Neurodivergent Love: Reducing Conflict & Rebuilding Intimacy Across Difference

A 4-Week Live Training for Clinicians

taking place on May 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th

6 AASECT continuing education credits included for live classes

Learn how to reduce misattunement, support repair, and build intimacy in neurodivergent relationships—without pathologizing difference or reinforcing shame.

The Problem.  Many couples therapy models assume:

✅ shared emotional pacing

✅ verbal processing as the primary mode

✅ conflict resolution through immediate engagement

But for neurodivergent couples, these assumptions can lead to:

👉 chronic misattunement

👉 shame cycles

👉 misinterpretation of regulation differences as resistance or avoidance

Clinicians are left trying to:

✅ adapt models that don't fully fit

✅ support clients without reinforcing internalized ableism

✅ navigate accountability without triggering shame collapse

This training offers a different approach:

This 4-week training introduces a neurodivergent-affirming framework for understanding:

✅ how difference - not dysfunction - drives conflict

✅ why misinterpretation leads to disconnection

✅ how to support both self-protection and connection in the same relational space

✅ how to facilitate repair without reinforcing shame or compliance-based models

Week 1: Neurodivergent Burnout in Couples

✅ How masking, cognitive load, and chronic misattunement impact relational capacity

✅ Why “effort” is often misread when regulation is compromised

✅ Clinical strategies for reducing overwhelm and restoring capacity

Week 2: Shame and Polarization

(The Polarization to Parallel Model)

✅ The role of shame in disconnection and defensive cycles

✅ How polarization develops across neurotype differences

✅ Differentiating trauma responses from neurodivergent self-advocacy

Week 3: Intimacy Across Difference

✅ Neurodivergent considerations for intimacy 

✅ Expanding beyond neurotypical norms of connection

✅ Supporting multiple pathways to emotional and somatic intimacy

Week 4: From Protection to Connection

(The Relational Integrity Lens)

✅ A structured approach to repair that reduces shame and increases safety

✅ Supporting accountability without identity threat

✅ Clinical interventions for real-time misattunement and reconnection

This training integrates:

✅ Capacity-demand burnout models

✅ Shame resilience and trauma informed approaches

✅ Neurodiversity paradigm (difference ≠ deficit)

✅ Relational-cultural theory

✅ Systems theory and differentiation

✅ Mentalization & epidemic humility

Core Clinical Framework:

Clinicians will learn how to support four key domains of relational integrity:

✅ identity protection 

(Can I be myself without being corrected or diminished?)

✅ internal coherence

(Can I stay aligned with my own pacing, clarity, and internal experience?)

✅ relational care

(Do I feel seen, responded to, and emotionally registered?)

✅ accountability (without shame collapse)

(Can we repair impact in a way that feels safe and fair?)

WHO THIS IS FOR

This framework helps you:

✅ Therapists working with neurodivergent or mixed-neurotype couples

✅ AASECT certification candidates (6 CE credits available when taking live)

✅ Clinicians seeking alternatives to deficit-based or compliance-driven models

✅ Providers wanting to integrate intimacy, regulation, and relational repair

What makes this different:

✅ Neurodivergent affirming, not pathology-based

✅ Integrates multiple evidence-informed frameworks

✅ Focuses on translation across difference, not forcing similarity

✅ Balances accountability and compassion

✅ Provides practical, clinically applicable tools

Logistics:

📅 Dates: the following Saturdays - May 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th

⏰ Time: 11 am - 12:30 pm CST 

📍 Live online (replay available)

🎓 6 AASECT credits

Investment:

• Early bird: $197

• Standard $247

• If you’ve already taken part of this series, I’ll apply your previous payments toward the full training.  Just reach out and I’ll send you a custom registration link.

  Email stacey@neurodivergentworkbookforclinicians.com

This series integrates the following trainings:

Neurodivergent relationships don’t fail because people aren’t trying.

They struggle when difference is misread - and repair doesn’t feel safe.

This training offers a framework to change that. 

A Sneak Peak of What's Inside: 

• ✅ Symbolic Emotional Tools video - a video to help identify and honor symbolic emotional tools.  Emotional experience is not just cognitive - it’s organized through multiple systems, including sensory, affective, and symbolic processing. There are multiple ways people process emotional experience - through the body, through imagery and metaphor, through relational interaction, and through meaning-making. When we rely only on verbal expression, we miss access points that may be more natural and regulating for many neurodivergent individuals.  For many, these systems may be accessed differently than in neurotypical communication norms.  That means metaphor, imagery, and body-based awareness are not secondary forms of communication - they are often the primary way experience is organized and expressed.

• ✅ Relationship Rhythm & Integrity Pillars - a 2-page visual document that describes patterns that support healthy, flexible connection between partners. Presented through green, yellow, and red zones, they illustrate how attuned rhythm and relational integrity create safety, balance, and repair in relationship.  The second page operationalizes examples of helpful dialogue and action items to move from rupture to repair.

• ✅ The Rhythms of Shared Connection Model - translates neuroscience and sensory research into a relational framework for understanding how different nervous systems connect, regulate, and repair. It recognizes that partners may move at different tempos - some finding safety in predictability, others in activation - and that connection emerges not from sameness but from responsive pacing and mutual regulation. By seeing rhythm variation as difference rather than deficit, this model offers a shared language for safety, empathy, and co-created calm.

•  ✅ Relational Integrity Sample Goals (for the therapist) - a list of sample goals that align with the Relational Integrity Model, with action items to repair integrity threats, and to facilitate co-regulation across difference.

•  ✅ Relational Integrity Couples Work Interventions (for the therapist) - a document that provides 129 intervention ideas through interactive drop-down menus to help name the misalignment, slow the system, restore internal clarity, support clear signaling, translate and attune across difference, and facilitate coordinate/repair within the couple system.

  ✅ Up and Down-Regulation Visual- a visual for up- and down-regulation ideas to support rhythm coordination and synchrony

Dr. Stacey has incorporated variations of these presentations recently at the following professional trainings and speaking events:

• Skowronski, S. (2025-2026). Reframing Neurodivergence: An 8-Week Course. Shifting From Deficit to Identity-Affirming Frameworks for Therapists, Educations, and Leaders who Support Neurodivergent People.  [Recurrent Synchronous  and Asynchronous Online Training Series].
• Lourenco, B., Skowronski, S. & Tyer, H. (2026, June 5).  AuDHD in Love: From Adversaries to Co-Imaginaries. [Conference presentation]. AASECT Annual Conference, San Juan, PR, United States. 
• Skowronski, S. (2025, Mar 27).  Neurodivergent Considerations for Sex and Couples Therapy. AASECT IL & The Chicago Sex Therapist Network. [Wildflower Center for Learning training]. Synchronous Online Training.
• Lourenco, B., Skowronski, S. & Tyer, H. (2026, Apr 24 and 2025, Nov 7).  AuDHD in Love: From Adversaries to Co-Imaginaries. [Cascadia Training].  Synchronous Online Training.
• Skowronski, S. & Spitlier, J. (2025, Sept 5). A Neurodivergent Approach to ADHD, Connection, and Sex. [Avid Intimacy Group In-Person Presentation].  Chicago, IL, United States.
• Skowronski, S. (2025, June 8). Unmasked: From Moral Injury to Self-Alignment in High Masking ADHD’ers and Autistics. [Conference presentation]. AASECT Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, United States.  

Disclaimer: The Neurodivergent Love Training is an  educational and reflective tool. It is not therapy, clinical supervision, diagnosis, or a substitute for mental health care.  Professionals are responsible for applying these materials within the scope of their own training, license, and ethics.