“Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

We at Dawn Counselling offer specialised neurodivergent counselling to help you gain clarity, direction and control amidst personal and environmental challenges. We personalise your therapeutic journey using a unique combination of approaches in affective empathy, humanistic, cognitive and somatic modalities.  You have full agency to discover and create meaning, and to articulate experiences, thoughts and emotions in a non-judgmental, safe space.

Lived experience, as a concept in qualitative and interpretative psychological research, is well-documented and recognised as a relevant therapeutic modality for various neurotypes. Lived experience can straddle marginalisation, trauma and health struggles in our personal journeys and relationships, heightening intuitive understanding of our daily survival, adaptation and identity.

While clinical diagnostic criteria describe neurodivergence from the “outside looking in”, lived experience moves conversations away from a list of deficits to a nuanced reality of what it feels like from the “inside out”. Having these conversations in a therapist-client relationship builds empathy, rapport and growth. In addition to evidence-based and clinical interventions, giving value to lived experience, shaped by the interaction of mind, body and spirit with the environment over time, makes for a compelling healing journey.

Our areas of counselling support: