The Clinician’s Guide to Understanding
Autism and ADHD by Jennifer Kemp
How to Provide Compassionate, Evidence-Based,
Neurodiversity-Affirming Care to Neurodivergent Adults
Watch a Free Training:
Supporting Neurodivergent Clients Through Burnout
Join Jennifer Kemp, MPsych, expert clinical psychologist and AuDHDer, gain a deep understanding of what it means to be neurodivergent, and help your Autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD clients thrive.
Serving Neurodivergent Clients
For many Autistic people, ADHDers, and AuDHDers, navigating a world that isn’t designed for them has significant impacts.
They internalize messages that they’re broken, feel they must hide their true selves, and burn out from the constant pressure to fit in.
As awareness of these challenges increases, growing numbers of them are presenting to therapy to inquire about the connection between their neurodivergence and their mental health.
At the same time, many of the mental health clinicians supporting them are discovering that the approaches they find effective for other clients just don’t work for their ADHDers and Autistic clients.
They may see no improvement in clients’ depression or anxiety symptoms even after months of treatment.
They might find it difficult to get on the same page and manage the direction of therapy, and fear that efforts to keep things on track will be seen as invalidating.
In some cases, clinicians may not even know that a neurodivergent person is sitting across from them—they just know that what they’re doing isn’t helping.
As they encounter these barriers session after session, therapists can try everything in their therapeutic toolkit but still see little progress.
They may even consider discharging a client because they just don’t seem ready to participate.
So, how can therapists overcome these roadblocks?
How can they create a supportive, trusting, and welcoming environment while also addressing clients’ challenges directly and effectively?
A Deeper Understanding of Neurodivergence
Because Autistic people and ADHDers experience and interpret the world differently, therapy for neurodivergent individuals may not look like the therapy taught in most professional training.
Differences in sensory processing, communication, emotional experiences, and executive functioning require that therapy be adapted to meet the needs of neurodivergent clients.
However, it’s hard to know how to adapt without a thorough grasp of these differences, and what it means to be neurodivergent.
When you have a deep understanding of neurodivergence, you’ll be empowered to take an affirming approach that celebrates your clients’ strengths and differences, acknowledges and addresses their unique challenges, and makes them feel seen and heard.
Join Jennifer Kemp, MPsych, as she draws on her own journey as an AuDHDer and extensive clinical expertise to provide you with a one-of-a-kind learning experience.
The Clinician’s Guide to Understanding Autism and ADHD
If you work with Autistic people and ADHDers, a validating, strengths-based approach is vital for helping them thrive.
In this course, you’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of neurodivergence that helps you adopt an affirming therapeutic lens and consider neurodivergent behaviors in their full context.
An exploration of several key neurobiological differences associated with Autism and ADHD will provide you with a firm foundation for helping clients understand themselves in a way that promotes self-compassion, self-acceptance, and pride in their unique identity.
You’ll also learn several strategies for increasing your effectiveness when working with neurodivergent clients, including how to adapt your communication style, create an inviting sensory environment, scaffold executive functioning, and more.
Enhancing Care for Neurodivergent Clients
Gain a Deep Understanding of Neurodivergence
- Understand neurobiological processing differences in ADHD and Autism
- Adopt an affirming therapeutic lens
- Identify and treat neurodivergent burnout
- Harness clients' interests as a positive force in therapy
- Normalize and affirm client differences
Create a Welcoming Environment and Build Rapport
- Adapt your communication for neurodivergent clients
- Create a trusting environment that invites unmasking
- Adjust your therapy space for sensory differences
- Confidently broach the topic of neurodivergence with undiagnosed clients
- Model openness and acceptance
Improve Outcomes
- Help clients understand and advocate for themselves
- Build clients' emotional literacy
- Scaffold executive functioning
- Support strong social connection
- Help clients thrive
Courses Include:
Engaging Video Lessons
Downloadable Workbook
Guided Audio Meditations
Lifetime Access
Bonus Podcast-Style Conversation
with Jennifer Kemp and ACT Therapist Jessica Borushok
Satisfaction Guarantee
Help Your Clients Build Lives of Self-Compassion,
Acceptance, and Well-Being
The Clinician's Guide to Understanding Autism and ADHD
By Jennifer Kemp
$247 + 5.5 CE hours
- An Empowering 6-part course
- Over 3.5 hours of video
- 44 Engaging video lessons
- 4 Exercise scripts
- 14 Handouts and worksheets
- 2 Guided audio meditations
- Lifetime access
- Bonus video: How Diagnosis Supports Self-Understanding
A Personal Note from Jennifer Kemp
When I was diagnosed as Autistic as an adult, and an ADHDer soon after, I had no roadmap to guide me, even as a clinical psychologist. Determined to understand myself better, I embarked on a long journey of reading and self-reflection.
That’s why I created this course.
I want to give you an inside view of what it means to be an Autistic person, ADHDer, or AuDHDer so you can confidently provide the most compassionate, affirming, and effective care to your clients.
Much of the content is geared directly toward neurodivergent people, so you'll get to hear how I explain these concepts to my clients and learn the specific strategies I use to help them work toward lasting well-being.
To this, I’ve added lessons that offer practical guidance in how to adapt your practice to accommodate your neurodivergent clients, build strong therapeutic relationships, and navigate some of the challenging aspects of working with Autistic clients and ADHDers.
And, if you happen to be neurodivergent yourself—welcome! I hope you benefit both personally and professionally from all that you learn.
Join me to explore how to help your clients take pride in their neurodivergent identity, embrace their strengths and differences, and build a life that works best for them.
Course Outline
Jennifer Kemp, MPsych, weaves together evidence-based principles from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and compassion-focused therapy (CFT) with her own lived experience as an AuDHDer to help her clients improve their mental health and develop greater self-compassion, self-acceptance, and pride in their neurodivergent identity.
The course contains a downloadable workbook with handouts, reflection-based worksheets, and lesson summaries. The worksheets and handouts can also be downloaded individually.
When you enroll, you’ll have immediate access to the entire course—so you can go through the lessons in order or start with the ones that interest you most.
The Clinician's Guide to Understanding Autism and ADHD
By Jennifer Kemp
Part 1. Foundations of Affirming Therapy
- A Journey of Self-Discovery
- What Is Neurodivergence
- Learning to Hide
- Related Neurotypes
- An Affirming Perspective
- Strengths and Difficulties
- Hyperfixations and Monotropism
- Exploring Client Interests
Bonus:
How Diagnosis Supports
Self-Understanding
with Jessica Borushok
In this bonus video, Jennifer Kemp is joined by Jessica Borushok, PhD—psychologist, author, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) expert, and creator of The ACT Therapist YouTube channel—for an insightful podcast-style discussion on their journey to diagnosis and a wide range of other topics, including:
- How diagnosis can cast past experiences in a different light
- Changing perspectives on productivity, rest, and rules
- Finding balance by using systems that support you and being yourself
- A helpful ACT metaphor from Jessica
- What to look for when seeking a formal Autism and/or ADHD diagnosis
CE
Upon completion of the core course content plus evaluations and posttest as required, participants will be eligible for 5.5 CE hours approved for the following professionals:
- Psychologists
- Social workers
- National counselors
- Substance Abuse Counselors (pending approval)
- Nurses
- Physicians
Before registering, please review complete CE information by clicking here: CE Details
Who Should Join This Course?
This course is ideal for any mental health professional who wants to:
- Create an inviting, affirming therapy environment
- Adapt their communication style for neurodivergent clients
- Build strong therapeutic relationships
- Help clients embrace their strengths and manage their challenges
- Help clients unmask and live authentically
Answers to Your Questions
Autism and ADHD are closely related neurotypes, with higher overlap in diagnosis and information processing differences than previously thought. Due to these shared characteristics, most of the course information will be useful across both neurotypes and will actually give you a fuller picture of your clients’ differences and additional strategies for improving their well-being.