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Born to Be Free: Supporting Neurodivergent Clients to Learn, Play, & Thrive: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Meg Ferrell
A podcast for professionals looking to support the deepest wellbeing of their neurodivergent clients. We focus on lived experiences, research, affirming practices, intersectionality, and the practical ways we can support authentic wellbeing. Visit learnplaythrive.com/podcast/
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 2 weeks ago56 min
How to Work in Collaboration With Your PDA Clients with Stacey Curnow
Ever wondered how to apply Dr. Ross Green's model of Collaborative & Proactive Solutions to your work with PDA clients? Today's guest, AuDHD mental health therapist Stacey Curnow, is writing a book about it with Dr. Green's collaboration and oversight. In today's episode, we talk about what exactly collaboration looks like in practice with PDA clients. We also dive into supporting parents, teaching daily living skills, supporting PDAers with aggressive behaviors, PDA kids in burnout, and so much more. For show notes as well as in-person and livestreamed CE trainings visit learnplaythrive.comFor more episodes visit patreon.com/learnplaythrive
- 4 weeks ago48 min
Safety, Trust, & Authenticity: How PDA Experiences Can Inform Our Practices with Diane Gould, Ruth Hevelone, and Michele Kleinmann
The folks at PDA North America recently surveyed over 2,000 families about PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance, or the Pervasive Drive for Autonomy). What they learned has major implications for your clinical practice. In today’s episode, you'll hear from Diane Gould, Ruth Hevelone, and Michele Kleinmann. We talk about what they learned from their PDA Experiences survey, as well as the practices that are supportive for PDAers. We talk about respect, partnership, flexibility, authenticity, congruency, and more. We also address in depth that question that so many of us get when we are accommodating our Autistic clients: "What about the real world?" If you support PDA-ers, after you listen to this conversation, make sure to also check out our Patreon where we have providers talking in-depth about how they support PDA-ers in the context of everyday SLP, OT, mental health practice. They go into how to move through rupture and repair when they get it wrong, some of our guests talk about how to support PDA-ers in burnout, how to bring autonomy into everything including regulation, and more. It's just $7 for over 30-hours of content and you can find it at patreon.com/learnplaythrive. Your support on Patreon helps us cover the cost of this podcast and keep it going. For show notes as well as in-person and livestreamed CE trainings visit learnplaythrive.comFor more episodes visit patreon.com/learnplaythrive
- Jun 24, 20261h 25m
Tools That Get Neurodivergent Folks Through Feeling Stuck, Overwhelmed, Unmotivated, Disorganized, and Discouraged with Dani Donovan
When it comes to helping neurodivergent folks find playful, engaging ways to do the things they need to do, ADHD content creator Dani Donoval is the most creative person I’ve ever met. By the end of this episode, you’ll be grabbing a 20-sided die and turning your neurodivergent client into their own Dungeons and Dragons character, springboarding them out of "stuck" and into action. On this podcast, we know that our clients’ worthiness has never and will never be tied to our ability to do more and produce more. And at the same time, we know that many people struggle to do the things they have to do. Dani has broken the barriers down into five subcategories: stuck, overwhelmed, unmotivated, disorganized, and discouraged. In this episode, she helps us work through what the different types of barriers look like, and we dive into what specific strategies can help. Dani Donovan is an ADHD comic artist and the author of The Anti-Planner. For show notes as well as in-person and livestreamed CE trainings visit learnplaythrive.comFor more episodes visit patreon.com/learnplaythrive
- Jun 10, 202642 min
When Your Client Needs Novelty & Routines All At Once: Supporting AuDHDers with Dr. Bowen Marshall, LPCC, PhD
This episode is a deep and nuanced exploration into the seemingly competing needs of being Autistic and being ADHD. We call these folks AuDHD-ers, and they're often faced with both the need for routines that comes with being Autistic and the craving for novelty that comes with ADHD. In this episode, AuDHD psychotherapist, Dr. Bowen Marshall, helps us explore all of the complexities around AuDHD, including how ADHD and autism can be complementary and how that may change when one condition is medicated. We talk about what's tricky and what helps, and we look in every corner of this to explore the complexities of this topic, like dopamine, executive function, routines, estrogen, testosterone, gender identity, race, and more. Dr. Bowen Marshall, PhD is a licensed psychotherapist, bestselling author, and consultant specializing in ADHD, Autism, relationships, and Complex-PTSD. For show notes as well as in-person and livestreamed CE trainings visit learnplaythrive.comFor more episodes visit patreon.com/learnplaythrive
- May 27, 202637 min
When Your Autistic Client Also Has OCD, Depression, Anxiety or Other Co-Occurrences: Affirming, Person-Centered Practices with Matt Lowry, LPP
{{Two Sides of the Spectrum is now Born to Be Free!}} This episode is a sweeping overview of the co-occurring conditions that Autistic people often experience, including OCD, depression, anxiety, ADHD, PDA, and more. Autistic Licensed Psychological Practitioner Matt Lowry helps us take a topic that can feel huge and overwhelming and reduce it to a few core themes that make affirming practice feel clear, grounded, and simple, even when we are supporting clients with more complex profiles. Matt Lowry lives and practices in Kentucky, where he specializes in autism and ADHD evaluations, and Autistic-centered therapy. He is the proud parent of an Autistic child and works to promote an understanding of autism and the Autistic lifestyle. For show notes as well as in-person and livestreamed CE trainings visit learnplaythrive.comFor more episodes visit patreon.com/learnplaythrive
- May 20, 20261 min
Two Sides --> Born To Be Free (New Podcast Name!)
We have a new podcast name! Keep your eyes out for our first episode of Born to Be Free: Supporting Your Neurodivergent Clients to Learn, Play, and Thrive. The podcast is relaunching with an emphasis on all of the complexities our Autistic clients experience, and how we can support them in affirming ways. We're starting off with a focus on Autistic people who also have OCD, depression, anxiety, ADHD, multiple disabilities, motor difficulties, PDA, twice exceptionality, and more. Don't miss our first episode of Born to Be Free where we will talk about co-occurring conditions for Autistic people with Autistic LPP Matt Lowry, coming next week! In the meantime, get more in-depth episodes about what affirming practices look like in action at patreon.com/learnplaythrive. Or join an in-person or livestreamed training at learnplaythrive.com/trainings. View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast
- Mar 18, 202632 min
AuDHDers, Executive Function, & Social-Emotional Wellbeing with Vanessa Castañeda Gill
This episode dives into the specific needs of AuDHD-ers – that’s kids who are Autistic and have ADHD - tying in executive functioning, social-emotional well-being, and so much more. Vanessa’s take is detailed, creative, and deeply practical. You’re going to want to take notes! Vanessa Castañeda Gill is an AuDHDer and the cofounder and CEO of Social Cipher, where she and her team create social-emotional learning video games and curriculum for neurodivergent youth. Want MORE EPISODES of Two Sides of the Spectrum and recorded Q&As with our guests? Join our community at patreon.com/learnplaythrive View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast
- Feb 17, 20265 min
Therapy as a Collaboration and Becoming
"Because therapy should feel like a collaboration and becoming, not a rehearsal and being less yourself in order to survive." - Chenai Mupotsa-RussellIn this short episode, you get a sneak peek into the audio from one of our most poetic and transformative summit talks. Our continuing education summit is now $100 off and available on-demand at learnplaythrive.com/summitSelected Transcript:"Normal is not a neutral baseline. It is a construct, a fiction, a colonizing force. Normativities function to flatten difference, discipline the body, decide who gets to be seen as competent, coherent, and worthy. So, when we center neurodivergent and gender diverse lives, we're not offering inclusion into a category of 'normal', we are refusing the category altogether. Divergence in whatever form is not a problem to solve. It is a truth. They are the most natural, beautiful, diverse, amazing ways of being rooted in sensation, relationship, rhythm, self-determination, expression. The problem has never been the child, the adult, the human. It's in the systems that punish difference in the name of order. And so, the therapeutic task is not to bring the client closer to functioning - a functioning built on an idea of a human that is so far from them and so many other people. The idea is to undo the harm that normativity has caused. It's to let go of those normativities and start to reimagine what the world could be like if we allowed for the full spectrum of human experiencing, to make space for becoming on one's own terms, however they present or move through the world. Creative practice becomes essential here. Not decorative, not soft, but radical and necessary. Sensory-based creative engagement reaches the brain, the body, the heart, the soul in ways words can't. And for those constantly coerced into verbal or behavioral conformity, art, creativity, movement becomes a language of refusal, regulation, and reclamation. The work isn't to help the client survive unjust conditions. It's to help deconstruct the conditions that made survival feel like the only option. Because therapy should feel like a collaboration and becoming, not a rehearsal in being less yourself in order to survive."From Colour Outside the Lines: Exploring Art, Gender, and Neurodivergence Beyond the Binary with Chenai Mupotsa-Russell MTAP, AThR in the Learn Play Thrive 2026 Continuing Education Summit View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast
About Born to Be Free: Supporting Neurodivergent Clients to Learn, Play, & Thrive
A podcast for professionals looking to support the deepest wellbeing of their neurodivergent clients. We focus on lived experiences, research, affirming practices, intersectionality, and the practical ways we can support authentic wellbeing. Visit learnplaythrive.com/podcast/
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