Working with Autistic Clients: Foundations of a Neuro-affirming Practice

Many autistic adults arrive at our offices already impacted by years of navigating a world not built for them, depleting their energy through masking, and struggling within systems meant to support them.

This workshop offers you, as an RCC, a deeper understanding of what neuro-affirming care truly is.

Many practitioners believe they’re offering neuro-affirming care when the reality is more complex. Neuro-affirming care isn’t just about being supportive. It’s a paradigm shift that requires deeper work and a willingness to sit with discomfort.

Many autistic adults arrive at our offices already impacted by years of navigating a world not built for them, depleting their energy through masking, and struggling within systems meant to support them.

This workshop offers you, as an RCC, a deeper understanding of what neuro-affirming care truly is.

Many practitioners believe they’re offering neuro-affirming care when the reality is more complex. Neuro-affirming care isn’t just about being supportive. It’s a paradigm shift that requires deeper work and a willingness to sit with discomfort.

This workshop will guide you through:

• Understanding the Neurodiversity Paradigm: What it really means to be neuro-affirming, why it stands apart from other modalities, and how behavioralist approaches can conflict with affirming care
• Language that matters: Moving beyond person-first language and understanding the neuro paradigm accurately
• Developing a neuro-affirming lens: A way of being with autistic clients that shapes the therapeutic environment you create
• Adapting your practice: Making shifts in how you approach working with autistic clients to create environments where they can thrive
• Post-diagnosis support: Navigating systems, securing accommodations, and preventing burnout for clients living in ableist spaces
• Real stories impact: Hearing from practitioners about the harm caused by non-affirming approaches, and how to avoid those missteps

This workshop features two incredibly dedicated presenters who bring both lived and professional experience. Dr. Juliane Dmyterko & Autistic RCC Oralie Loong will first build your foundational knowledge, then help you translate these concepts directly into your RCC practice through case studies and clinical application.

You’ll walk away with:

• A model of neuro-affirming care you can apply immediately
• Understanding of what it looks like if you want to be “neuro-affirming” in practice
• Greater confidence in supporting autistic clients and less chance of causing unintentional harm

This is challenging, transformative, and hopeful work. Join us to deepen your cultural competency and become a safer, more affirming practitioner for your autistic clients.

About the presenters:

Oralie Loong, RCC

In addition to being a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Approved Clinical Supervisor candidate, Oralie Loong is a BC-certified teacher and owner of Neurodivergent Counselling Services Inc. who brings both professional expertise and lived experience to her work with Autistic adults. As a late-diagnosed Autistic and ADHDer (aka AuDHDer), she speaks from a radically neurodivergence-affirming lens that centres Autistic voices, strengths, and culture. Her practice focuses on mental health counselling for Autistics and AuDHDers, adult autism screening, neurodiversity-affirming clinical supervision, and supporting other counsellors in developing affirming, non-pathologizing approaches to working with Autistics and AuDHDers. She advocates for therapeutic approaches that honour Autistic agency and lived experience.

Dr. Juliane Dmyterko

Dr. Juliane Dmyterko is a supervised psychology clinician with extensive experience providing neurodiversity-affirming support to autistic and other neurodivergent children, youth, adults, and families. With a clinical background that spans assessment, counselling, and intervention across school, community, and private practice settings, she specializes in autism assessment, mental health support, and strengths-based approaches to neurodivergent wellbeing. Dr. Dmyterko completed her PhD at the University of British Columbia, where her research developed a practice model grounded in autistic adults’ lived experiences, work that directly informs her therapeutic and consultative approach. She now focuses on autism assessment and counselling, as well as providing training for counsellors, clinicians, and educators on inclusive, strengths-based, and neurodiversity-affirming practice and education.