As a clinical Social Worker for 32 years my instincts have served as a 6th sense. But at a crucial time, they appeared to fail my family. Learning about The PDA Profile of Autism in 2022 restored confidence in my own instincts.

Since then, I merged my professional and my personal life. It was neither something I planned for or saw unfolding until it did.

I knew I didn’t want families to be in the dark about PDA. Information offers the power for change. But I had a traditional therapy practice. I was not attempting to support PDA families.

Following my instincts I examined my existing practice and came to realize that a significant number of my clients fit the profile. Yes, that’s right. I hadn’t been trying to, but I was already supporting PDA adults and families.

I was 52 at the time. I was making sense of a great deal all at once and doing what I think was important professional work. Yet I had no colleagues. No one to discuss PDA with.

With the help of Diane Gould from PDA North America I formed a Professional Consultation Group. Our original group of 6 have worked with one another since October of 2023.

The group has offered a safe foundation for me from which to process big questions.

How did I come to be working with so many PDA adults successfully before I knew what PDA was?

And.

What has always been PDA friendly about my work?

As I examined why many of my long-term clients fit the profile, I simultaneously examined how the profile fit my family life and began writing about my observations on PDA families and began sharing them. This helped me see more clearly what it was I was doing.

This doesn’t mean I describe everyone with PDA. I have however seen certain patterns in this work and can conceptualize them quickly as a result. It helps reassure my clients but also has had some broad application to helping other clinicians understand the PDA profile in the practice setting and in having a reach through consultation and teaching.

I focus my awareness on what can change for a person when their relationships and environments adapt to their needs. I recognize patterns that occur when relationships and environments shift optimally.

In my professional view informed by my own PDA, pervasive demand avoidance functions as a method of emotional processing which slows down action to allow the chance to know both thinking and motivation and I look to speak to this in the therapy space. Not, overt demand avoidance or behaviors that arise from it, but the emotions that are being processed through it.

Of course, privilege, culture and society play a role in how PDA expresses itself and if there are resources to support need.

There are others who speak to this well. I direct myself to creating therapy spaces that affirm PDA emotional processing.

By seeing overarching patterns in the therapy space with many PDA adults I have recognized this as a distinct “processing” which shapes how they take in and organize who they are. From this I can conceptualize a strength’s-based approach that simply validates how they naturally move through the world. This can have broad application to PDA practice and all PDA relationships.

I follow work that excites me knowing it’s connection to producing good relational work. I give myself permission to choose work that makes me happy.
Choosing my work allows me to “show up” every day and bring as much to the work as I can. To choose ourselves in our work lets us be both professional in our role but also PDA affirming in our authenticity. We can be both.

I make these choices knowing how hard it is to have clients with similar stories to my own. This means submitting myself to challenging process work to stay clear about my feelings and maintain a therapeutic stance.

But I love the challenge. I am genuinely touched by the relief my clients feel when their story takes greater shape over time. I have been known to tear up or look red in a session. It’s real. So, showing up is my highest professional aim but also an important aspect of being PDA affirming.

I believe that in 5 to 10 years PDA “best practice” will be relational work that affirms PDA emotional and cognitive processing and supports unfolding healthy identity.

But far too many parents and adults are just now learning about PDA with not enough affirming providers. At just the right moment it is my aim, that, they have affirming care when they need it.

My own child is bright and clever. With a dry sense of humor and a laugh that is free and deep. I had no idea what burnout was and six years ago I was looking for answers that no one had.

If only I had met just one professional who could say, “this sounds like PDA”.

My young adult is happy for which I am incredibly grateful. Learning about PDA restored my instincts and set free my own ability to trust what I know.

Those professionals with PDA families or those who have lives touched by PDA can change things for the better right now by adapting our practices and interpreting this to our colleagues. If we choose, we can be the change makers.

If you are here, this may be what you’re trying to do. You are not alone in this work. Find your group or lean on The PDA Therapy Collaborative in adapting your practice.

I am grateful for the strange twists and turns of life. If there is a grand design, I was made for this work and can feel comforted that families have a better chance of being met with respect for their needs. I hope that this story helps you with any of the twists and turns on your path. Let your professional merge with your personal.

Just don’t try to do it alone. Find your “Collaborative” or lean on ours.