Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapy: What It Actually Means (and Why It Matters)

Neurodivergent people are often asked to do a lot of adapting.

Adapt to environments that are too loud. Social expectations that aren't explicit. Systems that reward one kind of attention, communication, organization, or emotional expression.

Parents may see this in a child who works incredibly hard to hold it together at school, only to unravel once they get home. Or in a child who seems bright, capable, funny, creative, deeply caring...and still struggles with things that everyone keeps telling them "should" be easier.

And sometimes, while learning more about their child, parents start recognizing pieces of themselves too.

The same might be true for an adult who has spent years wondering why certain parts of life take SO much energy. Or for someone in a relationship where both people care deeply about each other and still keep missing what the other person means.

Over time, those experiences can create a lot of confusion, frustration, exhaustion, and shame.

Neurodivergent-affirming therapy starts from a different place: instead of asking how to make someone fit better into neurotypical expectations, we start by asking what's actually happening, what's getting in the way, and what would make life work better.

That might mean building skills. It might mean changing expectations. It might mean understanding sensory or executive-functioning needs. It might mean helping a parent understand their child differently, helping an adult make sense of patterns that have followed them for years, or helping two partners translate what keeps getting lost between them.

The goal isn't to erase neurodivergence. It's to understand the whole person and create more room for functioning, connection, choice, and self-understanding.

First, What Does Neurodivergent Mean?

Neurodivergent is a broad umbrella term often used to describe people whose brains process, learn, communicate, focus, regulate, or experience the world differently from what society considers neurotypical.

Autism and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) are probably the two examples people hear about most often. Some people are both autistic and have ADHD and may use the term AuDHD to describe that overlap. AuDHD is not a separate formal diagnosis, but it is a term many people use to describe the experience of having both autism and ADHD.

The broader neurodivergent umbrella may also include learning differences like dyslexia and dysgraphia, Tourette syndrome, and other neurological or developmental differences.

Neurodivergent isn't a diagnosis by itself. And neurodiversity doesn't mean that everyone is "a little autistic" or "a little ADHD."

It means there is natural variation in human brains, AND some of those differences can have a pretty significant impact on a person's life.

Someone can be creative, funny, passionate, deeply empathetic, incredibly observant, or able to focus intensely on things that matter to them, and also struggle significantly with executive functioning, sensory overload, communication, transitions, emotional regulation, or everyday tasks.

Both things can be true. Affirming care makes room for the whole person.

So...What Makes Therapy Neurodivergent-Affirming?

At its core, neurodivergent-affirming therapy means we don't automatically assume the neurodivergent person is the thing that needs to change. Instead, we look at the whole picture.

If someone is struggling, we want to understand why. Is there a skill they want help building? Is the environment overwhelming? Are expectations unclear or unrealistic? Is there a sensory need that keeps getting missed? Is executive functioning making something harder than it looks from the outside? Is a communication difference being interpreted as defiance, disinterest, laziness, or lack of caring?

Sometimes the work really is about helping someone develop new skills. Sometimes it's about making the environment work better. Often, it's some combination of both.

An affirming approach might include:

• helping someone understand their own nervous system and patterns

• building strategies for executive functioning, emotional regulation, communication, or transitions

• identifying sensory needs and accommodations

• making expectations more explicit

• helping someone advocate for what they need

• adapting therapy itself so the client doesn't have to work so hard just to participate in it

There is another piece that matters just as much: we also look carefully at what we're asking someone to change, and why.

If someone avoids eye contact, for example, is that actually causing a problem? Or are we treating a difference as a problem simply because it doesn't match a neurotypical expectation?

If a child needs movement in order to focus, the answer may not be teaching them to sit still. It may be figuring out how to give them more opportunities to move while still helping them participate in what's happening around them.

An adult who needs more time to process a question may not need to learn to answer faster. They may need enough space in the conversation to actually figure out what they think.

And if someone becomes overwhelmed in a crowded, noisy environment, therapy doesn't necessarily need to focus only on helping them tolerate more. We can also help them understand their limits, recognize overload sooner, communicate what they need, and figure out when changing the environment is possible.

Neurodivergent-affirming therapy may also include the invitation to stretch themselves, practice difficult things, build tolerance, learn new skills, or work on behaviors that are hurting themselves or other people.

The difference is that we don't start from the assumption that a symptom, behavior, trait, or way of functioning is simply a problem that needs to be fixed. We get curious about what's underneath it first. What purpose might it be serving? What need might it be communicating? What is making this difficult? Is the person experiencing distress, or is the distress coming largely from an environment or expectation that doesn't fit? And if something does need to change, what kind of change would actually be meaningful and helpful to the person?

That means we can hold two things at the same time: acceptance of someone's neurodivergence and support for real growth and change.

Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapy for Kids and Teens

For kids and teens, affirming care starts with understanding their experience.

Some neurodivergent kids need to learn explicitly what other children may pick up more intuitively. That might include understanding social context, hidden expectations, other people's perspectives, navigating friendships, repairing misunderstandings, or figuring out how their own actions may affect someone else.

Explicit teaching can be incredibly helpful when it gives a child information they actually want or need to navigate their world. The goal is not to teach a child how to look more neurotypical. It is to help them understand themselves and other people well enough to have more choices about how they respond.

Therapy might also support a child or teen with emotional regulation, executive functioning, flexible thinking, communication, transitions, anxiety, self-esteem, self-advocacy, sensory needs, or situations that feel confusing or overwhelming.

For parents, one of the hardest parts can be knowing your child is struggling and still feeling completely stuck about what to do next, what might actually help, or where to even start looking for answers.

You may see your child melting down, shutting down, avoiding things, struggling socially, becoming overwhelmed, or having a hard time with expectations that seem manageable for other kids. You may have tried strategies that work beautifully for someone else's child and gotten absolutely nowhere with yours.

There can be a lot of second-guessing. Do I push here or give them space? Is this something they can't do right now, or something they don't want to do? Am I accommodating too much? Am I expecting too much? Why does everything fall apart at home when school says they're doing fine?

Helping parents make sense of those questions can be an important part of counseling.

That might mean understanding your child's nervous system and patterns more clearly, recognizing signs of overload earlier, learning how executive-functioning or sensory differences may be showing up, making expectations more explicit, changing how something is communicated, or finding new ways to respond when your child gets stuck.

It also means looking beyond the child when we need to. Is the environment overwhelming? Is an expectation unclear or unrealistic? Does a routine need to change? Is a teacher or parent interpreting overwhelm, confusion, or a communication difference as defiance or lack of motivation? Is there a mismatch between what the child is being asked to do and what they can access in that moment?

Sometimes the child needs a new skill. Sometimes the parent needs different information. Sometimes something in the environment needs to shift. Often, all three are connected.

The goal is to understand what belongs where. What does this child need to learn explicitly? What skill would actually help? What does the parent need to understand differently? What can reasonably change around the child? And where might everyone need support finding a way forward that works better?

Why Does My Child or Teen Melt Down or Shut Down?

One of the most confusing things for parents can be watching a child or teen completely fall apart over something that seems small from the outside.

Maybe they get through the entire school day and melt down the minute they get home. Maybe they shut down when plans change, become overwhelmed by a request that seemed completely manageable yesterday, or suddenly cannot do something you know they are capable of doing.

For neurodivergent kids and teens, or for kids whose parents are still trying to understand what may be going on, an affirming approach asks us to look beyond the behavior itself and get curious about what was happening before it.

A child may have spent hours managing noise, bright lights, transitions, academic demands, social expectations, executive-functioning demands, and the effort of keeping themselves regulated enough to make it through the day. By the time they get home, their nervous system may simply be out of capacity.

A meltdown or shutdown isn't necessarily a child choosing not to cope. It can be a sign that their nervous system has exceeded what it can manage in that moment.

That doesn't mean unsafe or hurtful behavior gets ignored, and it doesn't mean children don't need limits or expectations. It means that stopping the outward behavior is only part of the picture. We also want to understand what led to it so we can help prevent the same pattern from repeating.

For parents, that can shift the question from "How do I make this stop?" to something more useful: "What is happening for my child right now, and what might they need?"

Sometimes the answer is teaching a new coping or communication skill. Sometimes it is recognizing overload sooner, changing the timing of a demand, building in recovery time, making expectations more explicit, or changing something in the environment. Often, it is a combination.

Understanding the reason behind a behavior gives both children and parents more options for what to do next.

How Parents Can Support Neurodivergent Kids and Teens at Home

Parents usually come to us because they want their kid to be okay. They may also be exhausted, confused, worried, or wondering whether they're doing any of this right.

You don't need to become an expert overnight.

A few helpful places to start can include:

• getting curious about what's underneath behavior

• using clear, direct communication

• noticing sensory triggers and sensory needs

• creating predictability where possible

• preparing kids and teens for transitions

• making expectations explicit instead of assuming they're understood

• supporting safe forms of movement and self-regulation

• separating "can't right now" from "won't"

• helping your child develop language for what their body and brain need

• advocating for appropriate support at school

• paying attention to your own stress and capacity too

Needing support doesn't make your child or teen a problem. And needing some help figuring out how to parent the child in front of you doesn't mean you're doing parenting wrong.

Sometimes everyone just needs a better map.

Sometimes the Patterns Feel Familiar

As parents begin to understand more about the ways their child or teen functions, they sometimes notice that parts of the experience feel surprisingly familiar.

A parent may recognize the same sensory sensitivities they had as a child, the same difficulty getting started on tasks, tendency to hyperfocus, need for predictability, social situations that require more effort, or need for significant downtime after being "on" all day. Sometimes the realization is simply, "I was exactly like that as a kid."

For some parents, learning more about characteristics and experiences that can fall under the neurodivergent umbrella, including ADHD, autism, and AuDHD, also gives them new language for understanding parts of their own experience.

That doesn't mean that a parent who recognizes similarities is necessarily neurodivergent. Families share all kinds of traits, temperaments, and ways of functioning. But sometimes seeing a child or teen more clearly can also change the way a parent understands their own childhood, relationships, sensory needs, executive functioning, or way of moving through the world.

For some people, that recognition becomes the beginning of their own exploration. For others, it simply creates a little more understanding of both themselves and their child.

Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapy for Adults

Many adults come to therapy after years, sometimes decades, of trying incredibly hard to make approaches designed for other brains work for theirs.

You may have read the books, listened to the podcasts, Googled how to get organized, stop procrastinating, communicate better, manage anxiety, create routines, or finally stick with the system that everyone says will change your life. And you may have genuinely tried.

But somehow, the advice doesn't quite fit. Or it works for a week and then falls apart. Or you understand exactly what you're "supposed" to do and still can't consistently make yourself do it.

Therapy can feel that way too.

Some neurodivergent adults have had therapy before and walked away feeling like something just didn't click. You may have been asked broad questions about how you feel and genuinely not known how to answer. You may need more time to process than the conversation allows, understand something intellectually before you can connect with it emotionally, or find that talking about a problem doesn't automatically translate into knowing what to do differently when you're back in your actual life.

Research with autistic adults reflects some of these experiences. Autistic adults have described difficulty with the verbal and emotional demands of traditional talk therapy, trouble identifying or describing emotions, and frustration when strategies that make sense in the therapy room are difficult to use in everyday life.

That doesn't mean autistic people can't do meaningful emotional work. It means therapy may need to be more explicit, structured, concrete, flexible, and responsive to how the individual person processes information.

If you've tried therapy before and left feeling like it didn't really work, or maybe even decided that therapy just wasn't for you, it may be worth considering whether the approach simply wasn't a good fit for how you process, communicate, or make sense of things.

Sometimes the difference is working with a therapist who understands neurodivergence, knows how to adapt the therapy instead of expecting you to adapt to it, and can be more explicit, concrete, collaborative, and flexible when that helps.

That doesn't guarantee every therapist or every approach will be the right fit. But a past experience of therapy not clicking doesn't necessarily mean therapy can't be useful to you.

For adults with ADHD, autism, AuDHD, or other forms of neurodivergence, getting support can involve much more than understanding a diagnosis.

Yes, there can be a powerful looking-back process. Experiences that once felt like laziness, oversensitivity, disorganization, relationship failures, or simply not trying hard enough may start to make sense in a completely different way. For some people there is relief in that. There can also be grief, anger, or a lot of "Ohhhhh. THAT'S why."

But understanding the past is only one part of the work.

Moving forward might mean figuring out what actually helps your brain function day to day. That can include finding realistic approaches to executive functioning, recognizing sensory overload before you're completely depleted, understanding your own emotional and nervous-system cues, communicating more directly in relationships, asking for accommodations, creating routines that are flexible enough to survive real life, or learning how to work with your capacity instead of constantly fighting against it.

It may also mean sorting out which things you genuinely want to change and which things you've spent years trying to change because you thought you were supposed to.

Neurodivergent-affirming therapy doesn't give up on growth. It can be highly practical, challenging, and focused on change. But the strategies need to make sense for the actual person using them.

Sometimes the most useful shift is moving away from "Why can't I make myself do this the way everyone says I should?" and toward "What is getting in the way, and what would work better for the brain and life I actually have?"

What Is Neurodivergent Masking?

Masking, sometimes called camouflaging, refers to the ways some neurodivergent people hide, suppress, or compensate for parts of themselves in order to meet social expectations or appear more neurotypical.

It might mean forcing eye contact, rehearsing conversations, copying other people's expressions or behavior, suppressing stimming, hiding sensory discomfort, or constantly monitoring how you are coming across. For some people, it can mean working incredibly hard to make something look easy so that nobody else realizes how much effort it actually requires.

Masking isn't always a simple good-or-bad thing. People may learn to mask to stay safe, succeed at work or school, avoid bullying or discrimination, or navigate environments where being different has real consequences.

So affirming therapy doesn't simply tell someone to stop masking. Instead, we can look at the role it plays in your life. Where does adapting feel useful or protective? Where does it become exhausting? Where do you feel safe enough to use less of it? And have some of those adaptations become so automatic that you're no longer sure what you actually prefer?

The goal is more choice. You get to better understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, what it costs you, and where you may want something different.

What Is Autistic Burnout?

Autistic burnout is more than being tired or having a particularly stressful week. People experiencing it may describe profound exhaustion, greater sensory sensitivity, reduced ability to manage everyday tasks, difficulty accessing skills they normally have, and much less capacity for social interaction or other demands.

Research into autistic burnout is still developing, but autistic adults have described it in connection with prolonged stress, masking, sensory overload, insufficient support, major life changes, and being expected to function beyond their available capacity for too long.

That distinction matters because the solution isn't always another productivity strategy or a better planner.

Sometimes someone needs the load itself to change. That might mean more recovery time, accommodations, reduced demands, additional support, changes to the sensory environment, or reconsidering expectations that have become unsustainable.

People with ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence can also experience significant burnout, overload, and exhaustion, although we don't want to automatically treat all of those experiences as the same thing as autistic burnout.

An affirming approach gets curious about what has been requiring so much effort, what is draining capacity, and what needs to change so that recovery is actually possible.

When Neurodivergence Shows Up in Relationships

Neurodivergence doesn't only affect the individual. It can shape how two people experience communication, conflict, connection, affection, household responsibilities, sex and intimacy, parenting, time, transitions, sensory needs, emotional regulation, and pretty much all the places where two human lives bump into each other.

Relationship therapy when one or both partners are neurodivergent may look different from more traditional couples counseling.

Not because neurodivergent relationships are inherently unhealthy. They're not. But some of the assumptions we commonly make about "good communication" or "healthy relationships" are based heavily on neurotypical ways of processing and connecting.

For example, eye contact doesn't necessarily equal connection. Immediate emotional processing doesn't necessarily equal emotional availability. Needing time alone after conflict doesn't automatically mean someone is avoiding the relationship. Forgetting something doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't important to the person. Wanting plans, predictability, or very explicit communication isn't necessarily being controlling.

And a partner who wants more spontaneity, emotional responsiveness, reassurance, or connection isn't automatically being "too needy," either.

This is where couples can get painfully stuck. One partner's attempt to regulate can feel like rejection to the other. One partner's attempt to get clarity can feel like interrogation. One person's directness can sound harsh. Another person's hints can be completely invisible.

Both people may walk away thinking, "How can they possibly not understand what I'm saying?"

Sometimes the answer is that they genuinely don't.

It's Not About Fixing the Neurodivergent Partner

If one partner is autistic, has ADHD, or is otherwise neurodivergent and the other isn't, relationship therapy can easily go off track if everyone starts from the assumption that the neurodivergent partner is the one who needs to learn how to communicate or relate "correctly."

Neurodivergent-affirming relationship therapy looks instead at the pattern between people.

How does each person process information? What happens in each person's nervous system during conflict? How does each person recognize and communicate emotion? How much processing time does each person need? What does connection look like to each partner? How explicit do requests need to be?

We may also look at what happens around changes in plans, whether executive-functioning differences are contributing to conflict around household responsibilities, whether sensory needs affect touch, intimacy, sleep, socializing, or shared spaces, and whether either partner is assigning an intention to a behavior that the other person doesn't actually have.

The goal isn't to determine which partner communicates "correctly." It is to understand how these two people communicate, where things keep getting lost, and what each person may need in order to understand and be understood.

When Understanding Breaks Down in Both Directions

There is a concept in autism research called the double empathy problem. Historically, social communication difficulties in autism were often framed primarily as a problem within the autistic person, including difficulty understanding other people's thoughts, feelings, or perspectives.

The double empathy framework asks us to widen that lens.

When autistic and non-autistic people interact, differences in communication, experience, and ways of interpreting the world can make it harder for both people to accurately understand each other. Research has found, for example, that non-autistic people can also have difficulty accurately interpreting autistic people's emotions and mental states.

That doesn't mean every misunderstanding between an autistic and non-autistic partner is a double empathy problem. Relationships are much more complicated than that.

But it does challenge an important assumption: when communication breaks down, we shouldn't automatically conclude that the autistic person misunderstood the interaction.

In couples therapy, that might mean slowing the interaction down enough to ask what each person actually meant, what each person heard, and where those meanings diverged.

One partner may experience needing space after conflict as an important way of regulating, while the other experiences that same behavior as disconnection. One person may communicate requests very explicitly and expect the same in return, while their partner relies more heavily on implication, tone, or context.

Neither example automatically tells us who is right or who cares more. They tell us that two people may be making sense of the same interaction in very different ways.

Neurodivergent-affirming relationship therapy can help make those differences more visible so the couple can stop arguing only about the surface behavior and begin understanding the process underneath it.

When BOTH Partners Are Neurodivergent

Sometimes both people are neurodivergent, whether they knew that when they got together or figured it out somewhere along the way.

Shared neurodivergence can create a wonderful sense of being deeply understood. That doesn't mean these relationships are immune from having needs that occasionally collide.

Maybe both partners struggle with executive functioning. Maybe one needs significant sensory quiet while the other regulates through sound and movement. Maybe both become overwhelmed during conflict. Maybe one person is autistic and the other has ADHD, and their needs around routine and novelty seem designed by the universe specifically to annoy each other. :)

Being neurodivergent doesn't automatically make people compatible or incompatible. It simply gives us important information about what each person's brain and nervous system may need.

What Can Neurodivergent-Affirming Relationship Therapy Help With?

Depending on the relationship, therapy might include:

• making implicit expectations more explicit

• understanding each person's communication style

• identifying what happens physiologically during conflict

• creating better ways to pause and return to difficult conversations

• distinguishing processing time from emotional withdrawal

• navigating different needs for routine, novelty, stimulation, or downtime

• executive functioning and the division of household responsibilities

• sensory needs within shared spaces

• repair after misunderstandings

• affection, touch, sex, and intimacy

• parenting when partners have different regulation or communication styles

• identifying where masking may be happening within the relationship

• building systems that work for the actual people in the relationship instead of the relationship they're "supposed" to have

The point isn't to excuse harmful behavior because someone is neurodivergent. And it isn't to ask a non-neurodivergent partner to simply accommodate everything.

Both people's needs matter.

The goal is to understand what is actually happening well enough that both people can make intentional choices about what needs acceptance, what needs accommodation, what needs a new strategy, and what genuinely needs to change.

Sometimes one of the biggest shifts in relationship therapy happens when couples move from "Why are you doing this TO me?" to "Oh. THIS is what's happening between us."

That's a very different place from which to solve a problem.

What Does Neurodivergent-Affirming Care Look Like in the Therapy Room?

There is no single accommodation or therapy style that works for every neurodivergent person.

Depending on the person, affirming therapy might include:

• being clear about what we're doing and why

• giving more time to process a question

• not treating eye contact as a measure of engagement

• allowing movement or fidgeting

• helping identify sensory needs

• writing something down instead of expecting someone to remember it

• using more direct communication

• providing structure when structure helps

• changing the structure when it doesn't

• breaking an overwhelming goal into smaller, more manageable pieces

• helping someone recognize and ask for accommodations

• adapting traditional therapy approaches rather than expecting the client to adapt to the therapy

• respecting different ways of expressing emotion, connection, or empathy

The important part is that we ask.

We don't assume every autistic person needs the same thing. We don't assume every person with ADHD needs the same thing. And we don't assume something that helped one neurodivergent person will automatically help the next.

The person in front of us knows what it feels like to live inside their brain. Therapy brings clinical knowledge and another perspective to the conversation, but the work needs to be collaborative.

You Don't Have to Earn Support by Struggling More

You don't need to wait until your child or teen is completely falling apart.

Adults don't need to reach total burnout before they're "struggling enough" for therapy. And couples don't need to wait until years of misunderstanding have turned into resentment before asking for help understanding each other differently.

Sometimes therapy begins because something clearly isn't working. Sometimes it starts because you're finally curious about whether there's a better way to understand what's happening.

At Thrive Counseling Center, we provide neurodivergent-affirming therapy for children, teens, adults, relationships, and families in Federal Wayand through telehealth across Washington State.

Whether you're trying to better understand your own brain, support your child or teen, or find a different way forward in a relationship where one or both of you are neurodivergent, we want therapy to start with understanding.

Our goal isn't to make neurodivergent people look more neurotypical. It's to help people understand themselves and each other, address the things that are genuinely hurting or getting in the way, develop tools that actually fit their brains and their lives, and build more room for authenticity, connection, and wellbeing.

Because therapy shouldn't be about becoming someone else's version of "normal."

It should help you build a life, and relationships, that actually work for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is neurodivergent-affirming therapy only for people with a formal diagnosis?

No. Some people come to therapy with a formal ADHD or autism diagnosis. Others are exploring whether neurodivergence might help explain their experiences. Some parents are just starting to wonder whether something different might be going on for their child or teen. And some people aren't interested in pursuing formal diagnosis at all.

Therapy can still help with the concerns bringing you in, including anxiety, overwhelm, executive functioning, relationships, parenting, burnout, self-understanding, or other mental health concerns, while making room for neurodivergence as part of the picture.

Can Thrive diagnose ADHD or autism?

Therapy and formal neurodevelopmental evaluation are different services.

Your therapist can help you explore your experiences and, when appropriate, talk with you about options or referrals for formal assessment.

Do neurodivergent children and teens still learn coping and social skills in affirming therapy?

Absolutely, when those skills are meaningful and useful to the child or teen.

Affirming therapy isn't about avoiding skill-building. The question is why we're teaching a skill, what the person will gain from it, and whether it helps them navigate something that matters in their life.

Helping a child communicate what they need, navigate a friendship, tolerate frustration, recover from overwhelm, understand social information more explicitly, or advocate for themselves can be incredibly valuable.

Teaching a child to suppress harmless traits simply so they appear more neurotypical is something different.

Does neurodivergent-affirming therapy mean therapists never challenge clients?

Nope.

Good therapy still involves growth, accountability, trying difficult things, developing skills, and sometimes looking at patterns we'd rather not look at.

Affirming someone's neurodivergence doesn't mean assuming every behavior is healthy or that change is never needed. It means we don't start with the assumption that a trait, behavior, symptom, or way of functioning needs to be changed simply because it doesn't fit a neurotypical expectation.

Is neurodivergent-affirming couples therapy only for relationships where both partners are neurodivergent?

Not at all.

Sometimes one partner is neurodivergent and the other isn't. Sometimes both partners are neurodivergent in different ways. Sometimes one or both people are only beginning to explore whether neurodivergence might be part of their experience.

The important piece isn't having two people with matching brains. It's understanding how each person processes, communicates, regulates, connects, and experiences the relationship, and finding approaches that work for the people who are actually in it.

What if I have ADHD but I'm not autistic?

Neurodivergent-affirming care isn't limited to autism.

Adults, teens, and children with ADHD can benefit from therapy that recognizes executive functioning, attention regulation, emotional regulation, motivation, sensory needs, and environmental fit rather than interpreting every struggle as lack of effort.

What is AuDHD?

AuDHD is a term some people use to describe being both autistic and having ADHD. It isn't a separate formal diagnosis, but it can be a useful shorthand for talking about the experience of having both.

Do you offer telehealth?

Thrive provides both in-person counseling in Federal Way for clients in Tacoma, Seattle, Auburn, Des Moines, Kent, and surrounding areas, and telehealth for clients located in Washington State, depending on clinician availability and whether telehealth is appropriate for the client.

How do I get started?

Reach out to our Client Care team and tell us a little about what you're looking for.

You don't have to know the perfect clinical term or arrive knowing exactly what kind of therapist or therapy you need.

That's part of what we're here to help figure out.