How neuroaffirming is your coaching practice?

by Hannah Breslin and Joan van den Brink

Image by lil artsy on pexels

The majority of coaching training programmes are informed by the Western world and, by default, tend to be developed with neurotypical coaches and clients in mind. Whilst there are a myriad ways of coaching, they are underpinned by some core tenets of coaching presence, deep listening and supporting the client to reach new levels of understanding about themselves in relation to the topic they bring to the session. All these hold true when supporting neurodivergent clients but we believe there is more work to be done to make coaching more inclusive.

Whilst we approach this work from different perspectives - Joan is neurotypical and Hannah is Autistic and ADHD, with dyscalculia - together we share a deep commitment to making coaching more inclusive for neurodivergent people. Through our collaboration we’ve been reflecting on some of the techniques that we are taught as being good coaching practice and exploring why these may not work with neurodivergent clients because their way of processing and experiencing the world can differ.

In the following paragraphs we’ll discuss three core areas of coaching that need to be developed further with neurodivergent clients in mind. We’ll also offer some suggestions for how coaches can navigate these.

Creating Safety

At the start of a coaching session, we need to create an environment in which our clients trust us and feel safe to explore their question. To achieve this, we typically strive to build rapport and put the client at ease. This often involves making small talk and tuning into how our client is arriving in the session. So, if they say they are feeling rushed, tired, stressed etc. we ask them what they need to come into the space with us. We then continue in our endeavours to build trust and create a safe space by asking questions such as, ‘What works well for them when they are being coached?’ ‘What do they need from us as coaches?’ ‘What are their needs regarding confidentiality?’ And we may share what brings out the best in us as coaches.

What these default approaches to building rapport overlook is how significantly some peoples’ communication needs and behaviours can diverge from dominant norms. Some clients can find small talk unwieldy and difficult to engage with, others might not be able to readily connect with their emotions due to alexithymia. Some neurodivergent people find eye contact detracts from concentration and the ability to process the spoken word and, for others, open-ended questions can feel significantly confronting.

However, these challenges may not be apparent to the untrained eye, or even the client themselves if they have learned they need to mask their struggles. If, as coaches, we approach rapport building in a way that privileges neurotypical norms, we may find we inadvertently create spaces that don’t feel safe for neurodivergent clients.

Creating Safety for Neurodivergent Clients

So, how do we create that trust and safety with neurodivergent clients? Hannah and Joan believe that it involves investing time to get to know each other and building the relationship through showing curiosity and empathetic listening. Being curious enables us to better tune into our clients and what is happening for them in the moment. We can ask questions to understand them, their way of experiencing the world, their values, beliefs and so on. Creating the conditions so that the client feels able to tell us when something is not working for them is vital. So is being transparent about our own processing style and needs. This contributes to building a safe container for our client and models the openness and safety we want them to feel and begins from the moment we make contact with the client.

For example, being aware that some neurodivergent clients may interpret social cues differently, has enabled Joan to invite the client to express their predisposition in relation to making eye contact and ask them if they would like to have their video cameras on or off in virtual sessions. This conveys sensitivity to different sensory and processing needs. She agrees with her clients about how they want to start coaching sessions, so she doesn’t fall into the trap of the empty greeting. And she continually contracts throughout the session as things emerge. For example, how she and the client feel about interruptions, spaciousness, pace, and so on. She is sensitive to the possibility that her neurodivergent client may be literal in their interpretation of her words and checks for understanding.

Goal Setting

As coaches, we are trained to focus on the client’s agenda. If we attend to this, we are supporting the client to work on the things that matter to them and to do this we ask them to establish a goal for the session or our time together. However, goal setting and taking action can present specific challenges for neurodivergent clients.

So, when we ask a client what their goal is for the session and they don’t know or cannot articulate it, how do we respond as coaches? Standard responses we have heard range from the coach suggesting a goal for the client, to holding silence until the client chooses to break it. If we choose the latter option, this can feel daunting for any client and particularly so for a neurodivergent client who may struggle to communicate under pressure. But if we suggest the goal, are we taking away the client’s autonomy?

And once goals have been identified, progress towards these frequently involves ‘work’ outside the coaching conversations, such as active experimentation or exploration of different tools. This can be difficult for neurodivergent clients who may find it challenging to stay ‘focused’ on working towards their goals or engage with previously agreed activities due to differences in executive functioning.

Not understanding some of these challenges can result in coaches assuming that goal setting is straight forward and that, when these goals emerge from the client’s own agenda, it will be easy for them to commit time and effort to working towards them.

Goal Setting for Neurodivergent Clients

For some neurodivergent clients the challenges with identifying goals may arise from needing to articulate them ‘on the spot’. For this reason, Hannah gives her clients the option to complete a learning plan, in advance of meeting, which will form the basis of the goal-setting discussion. Setting goals can also feel quite abstract, particularly if the client has never undertaken any coaching before. They may question what an ‘appropriate’ goal for coaching is or worry that they are being too ambitious, or not ambitious enough. In this case, as coaches, we may need to be more directive and provide examples to help guide them.

Hannah also explicitly contracts for how a client wants to work with their goals - perhaps she and the client will hold them lightly and be open to exploring in and around them. Maybe they will use the goals to scaffold the coaching conversations in a highly structured way. Whatever the client’s preference, Hannah will discuss with them what it might look and feel like if the client doesn’t achieve their goals, or if their progress is more circuitous than hoped.

Inevitably, as coaches, we want our clients to achieve their goals and to feel their time and money is well spent. Yet, this can’t happen at the expense of following the client’s own emergent and divergent needs. This is particularly relevant for clients who don’t think in a linear way but instead their thoughts and ideas weave, intersect and loop back on themselves throughout coaching conversations. Thinking and communicating in this way means some goals quickly fall by the wayside as more salient points emerge. We, as coaches, need to be adept at knowing when to riff off these changes and when to hold the client accountable to their original goals.

Having explicit conversations about progress towards goals early on can help diffuse any tension neurodivergent clients might experience around achieving goals and help us as coaches to respond effectively to the shifting landscape that can emerge from coaching conversations.

Interpreting motivation and intention

Unknowingly, most of us interpret other’s behaviour through a neuronormative lens. What this means is we assume that everyone is working from a place of shared understanding and agreement on the unwritten rules and dominant norms of social interactions. If, for example, we take standard assumptions around time-keeping, we can see how we might misinterpret a neurodivergent client’s behaviour through a neuronormative lens.

For a multitude of reasons, it may be more challenging for some neurodivergent clients to show up to coaching sessions on time. This might be down to experiencing time in a non-linear way, struggling to prioritise tasks, challenges with transitions and/or over-committing themselves in an attempt to keep up with everyone else. If we assume that their lateness is an indication of their lack of commitment to coaching, or avoidance of the process, we are underestimating the significant effort some clients will be putting into engaging with coaching.

Interpreting Motivation and Intention with Neurodivergent Clients

When a client was repeatedly late, and did not show up on one occasion, Joan felt that the client was not valuing her and her time. Joan was ready to throw in the towel. However, when Joan learnt about the extra steps it took for the client to be on time for their fourth session, she felt ashamed of the story she had told herself about the client’s lateness and was then better able to show empathy and compassion.

To ensure we are not bringing our own assumption around clients’ motivations and intentions into our coaching, we need to turn the mirror of coaching conversations back on ourselves and ask thoughtful questions.

For example, when a client is late - how do you feel? What sensations show up in your body? What story do you tell yourself about their lateness, particularly if it happens repeatedly? What do these narratives say about you, your relationship to time, your beliefs and your assumptions about the dominant norms we implicitly expect others to adhere to? Oftentimes questioning our assumptions, as Joan did in the case of her client who was repeatedly late, can allow us to observe unspoken rules and parameters that we take for granted as being the ‘right way’ to be, or do something.

Developing Your Neuroaffirming Practice

For neurodivergent clients, it’s likely that their ways of being, thinking, feeling, sensing, behaving, moving and communicating differ from dominant norms, even if this is not readily apparent to us. So, as coaches, we need to listen carefully to see when we might be creating the conditions whereby a client is required to subscribe to norms that may go against the very essence of who they are and what they most need.

Below are some questions you can use to develop your practice to be more inclusive of the needs of neurodivergent clients:

• How do you currently create safety for your clients?

• Do you ask specific questions around their needs and adapt your approach accordingly?

  
  

• How do you support clients to identify their goals?

• Do you explore with your clients how to strike the balance between accountability and flexibility?

• How do you identify when your own assumptions influence your interpretation of a client’s motivations and intentions?

• Do you have a practice for self-reflection and self-regulation to support you with this?

Because the work of coaches is to cultivate trust and safety, we can fall into the trap of believing that we do not need to do anything extraordinary when working with neurodivergent clients.  However, Joan and Hannah believe that coaches need to invest more time in our relationships with neurodivergent clients before the real work can begin. We need to be open and curious about our clients in a sensitive way. And build a relationship in which our neurodivergent clients’ feel congruence from us rather than need to second guess us. We can do this by showing up consistently week after week with a genuine inquisitiveness and willingness to connect human to human, paired with a deep commitment to reflecting on our assumptions about our clients, our roles as coaches and the coaching approaches we assume are effective. In undertaking this meaningful work, we can create the best possible conditions for our neurodivergent clients to thrive.

Joan specialises in leadership and talent development. She has supported hundreds of leaders in organisations across the world to unlock potential in themselves and their teams through her consulting and coaching engagements. She is an executive and team coach, coach supervisor and coach trainer. She is passionate about creating inclusive environments so that people can be themselves and thrive. Joan is the author of two books, ‘The Three Companions: Courage, Compassion & Wisdom’ and ‘Wired Differently, Understood Together’.

Hannah is a multiply-neurodivergent coach, educator and consultant, with 15 years experience working in Higher Education. She specialises in supporting late diagnosed/discovered neurodivergent professionals to better understand themselves and integrate their new self-awareness into their identity. Alongside this she teaches others how to develop their own neuroaffirming practices in relation to coaching, teaching, leadership and management. Hannah also consults on neurodiversity in the workplace, supporting clients to embrace the differences and strengths their neurodivergent employees embody.

© 2026 by Hannah Breslin and Joan van den Brink is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International