In the Autism Dialogue Approach® we use a set of easily learned skills to facilitate a deep conscious enquiry into the nature of self (autos), selves and neurodiversity, a subset of biodiversity. This is a radical approach to group interaction, with an emphasis on authenticity, listening and observation, while suspending the culturally conditioned judgments and impulses that we all have. Authentic dialogue can provide fertile ground for the arising of the new to emerge. It can offer a new quality of being together, renewed insight, creative solutions and complex perspectives. The practice of Dia-logue (Greek roots; ‘through’ and ‘relational’) addresses fragmentation and ultimately, the return to the whole self.
Using principles found in sacred wisdom traditions, established dialogue models and therapeutic / coaching models, the approach aims to shift mindsets and culture from the predominant deficit model of autism and neurodivergence.
In this experiential session, suitable for anyone engaged in helping professions, we will safely explore different perspectives across our neurotypes with the aim of moving towards a coherent synergy of thinking and experience.
We particularly welcome people from neurominorities who are engaged in helping professions.
Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event:
- This interactive introduction will support you to understand yourself, your clients and those you engage with.
- It will show you how to integrate and process differing interpretations of reality.
- Learn about Practices and principles of generative dialogue, silence and meditation as ways of sensing, hidden power in language and systems, presence and field awareness and the predominant neurotype.
Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?
- Counsellors, therapists, coaches and others in helping professions.
How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?
- It will give you confidence to engage pragmatically with the complexity and conflicts of neurodiversity.
Course Content
Presenter
Jonny is an informal researcher, coach and dialogue facilitator, influenced by a life of Eastern and Western disciplines including in contemporary fine arts, dialogue and spiritual practice. After a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome he trained in Coaching and Autism studies, then formulated the Autism Dialogue Approach® and Mindfulness for Autism (M4A).
Dialogic Action CIC was founded by a team of autistic people, academics, philosophers, coaches and third-sector experts, who believe generative dialogue is a framework for moving beyond individual consciousness into an emergent wholeness, and the key to a more harmonious existence.
Kate Salinsky is co-founder and co-facilitator at Dialogic Action CIC, where she also co-designs and manages training. She has a master’s in Autism, is a trainer at the National Autism Trainer Programme (NHS/Anna Freud Centre/AT-Autism) and parent to a neurodivergent child. Previously, Kate worked as a training manager and counsellor in the voluntary sector for over 20 years, managing a team of trainers to design and deliver accredited training to people working in substance misuse, counselling and mediation.
