When physical illness is read as neurodivergence
A webinar for therapists on diagnostic overshadowing, and how to screen for co-occurring physical conditions without stepping outside your scope.
The link between neurodivergence and a range of physical health conditions is well established. Hypermobility, dysautonomia, allergic conditions, gastrointestinal disorders and chronic pain all show up more often in neurodivergent people than in the general population.
That research has not filtered down into practice. Neurodivergent people still report negative experiences in therapy and real barriers to accessing health services, and the gap between what the evidence shows and what happens in the room has a cost.
When a physical symptom is read as part of the neurotype
Diagnostic overshadowing is what happens when a physical symptom is attributed to neurodivergence, and the chance to investigate, treat, and sometimes prevent a serious outcome is missed.
It happens because the misread is so plausible. When a client is neurodivergent, it becomes easy to read a physical symptom as part of their neurotype. Each explanation is reasonable on its own, which is exactly what makes it hard to catch. For a group already less likely to be taken seriously by health services, the effect compounds.
The National Roadmap to Improve the Health and Mental Health of Autistic People 2025–2035 names this directly. It recommends that mental health professionals take proactive steps to avoid diagnostic overshadowing, including training on common co-occurring health conditions.
Screening well, and referring well, within scope
This is a webinar for practitioners who already work with neurodivergent clients and want more confidence around physical health, without straying into territory that belongs to a doctor. It takes an anti-oppressive, neurodiversity-affirming, trauma and violence informed, and lived-experience perspective on the harm diagnostic overshadowing can do, and on what it looks like to screen well and refer well within scope.
How neurodivergent people experience their physical health and their attempts to access care, and the barriers that sit in the way of adequate screening.
The physical conditions that commonly co-occur for autistic and ADHD people, and the risks that follow when they go unscreened.
The way neurodivergence, chronic illness, disability and other forms of marginalisation intersect and amplify one another.
Screening is one tool within the work, never a diagnosis and never a substitute for medical assessment.
The aim is to help a client name what might be happening in their body so they can walk into a medical appointment better prepared, with their autonomy intact and their right to have their physical health needs met treated as a given rather than something they have to earn.
This webinar is created for counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and social workers supporting neurodivergent participants in therapy. Anyone from the community is welcome to attend.
I am a registered counsellor, and screening here means using structured tools inside the therapy to help name what might be happening. It does not mean diagnosis. Diagnosing a medical condition is the role of a doctor. This webinar is about recognising when a physical explanation deserves investigation, and referring well, rather than assessing or diagnosing anything yourself.
I am a queer, AuDHD, disabled counsellor, and I live and work at the intersections of neurodivergence, chronic illness and disability. I have been the client whose physical symptoms were read as part of my neurotype, and I have done the work of screening alongside clients in my own practice. This webinar comes out of both.
My practice is feminist and anti-oppressive, neurodiversity-affirming, and trauma and violence informed. That frame shapes my approach itself, as well as how I share this material.
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If you would like to know when the webinar is running, register your interest below. Registering does not commit you to attending. It just means the details reach you when they are ready.
Please note: this webinar is not currently an accredited course. Most professional associations let members count non-accredited professional development toward their annual CPD hours. Please check your own association’s requirements to confirm how it applies to you.