The Collective’s focus is to align therapy practices within the neurodiversity paradigm. This organization advocates for unapologetically ABA-free, non-compliance/behavioral-based therapy, the ceasing of social skills training because of the harm and trauma caused by masking and camouflage, and respectful practices that include honoring body autonomy and respecting a participant’s “no” or refusal.
Therapist members are credentialed and licensed pro-neurodiversity-focused, trauma-informed providers who choose to be wholly aligned with the Neurodiversity Movement as a Human Rights Movement. Therapist Neurodiversity Collective recommends that therapy practices do not seek to “normalize” neurodivergent people at the expense of their emotional, physical, and psychological well-being. In co-production with clients, students, and their families, the Collective’s therapy model focuses on empowering neurodivergent people with increased abilities for communicating personal agency, autonomy, self-advocacy, and self-determination, as well as achieving personal goals.
Therapist Neurodiversity Collective advocates for radical changes in therapy practices to reflect presuming competence in the people therapists serve, championing human rights and dignity of the disabled, and respecting authentic neurodivergent communication, and sensory differences. Therapist Neurodiversity Collective actively partners with other Autistic, other-neurodivergent, and disabled people to provide updates in contemporary research, free educational resources to the public, and neurodiversity-affirming educational training opportunities for therapists that reflect neurodiversity-affirming ethics and core values.
