Beyond Echo Chambers: Building a Balanced Neurodiversity‑Affirming Movement
I want to start by saying I write this from a perspective shaped by both privilege and adversity. As a white male, I’ve benefited from access to education and hold a professional title that carries weight in clinical spaces. These aspects of my identity afford me certain advantages, and I acknowledge that they influence how I see and speak about the world. At the same time, my life has included significant hardship—experiences that have shaped my understanding of neurodivergence and mental health. While this reflection is grounded in my own lived experience and clinical work, I recognise that it does not speak for all neurodivergent voices. I offer these thoughts with humility, knowing that others may hold different truths, and I share them in the hope of fostering open, respectful dialogue.
A few weeks ago, I sat on a leadership panel at a neurodiversity‑affirming conference. I was excited - this is a space I care deeply about, both professionally and personally. As a clinical psychologist, I’ve spent years working with people navigating complex mental health conditions, ADHD, and other neurodivergent experiences. As someone diagnosed with ADHD at 38, I know firsthand the relief and clarity that comes with understanding your own brain.
But what I didn’t expect was to feel like an outsider in a room that claimed to fight othering. And this wasn’t the first time… at a previous neuro‑affirming gathering where I expressed similar sentiments about affirmation and agency, I was met with a comparable response.
And yet, despite years of working in this space, what happened next surprised me.
When Advocacy Becomes an Echo Chamber
On that panel, I shared what I thought was a balanced perspective: We need to affirm neurodivergent identities in the best possible way. We also need to help people draw on their strengths and agency.
I spoke about the importance of responsibility, not as a burden, but as a means of empowerment. My intention was to say: “Yes, the world is often unjust and disabling, and “yes, you have strengths that can help you navigate it and thrive”.
Instead, it landed like a lead balloon. The reaction was swift and harsh, like I had committed a cardinal sin. The result was that I felt silenced rather than understood. What struck me wasn’t disagreement (which I welcome), but the lack of curiosity. No one asked what I meant, and there was a felt sense of finality, as though the conversation had been closed before it even began. The space didn’t feel open to nuance or clarification, and that absence of psychological safety was unsettling.
Admittedly, I could have phrased parts of my contribution in a more explicitly neuro‑affirming way. As a neurodivergent leader, I take the responsibility piece seriously. For example, I recently undertook a Hogan 360 assessment with my team, receiving detailed anonymous feedback on my leadership style, strengths and growth areas. It was confronting - and important. Isn’t that the point of a panel on neurodivergent leadership to model accountability and growth?
That moment revealed something deeper about the dynamics in some advocacy spaces.
The Blind Spots We Need to See
This experience highlighted a tension that can emerge in advocacy spaces: the risk of echo chambers. Movements often begin with a powerful and noble mission, dismantling oppression and promoting justice, but can sometimes drift into rigid expectations around language and ideology. When conversations become overly prescriptive, there’s a risk of unintentionally excluding those who are still learning, or who bring different, but valuable perspectives. This can alienate potential allies and create environments where only certain voices are heard. In some cases, high-profile figures may dominate the narrative in ways that feel more self-promotional than collaborative. When advocacy loses sight of inclusion and humility, it risks becoming performative rather than transformative.
And sometimes, even well‑intentioned efforts can miss the mark in more subtle ways, what Dr Praslova and others have called ‘benevolent ableism’.
Benevolent Ableism: The Subtle Trap
In therapy, there’s a concept called benevolent ableism, well‑intentioned attitudes that still reinforce the idea that neurodivergent people need to be ‘fixed.’ It often sounds like: “Let me help you cope so you can fit in”, or “You’re so inspiring for overcoming your challenges”.
The intention is kindness. The impact? It centres neurotypical norms as the goal. But the same dynamic can show up in advocacy spaces too, when we assume clinicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists are inherently oppressive, or when we infantilise neurodivergent people by denying their agency.
True affirmation isn’t about removing responsibility. It’s about redefining it: Not “try harder to be like everyone else”, but “you have strengths and choices, how can we use them to help you thrive on your terms?”.
What can Benevolent Ableism look like in clinical practice?
Over‑Accommodating Avoidance (Telehealth Close to Clinic)
Patient: Lives one block from the clinic and requests telehealth solely because leaving the house feels uncomfortable.
Clinician: Automatically agrees to indefinite telehealth.
➡ Compassion is essential, but unexamined accommodations can entrench avoidance. A collaborative plan (e.g., graded steps toward in‑person when clinically and physically appropriate) respects autonomy while supporting growth.
Over-Pathologising Desire for Adaptation
Patient: “I want to practice small talk, it’s important for me for work events”.
Clinician: “That’s masking. We should focus on dismantling those expectations instead”.
➡ It assumes the patient’s goal is invalid because it doesn’t align with the clinician’s philosophy.
Invalidating Internalised Ableism Work
Patient: “I hate how disorganised I feel; it makes me anxious”.
Clinician: “That’s just capitalism making you feel bad. You don’t need to change”.
➡ Systemic critique matters, but this response neglects the patient’s immediate need and desire for coping strategies.
Assuming Shared Experience = Shared Perspective
Clinician: “When I stopped using planners, I felt so free, you should try that too”.
➡ This projects the clinician’s coping onto the patient and sidelines individual differences.
Over‑Correcting Past Harm
Patient: “Can you help me with time management tools?”.
Clinician: “We don’t do that here; we focus on acceptance, not fixing”.
➡ This can feel as invalidating as traditional ableism, just in a different direction.
What Rutger Bregman Taught Me About Movements
In his book Moral Ambition, Rutger Bregman argues that real change comes from people who combine idealism with ambition; those who don’t just dream of a better world but build it. Social movements succeed when they: Welcome diverse voices, not just the loudest ones. Frame their cause as a moral imperative without turning it into a moral hierarchy. Avoid wasting talent by creating spaces where everyone - clinicians, advocates, lived‑experience leaders - can contribute meaningfully.
“You don’t do good things because you are a good person. You become a good person by doing good things”. — Rutger Bregman, Moral Ambition.
The neurodiversity movement has this potential. But only if we resist the pull of echo chambers and personality cults. Because this isn’t just about therapy rooms or conferences, it’s about society.
Neurodiversity as a Societal Movement
The neurodiversity-affirming movement is not just a clinical or academic trend; it is a societal movement, akin to gender equality, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ rights. It calls for a fundamental shift in how we understand, accommodate, and celebrate neurological differences.
Like the civil rights and gender equality movements, neurodiversity advocacy seeks systemic change. This includes reforming education, workplace policies, healthcare systems, and public attitudes to ensure that neurodivergent individuals are not just included, but empowered.
But how we pursue this change matters. We must resist the temptation to create echo chambers or purity tests. Instead, we need to build coalitions between clinicians, advocates, educators, employers, and neurodivergent individuals themselves. We need to foster environments where disagreement is met with curiosity, not condemnation.
What we can do:
• Promoting psychologically safe spaces for dialogue across disciplines and identities.
• Encouraging inclusive language change through education, not shame.
• Supporting neurodivergent leadership that models accountability and growth.
• Advocating for policy reforms that reflect neurodiversity as a human rights issue.
• Ensuring that lived experience and clinical expertise inform each other, not compete.
This is how we build a movement that lasts, one that transforms systems without losing its soul. And while these challenges are real, I also want to acknowledge the bright spots.
Gratitude for Colleagues Who Showed Up
I also want to say this clearly: I felt deeply supported by several colleagues around that panel, people who reached out, listened, and engaged in good faith. Funnily enough, they were the ones I related to most, and they appeared more balanced in their approach. Their presence mattered. It reminded me that there is a centre of gravity in our field that values compassion, curiosity, and collaboration over point‑scoring.
One colleague I came to respect and connect with at the conference was Dr Jamie Marich, who has consented to me sharing this piece of her story: Link. Her willingness to model accountability and growth resonated with what I believe leadership, and indeed personal accountability, is about.
Those moments of support reminded me why nuance matters.
A Call for Nuance and Compassion
Here’s what I believe: Language matters, but shaming people into change rarely works. Invite, don’t vilify. Lived experience matters, but so does clinical expertise. Affirmation matters, but so does agency. We can validate pain and still nurture resilience. If we truly want a neurodiversity‑affirming world, we need dialogue, not dogma. Curiosity, not condemnation. Collaboration, not competition.
And yet, saying this out loud isn’t without risk.
On Taking the Risk to Say This Out Loud
I’m aware this post carries risk. I’m a relatively well‑known member of the schema therapy community and the wider psychology community, and speaking candidly about echo chambers and benevolent ableism may ruffle feathers. I’m not writing to provoke—I’m writing because I care. I care about our patients, about clinicians, and about a movement that I believe can live up to its promise. I also recognise that publishing this may come with consequences, including the possibility of being cancelled or excluded from certain neurodiversity-affirming spaces. That’s a risk I’ve considered carefully, and I share these reflections in the hope that they invite dialogue, not division.
Where Do We Go From Here?
This movement is powerful. It has the potential to reshape how we see difference, how we build systems, and how we treat one another. But only if we choose dialogue over dogma, compassion over condemnation, and curiosity over control.
Let’s build a neurodiversity-affirming world that doesn’t just include people, but empowers them. Let’s make space for nuance, for growth, and for the messy, beautiful reality of being human.
Because if we can’t model inclusion within our own movement, how can we expect the world to follow?
About the Author
Dr Ozgur (Oz) Yalcin is a lived experience clinical psychologist, speaker, academic, Director at ANIMA Health Network, and Australian Psychologist of the Year, 2024, at the Allied Health Awards. Diagnosed with ADHD at 38, he speaks nationally and internationally on ADHD, trauma, and neurodiversity and is the author of several scientific articles on this topic, schema therapy, and neuroscience.