Values, Mission, Purpose
What are we all about?
Please feel free to share this video where I talk about the reasons for considering greater understanding of neurodivergent clients as it ends suffering and saves lives. Also my passion for supporting therapists as they de-shame themselves for not knowing, and embrace each other to explore, discuss and resolve issues related to deepening our ability to provide an inclusive therapeutic practice.
Psychotherapists and counsellors aware of issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion are concerned with providing inclusive practice for neurodivergent clients. However, they may not have the knowledge, skills, or confidence to adapt therapy or implement adjustments to the design and delivery of it in order to meet the needs of neurodivergent clients.
In this video, Vauna Beauvais discusses how, in light of recognising that neurodivergent people aren't benefitting from therapy, and core training doesn't equip therapists to adapt it so that they do, there was an emergence of the realisation of how much support therapists need in relation to this social justice issue.
Vauna Beauvais and Eoin Stephens call for therapists to talk to each other and explore this and offer a safe place for discovery and learning. Vanguard Neurodiversity Training offers learning opportunities and resources, both paid and free, for those offering counselling and psychotherapy to neurodivergent adults.
Additionally, Vauna presents the mental health statistics of autistic adults that were drawn from conclusions borne from the National Autistic Society survey, and from NICE, which state that an extremely high proportion of this population have poor mental health and are among the highest suicide risk, and yet therapy is not adapted to their needs.
Therefore is this an ethical issue?
Is a rethink of the theory and application of therapeutic approaches and interventions needed?
How do therapists themselves sit with this dissonance, when professional development activities are the responsibility of each individual therapist?
Vanguard Neurodiversity Training offers support and resources for counsellors and psychotherapists who have been impacted by these realisations and want to implement best practices in their work.