Trauma & Neurodiversity

DR SARA DELIA MENON is a clinical psychologist at Alliance Counselling, and an experienced practitioner in addressing low mood and anxiety, abuse and interpersonal problems. She's particularly interested in the overlap between trauma and neurodiversity, and why many adults seem to fall through the cracks of meaningful diagnosis and treatment.

- Anna Murphy

What is neurodiversity?

Neurodiversity refers to individual differences in our brain's structure and function. It includes clinical conditions such as ADHD and autism but can also refer to acquired brain changes due to trauma from experiencing life-threatening events, or abuse.

There is also a great deal of overlap with conditions such as ADHD and autism with anxiety or depression. People who are neurodivergent tend to have more challenging interpersonal relationships, which can lead to trauma from rejection or abuse. Many adult clients present with symptoms along this continuum, which makes the process of assessing the core issue and working out a meaningful treatment plan fascinating.

What makes it hard to spot?

We work with a very high-functioning client population, many of whom have not explored how neurodiversity could account for their persistent struggles they have done such a wonderful job of coping, surviving and a lot of the time excelling!

Over time, though, the anxiety, depression or social disconnect becomes more evident, and this is often why these clients engage in therapy as adults.

Research shows that women are underrepresented in conditions like ADHD and autism. Why is this?

Yes, this is unfortunately true. Diagnostic approaches have tended to consider male presentations of these conditions, so women are more likely to be underdiagnosed, or misdiagnosed.