Becoming a Neurodivergent-Affirming Clinician: Understanding ADHD and Autism through a Strengths-Based, Neurodivergent-Affirming Lens

Presented by: B Lourenco, MA, LMHC (she/her)

Thursday, September 25th to Saturday, September 27th, 2025 | 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Pacific Time

Where: Live in-person at the Shoreline Center

18 CEs - 12 CEs can be used for Cultural Competence or Health Equity CEs, and 6 can be used for Law & Ethics CEs

As technology progresses and education on mental health becomes increasingly more available, the population has become more self-aware. The world is changing quickly, and with it, more and more people realize that their brain works differently than others. Due to the influence of social media and the shift to focusing on lived experience as a legitimate means of diagnosis, we are seeing a sudden increase in clients that identify as Autistic and/or an ADHDer. We find that clients are speaking up and finding validation of what they have always known: their brains operate differently than the brains of their peers, colleagues, friends, and families. As a result, we are seeing a sudden increase in the young adult and middle-aged population who identify as being Neurodivergent in a Neurotypical world.

This workshop series is designed to help clinicians build greater awareness and familiarity with ADHD and Autistic experiences. Participants will come away from this course with a deeper understanding of ADHD and Autism from the Neurodiversity-Affirming Paradigm that focuses on strengths and differences, not diagnoses, disorders, and deficits.

Especially following the Covid pandemic and its sometimes long-term impact on the brain and the immune system’s inflammatory processes, many clients report having different and often challenging sensory processing experiences. We are seeing more adults presenting in our offices with reports that they now have issues not only with taste and smell but with a range of visual, hearing, tactile, balance, and internal bodily sensations they never have before experienced, as well as difficulties with attention and memory. This begs the question: Have these brain differences always been there but have now been sensitized or magnified by exposure to Covid and months-long isolation?

Many adults are now recognizing they are not alone and are demanding they not be dismissed or invalidated any longer, often having experienced the continued frustration of providers questioning their own lived experiences and, as a result, having been either undiagnosed or underdiagnosed due to outdated and debunked diagnostic criteria still used by mainstream psychiatrists and physicians. These individuals are finding validation for what they have suspected all along: their brains work differently than those of their peers, families, and friends.

With new research available and an increasingly empowered clientele, we see more than ever the need to remain current in our understanding of–and support for–those who have brain differences. Committed to blending cutting-edge scientific evidence with the lived experiences of our clients, Cascadia Training, is delighted to offer a new workshop series designed to help clinicians build greater awareness and familiarity with ADHD and Autistic experiences.

Upon completing this workshop series, participants will have a deeper understanding of ADHD and Autism from the Neurodiversity Affirming Paradigm that focuses on strengths and differences, not disorders, diagnoses, and deficits!

Woven throughout the workshop are the law and ethics of working with neurodivergent clients, including the danger of misdiagnoses, and the harm of using biased, outdated, debunked diagnostic criteria leading to the under-diagnosis of ADHD and Autism spectrum experiences. In addition, participants will learn about and identify pathologizing, stigmatizing, and harmful treatment protocols and clinical interventions still utilized by providers in educational, physical, and mental health professions.

This workshop uses a system developed explicitly by B Lourenco, an expert on ADHD and Autism. The course focuses, to a large degree, on the internal, lived experience of neurodiversity. The workshop includes didactic portions, experiential sections, and direct case consultation time. Each day will include lecture, video, and experiential segments.