Luke Dowling

I came to this work with neurodivergent adults from a personal place — I have ADHD myself. That experience shapes how I show up as a clinician in ways that I don't think any training alone could. I know what it's like to move through systems and environments that weren't built with your brain in mind, and I know how much it matters to work with someone who isn't trying to fix you or normalize you into something you're not. What draws me to this population specifically is the gap between how capable and perceptive many of my clients actually are, and how poorly that gets reflected back to them by the world around them. I want to be part of closing that gap.

My approach draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing — frameworks I find useful because they're adaptable. ACT in particular lends itself well to neurodivergent clients because it's less focused on changing how you think and more focused on changing your relationship to your thoughts, so you can act in line with what actually matters to you. I try to build sessions around your strengths and your own sense of what's working rather than leading with deficits. I also don't assume that the way something is typically done is the right way for you — communication style, pacing, structure — all of that is something we figure out together