Changing the Lens: The Neurodiversity Paradigm in Clinical Practice

Virtual CEU Workshop Title: Changing the Lens: The Neurodiversity Paradigm in Clinical Practice Objectives: Apply neurodiversity-affirming principles to case conceptualization and intervention Identify the roles of masking, shame, and neuronormativity in clients’ experiences of distress Identify ways to assess for sources of unnecessary stress in clients’ environments and explore accommodations that support their ways of functioning Compare the pathology and neurodiversity paradigms and describe how each informs clinical practice Workshop Summary This presentation introduces the neurodiversity paradigm as a framework for understanding human difference and examines how neuronormative assumptions can shape the ways we conceptualize distress and set therapeutic goals. Using case examples across varying diagnostic lenses, we’ll explore practical ways that shifting this framework can strengthen our case conceptualization, target our interventions, and situate individual distress within the broader social narratives that define whose ways of being are considered acceptable. Participants will leave with concrete strategies they can apply across clinical presentations to address common responses to neuronormativity, including masking, burnout, and shame. About the Presenter: CJ Johnson, LPC, MT-BC is a board-certified music therapist and clinical mental health counselor. She currently works in private practice in New Orleans, where her work focuses on complex trauma, neurodiversity-affirming care, and supporting the queer and trans community. Across her clinical and teaching work, CJ is drawn to therapeutic approaches that work with, rather than against, the underlying logic of the patterns clients bring to therapy. This informs a broader shift from viewing therapy as a process of directing change toward understanding the coherence of clients’ distress as a starting point for discovering more sustainable ways of being.