Neurodivergent therapist interviews at The Neurodivergent Collective in Orange County, CA focus on inclusive and affirming mental health care topics designed for neurodivergent adults.
INTERVIEWS
ComB TREATMENT FOR BODY-FOCUSED REPETITIVE BEHAVIORS
AMY HERTER, LMFT | CLINICAL THERAPIST
“There’s a lot of misconception about Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors. People think that it’s self-harm, and it’s not self-harm. The harm that might come is a side effect; it’s not the intention.”
SCENE CONSTRUCTION FOR NEURODIVERGENT CLIENTS
DR. TONY MEINERS, PSYD | CLINICAL DIRECTOR
“…we really have to scaffold and build, let’s talk step by step, in a very concrete baseline way, and then build from there so that people can actually work towards and achieve goals.”
CELEBRATING AUTISM
DR. ELLIOT HANDLER, MD | MEDICAL DIRECTOR
“If we’re gonna continue to evolve as a society and to grow, we really need to respect different perspectives and different ways of being. That’s my view on autism.”
INSIGHTS INTO THE OCD CLINIC AT THE NEURODIVERGENT COLLECTIVE
DR. KRISTEN ZALESKI, PHD, LCSW | CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER
“We’ve been looking around at more emerging practice-based interventions and one of those that we’ve found really helpful is Inferential-Based CBT, I-CBT. “
OCD + INFERENCE-BASED COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY (I-CBT)
GRACE FRASER, ACSW
“I think we are so fortunate to live in a time where there all are like multiple options to treat OCD, and it was, it used to be considered untreatable. “
DO MEDICATIONS HELP OCD?
DR. ELLIOT HANDLER, MD | MEDICAL DIRECTOR
“It plays a very important supportive role, but it isn’t the star of the show.”
IS AI NEGATIVELY IMPACTING YOUR OCD?
DR. SARAH SCHALL, PSYD | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
“… AI and OCD can be very much intertwined. What I mean by that is I work with a lot of people where the use of AI has become compulsive.”
A PATH TOWARDS AFFIRMING CARE
DR. TONY MEINERS, PSYD | CLINICAL DIRECTOR
“Anytime that we are talking about affirming care, we have to understand the history of how we got here and why it’s really important.”
ADHD + TIME MANAGEMENT
DR. ASHLEY WEINTRAUB, PHD | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
“… if something’s not novel, if it’s not interesting, and if it’s not urgent, I’m not really thinking about it and I’m not motivated to initiate that task.”
RESHAPING THERAPY FOR NEURODIVERGENT ADULTS IN 2025
DR. KRISTEN ZALESKI, PHD, LCSW | CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER
“I feel like we need to shout from the rooftops to therapists across the nation that when you have the biology in front of you that might not be neurotypical, we need to be a bit more creative in how we’re healing them.”
AUTISM COMMUNICATION + THE DOUBLE EMPATHY PROBLEM
DR. TONY MEINERS, PSYD | CLINICAL DIRECTOR
“The issue is the expectation that neurotypical people have on how autistic people show up in this world. And as soon as you kind of take that expectation off of the neurodivergent folks and kind of put it back on neurotypical people as well, then you kind of really start to switch what the problem is here.”
IDENTIFYING EMOTIONAL VS HUNGER CUES
DR. MARINA YACOUB, PSYD | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
“Building that interception within our bodies, and also disconnecting food from emotion.”
WHAT IS AFFIRMING CARE?
DR. JOEL SCHWARTZ, PSYD | NEURODIVERGENT PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSULTANT
“An affirming perspective starts with acceptance of the person in front of you.”
EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING SKILLS + OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY SUPPORT
DR. HANA KHAN, OTD, OTR/L, CCTP | CLINICAL OCCUPATUIONAL THERAPIST
“My focus is to really build those skills through… capitalizing on our brain’s ability to learn patterns.”
THERAPEUTIC INSIGHTS WHEN PLAYING DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
DIADRA SMITH, ACSW | GROUP THERAPIST
“…what happens when they come out on the other side? Do you want to continue with this character and another play through?“
ADDRESSING TRAUMA TO SUPPORT COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
DR. JULIE DEVITO | CONSULTING PSYCHOLOGIST + INTEGRATIVE HEALTH COACH
“When we talk about executive functioning, that’s the cognitive part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, which manages decision making, and organization that oftentimes…”
SUICIDAL OCD: INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS, COMPULSIONS + TREATMENT
DR. SARAH SCHALL, PSYD | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
“I found that a lot of people don’t know that there is actually a theme of OCD called suicidal OCD, and it is different than suicidal ideation.”
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