As a clinical counsellor, supervisor and educator, I have found myself called upon to find ways to assist my students and supervisees in truly understanding what it means to be a neurodiversity affirmative therapist.  Over time, I developed a reflective exercise that can be utilized with an individual or a group that, according to my students, results in a powerful shift in perspective that I call the Assessment Flip Exercise. I invite you to try it out – let me know what you think!

Here it is:

Let’s start with the current situation. At present, there is a majority population of people who are considered to have neurotypical brains and neurotypical ways of thinking. Because they are the majority, they, of course, determine what is considered normal and what is deemed “pathological.” Let’s call this majority group the “Typicals.” We also have a smaller minority of people who have autistic brains and autistic ways of thinking who we can call the “Autistics.”

Now I'm going to ask you to imagine, if you can, that there is an inversion of these numbers. So that the people who we categorized as neurotypical are now the minority and the people who think with an autistic type of mind are now the majority. So now it is the “Autistic” population that determines what is normal and what is pathological.

Based on the very general information the DSM provides us on autistic traits, we can now brainstorm what ways of thinking and behaving demonstrated by the “Typical” population, would, from the “Autistic” majority’s perspective, be considered abnormal or pathological. Because the “Typicals” now don’t really fit into the “Autistic” society, do they? Something must be wrong with them, right?

What would be the criteria for something like “Typical Spectrum Disorder.” See if you can you come up with perhaps five criteria? And then, based on those five criteria, could you conceptualize some interventions that could be used to help a “Typical” person function in the “Autistic” world or to be more autistic-like? To, essentially, behave normally and to not bother, upset, or make the “Autistic” teacher, parent, clinician, employer uncomfortable?

And, once you do that, it is obvious that mental health issues would emerge in the population of humans with “Typical Spectrum Disorder” as result of living in an “Autistic” world where they are treated as abnormal or disordered.

I have taken many mental health workers and clinical counsellors through this reflective exercise and what seems to hit people the most is the idea that (hypothetically and for the purpose of the exercise only) it would be likely that the “Autistic” majority would think it would be important for “Typicals” to get more comfortable with isolation. They might suggest an exposure intervention designed to help the “Typicals” desensitize to being alone or having less interaction with others. They might also encourage “Typicals” to be quieter, be more direct or concise in their communication, or be less spontaneous.

So, with the Assessment Flip Exercise, we, and students, educators, and parents can start to understand how difficult it has been for the neurodiverse community where individuals have been subjected to all sorts of interventions without necessarily their consent given or perspectives considered in an attempt to “cure” their “autistic-ness.”