Candice Christiansen, LCMHC is an Autistic-ADHD Autism Expert who provides Neuro-Affirmative Consultation and Training to Medical and Mental Health Providers, Universities, Treatment Centers, and Organizations. Candice is passionate about ensuring that Autistic humans receive ethical, neuro-inclusive medical and mental health support in treatment settings that address mental health, substance abuse, sex and intimacy issues. Candice is also well known for teaching medical and mental health providers about designing Neuro-Sensitive Settings that Support Autistic Adults mindsets in healing from trauma via Compassionate Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP).
“As an Autistic person diagnosed in my mid-40s, I often feel completely overwhelmed in a world that is too much, too bright, too loud. It feels like electricity coursing through me. This, along with absorbing everyone’s energy can make it difficult for me, like so many Autistic people to trust my intuition. This is especially problematic since I, like so many Autistic individuals are actually highly intuitive especially when we are emotionally regulated.
”
In 2023, Candice Christiansen co-authored a chapter introducing her Neuro-Inclusive Approach to IFS in the Amazon best seller Altogether Us!
The importance of the “setting” is often discussed as an integral part in entheogenic (e.g., psychedelic assisted) therapy. However, for Autistic adults, it is rare that therapists and medical providers take into consideration their office settings to ensure that from the outset, their client feels safe, comfortable, and sensory soothed. After all, creating a sensory soothing setting is foundational for an Autistic person to heal.
Many Autistic adults have had traumatic experiences with providers as a result of implicit biases, assumptions about what Autism looks like, mis-use of terms surrounding Autism, and microaggressions.
In their chapter, Candice and her colleague Meg Martinez-Dettamanti, LCMHC discuss the importance of creating safety via tending to Autistic (and other Neurodifferent) adults neuro-sensory needs at the beginning of therapy and throughout each session, along with providers being attuned to their own internal systems in order to compassionately recognize microaggressions and address them in a sensitive manner. Candice and Meg also offer tips for how to use their specific neuro-inclusive mapping technique as well as other neuro-inclusive techniques for supporting their Autistic client’s internal system in feeling safe to heal.
