What are the factors involved in teaching neurodivergent people not to trust themselves, and what can it mean when a client says yes? Let’s explore together.
Here's a moment where many of us assume. A client has been agreeable all session. They've nodded, tried the exercise, said it all sounded helpful. And we think: that went well. They're on board.
I know I have thought that in the past with what looks like a happy neurodivergent client in front of me.
However, curiosity beats assumption.
So let's get curious about where that agreeableness comes from.
Nobody sits us down and says "stop trusting yourself."
It arrives in small moments, although there can be thousands of them across our lifetime, starting long before we have words for them.
A child covers their ears and yet is told the noise isn't that loud. A label feels scratchy, a room is too bright, a hug is too much, and we're told we're being dramatic.
The lesson we learn: what my body tells me and what I feel doesn't count.
We're told we're too sensitive, too intense, too much. So we learn our feelings are a problem to manage, and swallow them quickly.
I found I would often eat when I felt uncomfortable or when I wanted to suppress my emotions as a child and young person. It took me many years of struggling with my weight to work out this was actually my emotional coping strategy.
We learn to take up less space. Sit still. Lower my voice. Don't be so blunt. Make eye contact. Smile.
I know from my experience of attending a parenting course some years ago that some behavioural approaches reward a child for doing as they're told, and can measure success by how little they stand out.
Every one of those comments is a small instruction to become quieter, smaller, more still, less direct and more neuronormative.
When we manage it, we're praised.
Here's the important and sad part: it works.
Masking, people-pleasing and fawning are intelligent adaptations.
If agreeing keeps us safe and being easy keeps us included, the strategy is doing its job.
For half of us, gender adds another layer, because girls are already taught to please. And many of us, like myself, were missed for decades, so the training ran unchallenged into adulthood.
Now let’s think about what consent needs.
To say yes or no, you need to know what you feel, trust that it counts, and believe you're allowed to say it.
If you've been trained out of all three, a yes can be a survival response.
It's fast, practised and automatic, and from the outside it looks exactly like willingness.
The real answer may arrive late. Processing time, difficulty naming what we feel, and a body we've learned to override can mean we realise hours or days later that we never wanted something.
And then comes the self-blame: why didn't I say something? It can haunt us for years, with layers on top of layers of examples of ND consent challenges.
What my research found
In my research with neurodivergent adults, people rated their therapists' understanding of ND consent at about 2.1 out of 5, and about two thirds said they had lost themselves in relationships (Mitchell, C, 2026a).
In similar research with professionals, coaches and therapists, participants rated their own understanding of ND consent at 2.9 out of 5 (Mitchell, C, 2026b). Clearly there is a knowledge and skills gap.
This is small community-bassed research, so it isn't a statistic about everyone. However, it does give an indication about a double blind spot, for both neurodivergent individuals and the professionals who support them.
When professionals are getting curious and asking questions, they are relying on understanding the ND client may not have.
So agreement and silence can both be misread.
Neither one tells you what the person actually wants.
That doesn't mean every yes is suspect. It means a yes alone isn't enough information.
One thing you can do
Think of a recent session with a neurodivergent client. No names, no identifying details, just one moment. Then ask yourself:
- What did I notice? Their words, their pace, their posture, their energy, any fluctuations.
- What did I assume? What story did I tell myself about their experiences?
- What else could it have meant? Explore other explanations: overload, needing more time, masking, not being sure what I asked.
- What might it have cost them to say no, or "I don't know"? What did I do to make it easy for them to say no, and what did I do that might have made it harder?
- What's one small thing I could offer next time? Perhaps you could offer more time, a different way to answer, an invitation to come back to it later or something else?
You don't need all the answers today. Jot down what you notice if it helps. You're practising exploring the gap between noticing and deciding.
What’s next
Next time we'll look at what makes a "no" safe to give, because that's what makes a genuine yes possible.
Tell me in the comments what you noticed, with no identifying details.
And sign up to the newsletter at www.untangleroots.org for a summary of the research with professionals who work with ND clients.
Thanks for being here, as we go from assumption to attunement for professionals working with ND clients.
- Mitchell, C (2026) Neurodivergent Experiences of Therapeutic Relationships: Support, therapy and healing: https://bookspace.com/untangleroots
- Mitchell, C (2026) Supporting Neurodivergent Relationships: Practitioner Research, awaiting publication
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