BEYOND NEURODIVERSITY
On the way to diagnosis and treatment
Getting help to support yourself and your family
The thoughts slowly sneak in... and suddenly you notice more and more that "something is wrong" or that "my child is different".
When seeking for help, families often feel left alone and it can take years for a child to be assessed. There are too few specialised services that can provide individual help before the child is diagnosed. The difficulties are often not taken seriously or played down. It means that many children with autism, ADHD and other challenges remain untreated at first, which leads to a vicious circle.
Even when the diagnosis has been made, families often find themselves in extremely stressful situations and do not know how to properly manage their resources. Torn between bureaucratic demands and the desire to do as much justice as possible for the whole family, these new life circumstances require a lot of strength and patience.
If you or someone you know is in this or a similar situation, I offer support. I accompany you in person, by phone and online. Even small adjustments in everyday life, targeted techniques and an autism-sensitive mindset can bring about profound changes and lead out of the vicious circle.
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Feelings of anxiety and despair are very normal and part of the process. The basis for all further steps is a stable and at the same time dynamic environment, which we develop and establish together within the framework of the process work.
How do I meet my child who rejects my contact?
A contact disorder does not mean that the child does not want contact. On the contrary. Relationship, contact, the feeling of connection — are basic needs of every human being. However, approaching an autistic child starts on a different level, but in the beginning parents are often not equipped with these special means of communication and have to learn how to meet their autistic child appropriately. More information...
My work focuses on:​
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Autism-sensitive counselling and support
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Stabilisation of distressed families
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Acute support and coping strategies
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Establishment of relationships between parents and their autistic child
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Development of individual interventions for everyday life
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Methods of mindfulness-based stress reduction
Those affected do not get the right help they may need from the start - instead, the situation in the family worsens and hence the symptoms often aggravate as well.
A mother's story
"The road was hard and had many personal and economic consequences for our entire family. The hardships we took on were mostly completely unnecessary. Sometimes I wonder how things would have gone if someone had taken us seriously when our daughter was two years old.
We had the impression that the people we asked for advice didn't want to support us at all, but would have rather just sent us away. They often had no idea at all about disabilities, especially autism, but at the same time they were sitting in these important positions and deciding family fates. It was a never-ending farce. We had to constantly try to convince the caseworkers that our daughter needed support as soon as possible and that it wasn't due to a lack of parenting skills.
And suddenly you realise that you have spent all your energy trying to make the system work instead of helping your child.
Having a competent person to talk to in these circumstances means that we no longer feel so isolated as a family. I wish every affected family a person by their side who, through their knowledge and their own experiences, can take certain detours away from them and, above all, offer advice. The feeling of no longer being so alone and having the light shone in the right direction in the darkest moments really changes everything. It leaves us with the energy we need to support our daughter in her development in the best possible way."
Informations for parents
Developmental background
Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder characterised by a restricted ability to relate to others and a dysfunction in perceptual processing. It is assumed that an autistic person is not able to easily and intuitively establish a relationship with another person.
What does this mean?
Both the ability to relate and the ability to process stimuli sensory are developed in the unborn child during pregnancy. Already in the womb, the foetus is stimulated by its own movements and sounds, and the movements and sounds of its mother (e.g. heartbeat, breathing, digestion). Through this stimulation, the senses are interconnected. Through the senses, the infant establishes his first relationships: with itself and with its mother.
After birth, the individual sensory areas are further connected through constant stimulation from outside (the environment) and inside (the baby's own body). The parents intuitively support the infant in its emotion regulation, for example by comforting it, reassuring it and naming its feelings (sad, angry, etc.). In this way, the child perceives himself as being cared for, protected and stimulated, and develops his identity, self-efficacy and self-regulation.
Since an autistic person cannot at first accept every form of care and attention without restrictions, the challenge is to recognise and understand their individual needs. To the concept...