align themselves with those that instead support marginalized communities. In addition to her work in neurodiversity, B is also a sex and relationship therapist, specializing in ethical non-monogamy and kink exploration. She has been a speaker on panels and podcasts, as well as facilitating therapeutic workshops in her area of Washington State.