Overview:
Conventional therapeutic models often fall short for neurodivergent clients—particularly autistic adults—because they rely on norms that pathologise difference and overlook the profound impact of ableism, masking, and lifelong invalidation. This session introduces a liberation-psychology approach to neurodivergent therapy, integrating creative, arts-based methods with anti-oppressive practice.
Drawing on contemporary neurodiversity theory, disability justice, and liberation psychology, this session reframes distress as contextual rather than individual and explores how therapists can hold space that is affirming, imaginative, and genuinely emancipatory. Participants will learn why creative approaches (including metaphor, imagery, and arts-based expression) often meet neurodivergent needs more effectively than purely verbal processing, and how to build therapeutic environments that reduce shame, support agency, and foster authentic expression.
Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event
- Participants will leave with a practical understanding of how liberation psychology and creative methods can transform therapeutic work with neurodivergent clients, enabling them to recognise contextual sources of distress, challenge internalised ableism, and facilitate work that is empowering rather than normalising.
- Understand how shame and the “abject self” shape autistic experience and emotional life.
- Explore how art-based approaches can support integration, regulation, and self-acceptance.
Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?
- Psychotherapists, counsellors, and clinical psychologists
- Coaches, mental health practitioners, and wellbeing professionals
- University counsellors, disability support staff, and student services
- Therapists working with newly diagnosed autistic adults
- Professionals interested in neurodiversity-affirming or anti-oppressive practice
- Anyone wanting to understand neurodivergence beyond deficit models
- No prior knowledge of liberation psychology or creative methods is required.
How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?
- Attending this workshop will deepen participants’ ability to recognise autistic clients’ shame-based defences and abjection responses, helping them attune more accurately, avoid pathologising language, and use creative methods to support regulation and self-acceptance. It will enhance confidence in working neuroaffirmingly and expand their therapeutic repertoire with arts-based interventions.
Link to my book on publisher website: https://www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/poetry-and-therapy-why-words-help
Course Content
Presenter
Dr Stephanie Aspin Phd is an autistic therapist, former academic and author specialising in arts-based approaches to therapeutic work. She has over 25 years’ experience in higher education, academic development, and creative pedagogies, and now runs a successful private practice supporting autistic adults. Stephanie also provides neurodiversity training to universities and large organisations, with a particular interest in liberation-oriented, anti-oppressive practice. She holds two doctorates—one in American poetry and another examining the relationship between poetry and psychotherapy—and is dedicated to helping neurodivergent people live with less shame and more freedom. She is the author of ‘Poetry and Therapy: why words help’ (PCSS Books 2025)
