What is Neurodiversity?
Let's talk!
Reading time approx 6-9 minutes
1.1 Neurodiversity—What Exactly Does It Mean?’.
This is a key question I have been thinking about for many years. Yet some answers I have come across recently, imply my work over the last 14 years -which I feel has helped thousands, might have been pointless.
Lucy Johnstone, a prominent and much-respected figure in the anti-diagnosis and anti-psychiatry movement shared a blog from the team at Mad In the UK in July 2024 on the UK Clinical Psychology Facebook group. The article was part of a four part series on “Mad in the UK” website, which you can read here: https://www.madinamerica.com/neurodiversity-series/). Their answer to this key question quickly becomes clear: neurodiversity is meaningless.
The blogs sparked a lot of initial discussion. The first blog received 148 comments on the Clinical Psychology Facebook group (a good few from myself!). The following 3 gained 60 odd in total. On Twitter (never X) comments were fewer, but the first blog was retweeted approximately 100 times – especially from the Mad In the UK Twitter account. Since then, I have seen the ideas from the blogs repeated in online talks and conferences put on by A Disorder 4 Everyone, as well as interviews given by Dr. Sami Timimi, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, relating to his book ‘Searching for Normal’.
I attended a conference “De-medicalising misery” in 2010 or 2011, when a third-year trainee clinical psychologist. It was recommended by my course mates Verity and Emma and it shifted my perception. I was sold on how the disease model of human suffering was actively unhelpful. I was officially ‘anti-diagnosis’. It seemed bizarre to me – and cruel at times – how we could turn people’s emotions into diagnosable conditions to be cured, mostly by medication. (Please see the Power Threat Meaning Framework, which is essential reading and extremely useful clinically: https://www.bps.org.uk/member-networks/division-clinical-psychology/power-threat-meaning-framework).
Then, after qualifying, I applied this anti-diagnosis enlightenment (somewhat ironically) by becoming a diagnostician. But not of people’s mental health, but of Autism.
Over the years this contradiction has raised many questions for me: Why do I believe we shouldn’t categorise people’s emotions – that we should instead focus on understanding and supporting people. Yet most of my work has focused on categorising people’s possible neurodivergence? How can I marry the two opposing positions?
Within the four blogs and in the author’s previous writings and videos, I noticed some of the same points being made repeatedly. These included recurring misconceptions, misreporting and misunderstandings, alongside some genuinely useful highlighting of gaps and inconsistencies of how neurodiversity is spoken about. As a clinical psychologist specialising in the area, these are issues I come across often.
They also came at an interesting time as Autism appeared to be a new front line in the culture wars and a way to try remove our empathy for yet another minority (e.g. here or here [behind a paywall]).
Over the last year, I have considered how responding to the critiques of neurodiversity, from the perspective of a clinician working with neurodivergent adults, could help us to understand autistic people and those with ADHD better. More importantly it could help them to better understand themselves. More clarity in the area is needed. I believe it can help people with their clinical work, whether in identifying autistic/neurodivergent people, or helping them therapeutically. It may also give some directions for future research and how research is conducted. I am open about having much less experience working with children and welcome perspectives from those working with neurodivergent children (or perspectives from anyone really!). I don’t claim to know all the answers; we’re dealing with a complex aspect of human experience.
Additionally, I hope that the series of blogs I aim to write in the response to the original blogs can also initiate more meaningful dialogue between the various parties involved. A back-and-forth of ‘Neurodivergence exists! ‘Oh no it doesn’t’ gets us nowhere. However, discussions about the opposing positions could lead us in more helpful directions in the future – ones that are both compassionate and constructive. So, this is also an invitation: let’s talk!
1.2 Thematically Analysing the Blogs
Before that can happen though, let’s talk about the blogs themselves. To help with this, I - with a little help from some Clinical Psychologist friends - did what a good doctoral-trained Clinical Psychologist might do: conduct a thematic analysis of the blogs (please, stick with me here!) The following table identifies 10 themes. I’ll look at each theme individually in this and subsequent blogs, providing illustrative quotations and descriptions to discuss how the main point in each theme can be answered.
Themes:
1. One Neurodivergent Swallow Equals a Summer
2. Neurodivergence isn’t neurological.
3. Neurodivergence isn’t credible or severe enough to be seen as a disability.
4. Labels ignore societal issues.
5. It’s all contradictory
6. Diagnoses lead to disadvantages.
7. There’s no definition of Autism, or what exactly is neurodivergence.
8. The movement splits people up.
9. The writers misunderstand/misrepresent assessments
10. Neurodivergent voices are ignored, invalidated or mocked.
Additionally, I’ve seen many of these themes become generalised to ideas shared by the authors in other media I’ve read, watched or listened to. This includes podcasts (e.g. I’m ADHD! No you’re not), books (e.g., Searching For Normal by Sami Timimi), newspaper articles (e.g., the Telegraph, as above) or online talks and conferences (e.g., AD4E).
It’s important for discussions to remain respectful, constructive and curious. Alongside these themes, unfortunately there are multiple stories in the blogs of clinicians or researchers being excluded or criticised harshly, because of the authors’ beliefs – these are incidents I can’t comment on specifically.
Stay tuned as in the next blog, I’ll begin by looking at their first theme: “One Neurodivergent Swallow Equals a Summer.”
Finally, a huge thank you to Amy Longworth for her help with editing this blog and her ideas on shaping it.