A message to those who use the term Neuro-Affirming
Neuro-affirming practice is a bit of a buzz word. It is also a huge frustration to a lot of us neurodivergent practitioners who see time and time again people saying they are ‘neuro-affirming’ and yet still using pathologised language, constrictive inclusivity, or neuro-normative ideals by their thinking, language, or practice.
A good baseline for anyone striving to work in a neuro-affirming or inclusive way is understanding the neurodiversity paradigm (I recommend Dr. Nick Walker), reading actual neurodivergent expectations of affirming ways of practice like Lived Experience Educator or Autistic Realms.
What a lot of practitioners don’t seem to realise is the vital importance of understanding WHY being inclusive and neuro-affirming is required in the first place.
When I realised I was neurodivergent (Autistic, Dyspraxic, Synaesthetic) there was a lot of untangling of complex shame to be done. I am also very honest in that I see this untangling as a forever journey, because I had 30 odd years where I had not seen reality, where I had been crushed, caged, constricted by neuro-normative ideals and expectations. And you know what? We ALL are inflicted by this in lots of different and complex ways. That shame is systemic ableism.
I do not believe you can be truly neuro-affirming if you do not understand systemic ableism. If you haven’t researched and understood why the neurodiversity paradigm is so important. Why we need to view disability from the social model. Ableism is a form of systemic, structural, and institutional oppression. It is everywhere. It is not just schools not giving reasonable adjustments, or a fundamental lack of access for wheelchair users, or many of the other obvious harmful ways our society distorts and oppresses. It is everywhere, from our thinking, our views, our practices, our communication, our politics, our culture, our environments, our processes.. I could go on.
When you dig a little deeper into why neuro-affirming or radically inclusive practice is so vital to neurodivergent and/or disabled folk, when you start to understand the complexity and power that ableism has, when you recognise the ableism you grew up in and still experience today, when you delve into your own internalised ableism, when you work hard to face into your oppressions and priviledges, when you understand those for your clients, when you understand and embody the neurodiversity paradigm, when you recognise and learn from all intersectionalities, when you understand the social model of disability, when you truly want to and do learn from neurodivergent lived experience, when you recognise the great harm that neurotypical medicalised researchers have done to the neurodivergent community, when you authentically work and strive to work in a non-judgemental inclusive way.. then.. then I think you can start saying you work in a neuro-affirming way.
I am not preaching this from a perfection all knowing point of view. As I said, this is a journey. My website is not inclusive, because I can not work out how to add accessible widgets (I will !). My practice strives to be inclusive and I strive to gain in-depth knowledge of all neuro-types, disabilities, and intersectionalities from lived experience, but I know I can not know and be everything to all and I am not professing to be as such. I am striving every day to learn and do better.
What I don’t want to keep seeing is the therapists, practitioners, teachers, charities, anyone who works with neurodivergent folk, taking the neurodivergent communities’ words and shaping them to their neuro-normative expectations. I don’t want to keep seeing these people saying they are ‘experts’, saying they work in a neuro-affirming way but in the same sentence say autistic spectrum disorder. I don’t want to continue to hear of clients’ stories of seeing therapists who said they have much experience in working with neurodivergent clients but then hear of them using ableist practices or language, constricting, shaming, damaging.
Don’t think because you have done a short course on autism set out by the government that you can call yourself an expert, if anything you will need to do more work after that to re-educate yourself! I also had a trainee counsellor use my short lecture on working with autistic clients to claim they were now an ‘expert in working with clients with autism’. He only attended a quarter of the lecture and yes it triggered my nervous system greatly by his incorrect language, presumption, power, and ignorance. I mean, I definitely feel my lecture is a good basic start to understanding but I would never expect anyone to use it as a claim for being an ‘expert’! I am not an expert, no one is.
Do you want to continue to perpetuate misinformation and misunderstanding. Do you want to continue to shower shame dust? Or do you want change?
Start with Stimpunks resources, Neuroclastic, read Robert Chapmans Empire of Normality, and see where the road to neurodivergent and ableism understanding takes you.
