Neurodivergent Affirmative Therapy in Long Beach and California

What does Neurodivergent mean?

“Neurodivergent” means your brain works differently than most people (“neurotypical”) in a way that significantly impacts your experience.

Neurodivergence is often used to label experiences like autism and ADHD. However, being neurodivergent (ND) is more than being easily distracted, struggling with time management, or feeling socially awkward. These can definitely be aspects, but they only touch on a small part of the experience. 

What are examples of being neurodivergent?

• Autism

• Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

• Dyslexia

• Dyspraxia

• Dyscalculia

• Tourette Syndrome

• and more

Being neurodivergent impacts how you think, how you feel, how you learn, how you love, how you grow, and what you value. 

When put that way, it makes sense why it’s important to understand and explore! It can often be incredibly validating for people to learn that they aren’t wrong, broken, or lacking intelligence- their brains just work in a way that needs different support and prioritizes different things than most people. Growing up this way can leave us feeling alienated and misunderstood, and sometimes we begin to accept the things other people say about us as truth:

“If you really cared about me, you’d be able to remember things like this.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t just agree with me on this, you must not love me.”

“You don’t have issues learning, you just aren’t trying hard enough.”

“You need to ask for help from others with important tasks, you can’t be trusted to do them on your own.”

We don’t believe in ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) or any type of therapy that aims to fit people into a box. Affirming your neurodivergence means we help you tailor your environment (relationships, work settings, home life) to fit you, not the other way around.

Do i need therapy for my neurodivergence?

Most of our ND clients don’t come to therapy because they’re ND. They come to therapy because they're struggling to function, feel, and thrive in a world that is not made for people like them. They assume that there is something wrong with them, otherwise “things wouldn’t be this hard for me.” They come to be “fixed.”

While we’re big into personal responsibility…none of our clients need to be “fixed.” They need to be understood, and they need creative problem solving and self-validation to adapt to the world around them as they learn to make the world adapt to them, where they can.

Why does it matter? Why do I need to know if I’m neurodivergent? 

Well, you do and you don’t. If by “know” you mean “be diagnosed,” see below on that specifically.

In terms of understanding yourself and knowing that you fall somewhere under the neurodivergent umbrella, it absolutely matters! There is more understanding than ever about the ways ND can impact our whole wellbeing. That includes our relationships, job satisfaction, mood, and mental health. Having a framework for how to address these things - when going the trauma/anxiety/depression/couples counseling route hasn’t been quite right - can make all the difference.

Are you seeking a diagnosis for ADHD or Autism?

When people ask me “Can you diagnose me?” they can really be asking different things. Some people are looking for a professional diagnosis that they can show to their work or to their school in order to get accommodations or assistance related to their neurotype and their needs around that. Some people are looking to start taking medication (usually stimulants for ADHD) and have been told to get a diagnosis first. Most people “looking for a diagnosis” are actually looking to explore their potential ADHD or Autistic brain and navigate their daily experience through the lens of their neurotype (even though ADHD and Autism are classified as disorders, we don’t believe they are in the way that mental illnesses, like depressive disorder for example, are. We believe they’re just different “brands” of brain types, called neurotypes).  

If you are looking for a piece of paper showing that you have "certifiable" ADHD or Autism, we recommend that you seek out a psychologist or someone that specifically does psychological evaluations for ADHD and autism. We don't recommend just anyone; look for someone who specializes in this. The difficult part of this is that there are very few people who specialize in this, there can be very long wait lists and it can be very pricey. If this is what you were looking for, feel free to contact us and we can provide you with a referral list. 

If you are looking for someone to work with you over a few sessions or on an ongoing basis and explore what diagnosis might apply to you and how that impacts your life, consider working with a therapist who specializes in one of these things. For most people that we work with, getting the diagnosis is just the first step, and most of the work is actually around exploring what their diagnosis means to them. In terms of interacting with the world around them, and learning language to communicate with others what they need. This process works best in an ongoing fashion, but could be condensed down if you're just looking for information.

Here's a list of reasons why ongoing therapy with someone who understands neurodiversity might be helpful for you, with or without a "formal diagnosis":

• you're looking to understand yourself better

• you're looking to be able to communicate with others better

• you're looking for help on how to navigate social or interpersonal situations in a way that feels authentic to you AND is understood by others

• you struggle in your daily life with organization, time management, communication, or self care activities (like eating/sleeping/grooming)

• you are often using negative self-talk and self shaming to try to push yourself to be more "like other people” or “normal"

In our experience, very few people actually require a formal diagnosis from a psychologist. We almost exclusively recommend this for people who are looking to get accommodations at work or school AND their institution is unwilling to help them without one, OR people seeking medication who’ve been told they need a diagnosis first.  Talk to your school or work and see what sort of help they can give you without providing a formal diagnosis. This can save you thousands of dollars and lots of time, and sometimes gets you all the help you need.