What I Consult On PDA

Consultation may include:

• adult and internalized PDA

• autism, ADHD, and AuDHD

• trauma and complex PTSD

• dissociation and dissociative disorders

• couples and relationship dynamics

• eating disorders

• chronic illness and disability

• sexuality and intimacy

• treatment rupture

• therapist countertransference

• differential case formulation

You do not need to know whether your client “really has PDA.”

Uncertainty is a good reason for consultation.

Adult PDA Can Be Easy To Miss

Adult PDA does not always look like obvious avoidance.

It may look like perfectionism, overfunctioning, people pleasing, shutdown, procrastination, chronic burnout, intense shame, or being able to do extraordinary things under some conditions and almost nothing under others.

Some clients externalize demand distress. Others turn it almost entirely inward.

The important clinical question is often not, “Are they avoiding a demand?”

It is: What is this nervous system protecting, and what happens when autonomy feels threatened?

PDA, Trauma, and Dissociation

This is one of my particular areas of interest.

PDA is sometimes interpreted entirely through a trauma lens. Trauma is sometimes overlooked because everything is attributed to neurodivergence.

Neither is sufficient.

Consultation can help clinicians think through the overlap among autonomy threat, trauma responses, autistic shutdown, dissociation, fawning, freeze, executive dysfunction, burnout, and attachment.

This is often where simple “low-demand strategies” stop being enough.

My teaching on this intersection includes Portrait of a Nervous System on Fire: When Everyday Demand Becomes Chronic Threat, presented for ISSTD.

Adapting Therapy for PDA

Consultation can include adapting:

EMDR • Parts Work • trauma processing • treatment planning • goal setting • couples therapy • eating-disorder treatment • sex and sexuality

The goal is not to remove every demand from therapy.

It is to understand what is functioning as threat and what allows meaningful therapeutic work to remain possible.

When The Therapist Becomes Part Of The Demand

Sometimes the most useful thing to examine is what is happening between you and your client.

Are you working harder than they are?

Are you afraid to ask for anything?

Do you feel unusually ineffective, controlled, frustrated, or responsible for their progress?

Have you become so committed to being nondemanding that you have stopped holding a useful therapeutic frame?

Those reactions are information.

PDA-informed therapy is not the absence of boundaries, expectations, or clinical direction.

It is figuring out how to preserve autonomy, safety, relationship, and therapeutic usefulness at the same time.

My Approach

My consultation style is collaborative, relational, neurodivergence-affirming, trauma-informed, and clinically rigorous.

My work draws from experience with:

PDA • Autism • ADHD/AuDHD • Complex Trauma • Dissociation • Eating Disorders • EMDR • Parts Work • Chronic Illness • Queer and Trans Clients • Neurodivergent Couples • Sexuality

I am a PDA North America Level 2 Certified clinician and a Certified AANE Neurodiverse Couples Therapist.

I bring both professional and lived neurodivergent perspective to this work.

Individual Clinical Consultation

60 minutes: $250

90-minute complex-case consultation: $350

30-minute follow-up for established consultees: $125

Your Rate is My Rate Option: If you are in training, a student or have another unique circumstance, I offer the opportunity to pay me what you make in an hour. Everyone should have access to good consultation on PDAers.

Consultation is available virtually to clinicians nationally.

Consultation is not licensure supervision and does not replace your independent professional judgment or responsibility for treatment.

Small Group PDA Clinical Consultation

Complex cases benefit from more than one brain in the room.

I offer small-group clinical consultation for therapists working with PDA and complex neurodivergent clients. Groups are intentionally kept small so there is time for real case consultation, clinical formulation, and conversation—not just general education.

Bring questions about PDA, trauma and dissociation, couples and relationships, eating disorders, sexuality, chronic illness, treatment rupture, or the client you simply cannot quite figure out.

This is not an introductory PDA training. It is a space for clinicians who want to think more deeply about the work.

90-minute consultation group

Maximum 6 clinicians

$75 per clinician