💡 The Main Takeaways💡

(if you only have a moment right now!)

• ✨ Shifting from power-over to power-with creates a more equitable therapeutic space where PDAers can access more felt-safety and connection.
• ✨ PDAers experience "demand avoidance" from an activated nervous system response, not a conscious or intentional choice.
• ✨ Forcing or pressuring participation will increase stress and erode trust, making engagement even more difficult long-term.
• ✨ When play therapy is seen as a process of offering felt-safety and connection, this approach can genuinely support deep emotional and nervous system repair when it centers felt-safety, autonomy, and trust—rather than compliance, hidden agendas, or adult-led goals.
• ✨ True co-regulation is free of power imbalances—it’s about presence, attunement, resonance, and responsiveness.
• ✨ Opt-in and opt-out approaches create safety—participation should always be an invitation, never an expectation.
• ✨ Therapists naturally hold more power in sessions—recognizing this can help create more equitable, safer spaces, especially for marginalized children navigating multiple layers of systemic oppression.

💜 Thank You for Your Care and Openness

Before diving in, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you. Your willingness to learn, adapt, and engage in new ways to support PDAers speaks volumes about your dedication and care.

PDAers, their families, and the neurodivergent community deeply appreciate therapists like you—those who are learning to choose curiosity over control, connection over compliance, and felt-safety over consistency.

As an autistic PDAer myself, I know that play therapy has immense healing potential—but I also know that traditional approaches don’t always meet PDA needs. In fact, some of the most well-meaning therapeutic methods can unintentionally create distress, deepen avoidance, and cause long-term relational trauma.

I want to invite you into a space of gentle reflection as we explore together:

🌀 Why pushing through "demand avoidance" can be harmful to PDAers and their families.
🌀 How play therapy can unintentionally reinforce power imbalances.
🌀 What low-demand, nervous system-informed, and connection-based approaches might look like in practice.

Nothing here needs to be “fixed” or “done right.” Just an open space to explore.

🌿 While this is written with PDAers in mind, these understandings can also be helpful when supporting many neurodivergent children or those with vulnerable nervous systems. A low-demand, connection-first approach can create safety and trust for any child navigating the world with heightened sensitivity.

🔍 Foundational Understandings

🔹 The Double Empathy Problem

PDAers and neurotypical therapists (or therapists with a different neurotype than the child) often experience the world very differently—not due to a lack of effort, but because our processing, communication, and ways of making sense of relationships and the world differ.

The Double Empathy Problem by Dr. Damian Milton helps explain why misunderstandings happen between autistic and non-autistic people (or essentially any two people with different neurotypes)—not because one person lacks empathy, but because the two people's perspectives, cognition, processing, and experiences are different.

🔹 Understanding PDA & Demand Avoidance

PDA is a distinct autistic neurotype that shapes how we move through the world. It isn’t about choice—it’s about how our nervous systems are wired and how we experience autonomy, power, and felt-safety.

✔️ PDAers need autonomy and equity in relationships and environments—this is more essential than eating and sleeping.

✔️ Demand avoidance is not a behavior—it’s a nervous system response to perceiving danger, threat, or a loss of autonomy, triggering a state of self-protection.

What might contribute to this stress response?

• ⚡ Direct instructions or structured expectations.
  ⚡ Hidden social or therapy agendas (e.g., “This will be fun!” when it’s actually an attempt to encourage participation).
  ⚡ Power imbalances where the child senses a lack of control in the relationship or over their environment.

It can be helpful to thoughtfully design a therapy experience in a way that makes it more likely for a child's nervous system to perceive it as free from pressure—a space where they feel truly welcomed, able to be self-directed, regulate in their own way, and engage on their own terms.

🔹 The Nervous System Stress Response 

PDAers are highly attuned to demands, pressure, and underlying agendas—including the therapist’s own nervous system state.

🌀 PDAers often sense the energy in the room and the therapist before a single word is spoken. They may already be working hard to assess whether they are truly experiencing felt-safety or not.

💡 When PDAers experience felt-safety and co-regulation, over time they will naturally engage in meaningful challenge on their own terms.

If they are forced to “push through” someone else’s agenda, they will likely lose their sense of felt-safety and shift into protective or survival modes, which might look like:

⚠️ Heightened distress, reactivity, or withdrawal.
⚠️ Shutdown, masking, or fawning (people-pleasing to escape pressure).
⚠️ Avoidance, burnout, or long-term disengagement from therapy.

🔹 Low-Demand, Low-Arousal Approaches are More Supportive

PDAers thrive in environments that reduce perceived pressure and allow for self-directed engagement. This usually means shifting from a goal of participation to a goal of relational safety.

• 🌿 Prioritizing co-regulation over compliance or consistency – Regulating ourselves, meeting the child where they are, rather than expecting them to meet us.
• 🌿 Using indirect, invitational language – Instead of “Let’s do this now,” try “I wonder if you'd like to explore this." All responses—including none—are valid.
• 🌿 Respecting refusal as valid communication – A “no” is a boundary, not a problem. Honoring it supports the development of self-advocacy skills and helps prevent shutdown, masking, or fawning responses.
• 🌿 Inviting autonomy and collaboration – Offering choices without pressure to choose, co-creating the flow of play, encouraging self-direction, and supporting parallel play while welcoming moments of equalizing power.
• 🌿 Shifting therapeutic goals – The goal is not compliance, but co-regulation, connection and mutual autonomy—for both you and the child.

💡 Bringing It All Together 💡

At its core, supporting PDAers in therapy isn’t about 'getting' them to comply or force consistency—it’s about creating an environment and relational experiences that offer cues of felt-safety, trusting them to engage on their own terms, in their own time. When we shift from power-over to power-with, prioritize co-regulation over compliance, and honor autonomy as essential, we invite genuine connection, trust, and long-term engagement.

By reducing pressure, softening expectations, and centering felt-safety, we can create spaces where PDAers don’t have to push through distress but can instead experience greater relational safety, self-trust, and authentic participation. Small shifts make a big impact, and your openness to learning, adapting, and growing is what makes this possible. 💜

To download this as a PDF - Click Here!

More Resources to Explore

• 🌿 Kristy Forbes – Equity-seeking & PDA-informed approaches
• 🌿 Improving Mental Health Therapies for Autistic Children and Young People: Promoting Self-agency, Curiosity and Collaboration by Georgia Pavlopoulou, Laura Crane, Russell Hurn, Damian Milton 
• 🌿 Felt-Safety Graphic – A visual I created for Robyn Gobbel to illustrate the power of felt-safety in therapy.
• 🌿 What Therapy Really Is visual to rethink what therapy really is by Robyn Gobbel. 

💜 What’s Next?

And if you're looking for a real-life example of what this looks like in practice, Part 2 will share a pivotal play therapy moment—what happened when a therapist instinctively pushed forward, and what shifted when they paused, regulated themselves, and prioritized co-regulation instead.

This story provides a felt experience of shifting from power-over to power-with—and how small but meaningful changes can transform therapy spaces into places of true felt-safety for PDAers.

👉 A Different Kind of Play Therapy Moment: Co-Regulation in Action– A story illustrating how slowing down, softening expectations, and meeting PDAers where they are fosters authentic engagement and connection.

Let’s keep learning, adapting, and growing together in affirming, compassionate ways. 💜

👉 Click here for Part 2!

💜 An Invitation to Connect

If you’re navigating how to support PDAers in a way that feels affirming, sustainable, and truly connected, I’d love to walk alongside you. Whether you’re just beginning to shift your approach or already deeply engaged in this work, I meet you where you are—with compassion, hope, and an honest, grounded understanding of PDA and neurodivergent needs.

There’s no one-size-fits-all model, no rigid steps—just the ongoing practice of noticing, adapting, and growing together. If you’d like support in developing your affirming practice, I’m here.

You’re not alone in this.

💜 Big hugs,
Adrianne “Ada” 

[email protected]