Neurodiverse Couples Therapy in Seattle

You have probably had some version of the same argument many times. Not because either of you is unreasonable. Not because you don’t love each other. But because something keeps getting lost in the space between you, and you haven’t been able to name what it is. One of you goes quiet in a way the other reads as withdrawal. One of you asks questions that the other experiences as pressure. You each try to repair, and somehow the attempt makes it worse. You may have tried couples therapy before. It may have helped for a while, and then it didn’t.

If one or both of you is a person with autism or ADHD, there is a reason for this — and it has nothing to do with how much you care about each other.

Neurodiverse couples — couples where one or both partners has autism or ADHD — are not struggling because something is wrong with them or with their relationship. They are navigating a genuine neurological difference that shapes how each person processes the world, communicates, experiences intimacy, and recovers from conflict. When that difference isn’t named and understood, both partners tend to reach for the wrong explanations: I’m too much. They don’t care. We’ve grown apart. We’re just incompatible.

These explanations feel true. They aren’t.

The most significant shift that can happen in therapy for a neurodiverse couple is when both partners come to understand that what looked like a relationship problem is, at its root, a neurological one. Anger often softens when a partner realizes their loved one wasn’t withholding — that the quiet wasn’t rejection, that the direct response wasn’t coldness, that the need for predictability isn’t rigidity but a genuine feature of how one nervous system works. For the partner who has spent years feeling like they were failing at something others seemed to do naturally, there is often relief so deep it arrives as tears.

I write about this more in We’re Not Broken. We’re Bilingual — a piece on what it means to be in a neurodiverse relationship and what changes when you finally have a name for what’s been happening.

If you are the neurotypical partner, you may have spent years wondering whether you’re asking for too much. You reach out and something gets lost. You feel invisible in moments that feel important to you. You’ve softened your needs, found workarounds, told yourself it’s fine. Previous therapy may have left you feeling like the difficult one — the one with too many feelings, too much need. You are not too much. Your needs are real and they deserve to be understood.

If you are the partner with autism or ADHD, you may know better than anyone how hard you work to stay connected — the effort that goes into conversations other people seem to move through without thinking, the exhaustion of a world that wasn’t designed for how you process it. You may have been told, in various ways, that you’re doing it wrong. What’s more likely is that nobody has given you a framework that actually fits how you work. The goal here isn’t to change who you are. It’s to help both of you understand each other well enough to build something that works for both of you.

My approach to neurodiverse couples is grounded in the Myhill-Jekel model, a structured framework developed specifically for couples where neurological difference is a factor. Most general couples therapy wasn’t designed with this population in mind — and without the right lens, well-meaning interventions can miss the mark or make things worse.

This is what that looks like in practice: I work slowly and concretely, because the work requires that. I help identify the specific cluster of neurological traits that are shaping this particular couple’s dynamic — not a generic template but the actual profile of how each of you processes stress, emotion, communication, and intimacy. I serve as an interpreter between you, helping each partner understand not just what the other is saying but how their nervous system is producing it. We build a shared language — not the same language, but a common one — that makes it possible to navigate conflict, repair after disconnection, and find new ways toward connection with each other.

That work includes practical, concrete strategies: structured communication exercises, tools for emotional regulation, approaches to intimacy that account for sensory differences, and ways to build the predictability and safety that allow both partners to show up more fully. The sessions are structured enough that you’ll have a sense of what to expect. They’re also flexible enough to meet what you bring in on any given day.

What we might work on

• Communication differences and misattunement
• Sensory and energy needs within the relationship
• Emotional regulation and co-regulation
• Intimacy and physical closeness
• Executive function differences and household dynamics
• The neurotypical partner’s experience of loneliness or confusion
• The partner with autism or ADHD’s experience of overwhelm or masking
• Moving from conflict cycles to curiosity and repair

This work takes place within couples sessions. Learn more about couples counseling.

I am certified through the Association for Autism and Neurodiversity (AANE) in the Myhill-Jekel Model of Working with Neurodiverse Couples in Therapy — one of the few structured, evidence-informed frameworks developed specifically for this work. That certification required intensive training, case presentations, and demonstrated application of the neurological lens to couples work.

Before becoming a therapist, I spent over 22 years as an attorney. That background makes me a natural systems thinker — someone who is looking for the pattern underneath the presenting problem, who understands that what appears on the surface is often not what’s driving things. In neurodiverse couples work, that orientation matters. The presenting problem is rarely the real problem. The neurological dynamic underneath it usually is.

Learn more about my background and training →

This work is for couples where one or both partners has a diagnosis of autism or ADHD — and for couples who suspect neurodiversity may be a factor but haven’t pursued a formal diagnosis. You don’t need a diagnosis to work with me. What you need is a sense that something neurological may be shaping your dynamic, and a willingness to explore what that means for your relationship.

This is also for couples who have tried therapy before and found it didn’t help — who left feeling blamed, unheard, or like the therapist didn’t quite understand what was actually happening between them. That experience is more common than it should be, and it doesn’t mean therapy can’t work for you. It may mean you needed a different kind of therapist.