"Because therapy should feel like a collaboration and becoming, not a rehearsal and being less yourself in order to survive." - Chenai Mupotsa-Russell

In this short episode, you get a sneak peek into the audio from one of our most poetic and transformative summit talks. Our continuing education summit is now $100 off and available on-demand at learnplaythrive.com/summit

Selected Transcript:

"Normal is not a neutral baseline. It is a construct, a fiction, a colonizing force. Normativities function to flatten difference, discipline the body, decide who gets to be seen as competent, coherent, and worthy. So, when we center neurodivergent and gender diverse lives, we're not offering inclusion into a category of 'normal', we are refusing the category altogether. Divergence in whatever form is not a problem to solve. It is a truth. They are the most natural, beautiful, diverse, amazing ways of being rooted in sensation, relationship, rhythm, self-determination, expression. The problem has never been the child, the adult, the human. It's in the systems that punish difference in the name of order.

And so, the therapeutic task is not to bring the client closer to functioning - a functioning built on an idea of a human that is so far from them and so many other people. The idea is to undo the harm that normativity has caused. It's to let go of those normativities and start to reimagine what the world could be like if we allowed for the full spectrum of human experiencing, to make space for becoming on one's own terms, however they present or move through the world. Creative practice becomes essential here. Not decorative, not soft, but radical and necessary. Sensory-based creative engagement reaches the brain, the body, the heart, the soul in ways words can't. And for those constantly coerced into verbal or behavioral conformity, art, creativity, movement becomes a language of refusal, regulation, and reclamation. The work isn't to help the client survive unjust conditions. It's to help deconstruct the conditions that made survival feel like the only option. Because therapy should feel like a collaboration and becoming, not a rehearsal in being less yourself in order to survive."

From Colour Outside the Lines: Exploring Art, Gender, and Neurodivergence Beyond the Binary with Chenai Mupotsa-Russell MTAP, AThR in the Learn Play Thrive 2026 Continuing Education Summit

View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Dr. Devon Price’s work sits at the intersection of trauma-informed care and Autistic unmasking. In this interview, he walks us through five core practices for unmasking, and shares how to approach them thoughtfully with Autistic clients who have experienced trauma - which is most of the Autistic community.

We explore practices such as learning your preferences and disentangling them from social norms, building resilience, cultivating distress tolerance, and shaping your life - both in big, structural ways and in the small, everyday details. A lot has been said about unmasking, but very few approaches hold the work with this level of care.

Dr. Devon Price is a social psychologist, clinical associate professor at Loyola University Chicago, and an Autistic person. His books include Laziness Does Not Exist, Unlearning Shame, Unmasking Autism, and his newest release, Unmasking for Life.

Want MORE EPISODES of Two Sides of the Spectrum, recorded Q&As with our guests, and a listener chat forum? We just launched our Patreon and we need your support! Join our community at patreon.com/learnplaythrive

View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Learning from Chenai Mupotsa-Russell will absolutely transform you. Chenai doesn't just teach us how we can use art of every kind to support well-being for our clients, she also embodies everything she teaches — art, liberation, anti-colonial practice, and so much more. In today's conversation, we explore the role that art can play in our work as providers with concrete examples, and ideas, and stories from Chenai that you can use right away. Chenai Mupotsa-Russell is an art therapist, community builder, advocate, and PhD candidate in community psychology. Her research reimagines mental health through decolonial practice, collective care, and intersectional justice.

Want MORE EPISODES of Two Sides of the Spectrum, recorded Q&As with our guests, and a listener chat forum? We just launched our Patreon and we need your support! Join our community at https://patreon.com/learnplaythrive

View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Ableism is ingrained into our society, and many of us wonder what we can do about it. Occupational therapist Sara Zielinski decided that a huge celebration - centering disability pride - in her small town would be a great place to start. What happened next was transformative. In this episode Sara teaches us how to throw a disability pride event, why events like this matter, and how we can all be change agents in our workplaces and our communities.

Want MORE EPISODES of Two Sides of the Spectrum, recorded Q&As with our guests, and a listener chat forum? We just launched our Patreon and we need your support! Join our community at patreon.com/learnplaythrive

View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

When your Autistic clients have trouble identifying the emotions inside of their bodies, emotion-based regulation systems aren't always helpful. This episode is all about how regulation can be guided by energy levels. Specifically, how we help our Autistic clients match their energy level to what’s needed for the things they need or want to do.

Our guests are the two incredible folks behind Autism Level Up. Jacquelyn Fede, who is an Autistic advocate and developmental psychologist and Amy Laurent, who is a developmental psychologist, a registered pediatric occupational therapist and co-author of the SCERTS model.

Amy and Jacquelyn’s work show us that there’s no one right way to be regulated. And this model gives a profoundly impactful alternative to traditional models of regulation. This is an updated release of Episode 7 from 2020.

Amy and Jacquelyn are also speaking at our 2026 Continuing Education Summit. Grab a ticket at learnplaythrive.com/summit

Want MORE EPISODES of Two Sides of the Spectrum and recorded Q&As with our guests? Join us on Patreon at patreon.com/learnplaythrive. Your support on Patreon helps keep the podcast going.

View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

We all know that the plans and goals that we write deeply impact what our students and clients get access to learning. Joyner Emerick – a parent and openly Autistic school board director - has completely transformed the planning process in the best possible way. Joyner has a 10 year old who is minimally speaking with high adaptive and communication support needs. In this episode, you'll hear them talk about the future visioning process they created for their child. They’ll show you how it works, how you can implement it, and the 12 valued outcomes - as Joyner calls them - that they wrote for their son. This is not a process that's for sale. We're sharing it with you in its entirety so you can take it and use it in your work too. Don't miss the show notes for this one where we share a lot of the documents, and details, and language at learnplaythrive.com/podcast.

Want MORE EPISODES of Two Sides of the Spectrum, recorded Q&As with our guests, and a listener chat forum? We just launched our Patreon and we need your support! Join our community at patreon.com/learnplaythrive

View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

This conversation with Autistic OT Sorcha Rice covers regulation for Autistic PDAers from absolutely every angle. The theme Sorcha kept bringing us back to is how we can provide more autonomy for our clients in how they identify their regulation needs and how they access their regulation tools. Sorcha walks us through a case study detailing how she supported a client who was deeply in burnout to help them access regulation, communication, connection, and safety. And at the end of the conversation, Sorcha shares five deeply transformative and practical things that you can try tomorrow in your work to help Autistic PDAers feel safer. Sorcha Rice is an Autistic PDA occupational therapist in Ireland.

This is the second episode of our new twice monthly Patreon series where we showcase the people putting neurodiversity-affirming practice into action in their work. We'll explore their guiding principles and their practical strategies through conversation and case studies so that you can translate your values into your own work. Patreon subscribers also get access to recorded Q&A sessions with some of our most impactful podcast guests, and a Discourse forum to connect with other podcast listeners.

Visit patreon.com/learnplaythrive to keep learning and support our podcast.

View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Have you ever thought about what it would look like to put respect for the Autistic children who are your clients – respect for them as full human beings – front and center in your work? This episode goes deep into what that looks like in practice. Mick Olds (The OccuPLAYtional Therapist) helps us learn how to translate therapy goals into kids’ native language: play. They also share with us what exactly it looks like to put child-affirming values into practice, how they support PDAers, and what they do when they feel stuck in their own skills. This episode will change you.

View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast