Cathartic Collaborations

Cathartic Collaborations Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Cathartic Collaborations, Mental Health Service, Nundah.

Neurodivergent 🧠 Queer 🏳️‍🌈 Affirming Therapy | Supervision | Education | Advocacy
🎙️ Divergent Dialogues Podcast
🌿 Specialised Support for Autism, ADHD, Giftedness & Burnout
📚 Access our Webinars, Courses, Podcast, Blogs & Community Resources 👇

28/07/2025

🎤 EPISODE 40 — Mirroring & Meaning: Embracing Giftedness Through Connection, Safety, and Self

with the brilliant Gordon Smith

What does it really mean to be seen? In this soulful conversation, we unpack the deep impact of relational mirroring, emotional safety, and the winding road to self-acceptance for gifted and neurodivergent folks.

From existential perfectionism to humour as a healing tool, this episode is a tender, thought-provoking exploration of what happens when we make space to be our full selves—without apology.

💬 “When someone reflects you back to yourself with warmth, the nervous system exhales.”
💬 “Giftedness isn’t about achievement—it’s about intensity, sensitivity, and complexity.”
💬 “Humour is often how we say the unsayable. It protects us, but it also connects us.”

✨ Key themes we explore:

Relational safety & authenticity

Reframing external validation

Humour as shield and bridge

Living between paradigms as neurodivergent clinicians

Joy, poetry, and play in identity exploration

🎧 Tune in wherever you get your podcasts → Divergent Dialogues
Let this episode be a warm mirror back to you. 🪞

Watch via the link: https://divergentdialogues.substack.com/p/episode-40-mirroring-and-meaning

If you’ve ever been called intense, dramatic, sensitive, complicated — this is for you.Growing up multi-exceptional and ...
20/07/2025

If you’ve ever been called intense, dramatic, sensitive, complicated — this is for you.
Growing up multi-exceptional and emotionally attuned in a world that values simplicity and sameness often meant shrinking to survive.

I wasn’t just “sensitive” — I was processing systems, subtext, injustice, energy.
I wasn’t just “distracted” — I was tracking many layers of meaning at once.
I wasn’t just “difficult” — I was unmasking needs I didn’t yet have language for.
What looked like too muchness was actually depth. Complexity. Insight. Emotional truth.

You are not too much.
You are exactly the right amount for the spaces meant to hold you.
Find them. Build them.

💡 Read our latest blog post - link in bio.

For a long time, I thought I was “doing okay.”But underneath the surface, I was burning out.I didn’t know I was multi-ex...
18/07/2025

For a long time, I thought I was “doing okay.”
But underneath the surface, I was burning out.
I didn’t know I was multi-exceptional—gifted, autistic, ADHD.

All I knew was that I felt like an outsider, but I couldn’t explain why.
My ability to “perform” wellness meant no one asked if I was struggling.
I learned to mask so well that even I believed it sometimes.
But the cost was high: exhaustion, identity confusion, and a deep loneliness I couldn’t name.

Unmasking wasn’t a single moment.
It’s been a slow, tender process of letting myself be seen—
Not just for what I can do, but for what I need.
Not just for how I think, but for how I feel.

Multi-exceptionality is often invisible—
Not because it’s not real, but because we’ve become experts at hiding what hurts.

💡 Read our latest blog post - link in bio.

15/07/2025

This six-week group coaching experience is open to all gifted and otherwise neurodivergent people.

Multi-exceptionality brings together giftedness and multiply disability — creating a spiky cognitive profile that doesn’...
15/07/2025

Multi-exceptionality brings together giftedness and multiply disability — creating a spiky cognitive profile that doesn’t fit neatly into standard boxes. But too often, systems are still built for linear progress. That means many multi-exceptional people go unseen, unsupported, or asked to mask just to get by.

What we need is not more pressure to adapt — but more space to unmask.

We need:
🌿 Flexible environments
🧠 Recognition of lived experience as legitimate expertise
🛠 Support that embraces both strengths and struggles
🫶 Permission to show up authentically
🏛 Systems designed for nuance — not sameness

Supporting us means moving beyond awareness and into structural change. It means designing workplaces, classrooms, and care systems that honour complexity, value neurodivergent wisdom, and make space for our full humanity.

💡 Read our latest blog post - link in bio.

Still buzzing after attending the Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy Conference 2025 this week. So many moments of resonan...
13/07/2025

Still buzzing after attending the Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy Conference 2025 this week. So many moments of resonance, challenge, and hope — sitting in rooms where neurodivergent voices weren’t just included, but centred, affirmed, and celebrated.

This sketch was lovingly drawn by my incredible wife Emma, capturing the spirit of the week with her signature charm and whimsy.

Being surrounded by folks committed to doing therapy with, not to, neurodivergent people — it reminded me why this work matters, and how much more we can build when we make space for each other’s whole, messy, brilliant selves.




This is something I wish I’d known growing up — and something I see over and over again in the lives of my clients.As a ...
13/07/2025

This is something I wish I’d known growing up — and something I see over and over again in the lives of my clients.

As a multi-exceptional person, I learned early how to appear capable. I could mask, adapt, and intellectualise my way through almost anything. I got praised for being insightful, articulate, “wise beyond my years” — even as I was burning out, dissociating, or quietly drowning in sensory overwhelm.

My giftedness became a shield — and sometimes a barrier.
People assumed I was fine because I was functioning. But they didn’t see the effort it took.
They didn’t see the cost.
And because I could perform competence, my very real struggles went unseen, unsupported, and often invalidated.

It took me years to realise that capacity and struggle can live side by side. That being gifted doesn’t mean I don’t need care. That masking “fine” is not the same as being fine.

💡 Read our latest blog post - link in bio.

What a beautiful whirlwind the last few days have been at the Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy Conference! I am still pr...
11/07/2025

What a beautiful whirlwind the last few days have been at the Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy Conference! I am still processing everything but one thing I can say is that I am filled with such gratitude:

Thank you to Yael and Liam for genuinely going above and beyond for the ND community to create this shared experience. The accommodations were just beyond amazing and definitely supported my nervous system to last the distance!

Thank you to Katy for sharing some of my lived experience of Multi-Exceptionality (well now I've learnt actually Thrice-Exceptionality) in your presentation. I hope your presentation will break down some barriers for us Gifted folk and foster more understanding of Gifted experiences.

Thank you to my fellow panel members Claire, Anna and Olivia for bringing your unique perspectives and passion to build a rich conversation together.

Thank you to my friend Vera for being my support person throughout the conference. I didn't feel like I had to awkward turtle my way through as much!

Thank you to all the presentors that contributed to this conference. I wish I had the spoons to tag you all but I have learnt so much and your generosity in sharing your lived experience has helped me to further understand the nuance and diversity of our ND community.

Thank you to those of you who came and said hi! I really appreciate it because approaching people is something that is really difficult for me (due to previous mention of being an awkward turtle).

LOAPAC-Neurodiversity Affirming Psychologists Australia
au



Living as a multi-exceptional person means holding paradoxes — sometimes within the same breath.I’ve been the student wh...
11/07/2025

Living as a multi-exceptional person means holding paradoxes — sometimes within the same breath.

I’ve been the student who always had the answers, and the adult who forgets to eat or misses appointments.
I’ve offered profound insight in one moment, and dissolved into sensory or emotional overwhelm the next.
I’ve navigated life with both sharp cognitive clarity and deep executive functioning challenges — and for years, none of it made sense to anyone, including me.
This is the quiet, complex reality for many who are both gifted and multiply disabled — carrying capability and challenge.

For too long, giftedness, Autism, and ADHD have been treated as if they cancel each other out.
But they don’t.
They co-exist.
They intersect.
They shape how we think, relate, process emotion, experience injustice, and move through the world.

When we stop trying to split these identities apart — and instead honour their overlap — we begin to see people like me (and many of my clients) more fully. We start to offer the kind of support that doesn’t ask us to choose between our strengths and our needs.

💡 Read our latest blog post - link in bio.

✨ I’m really looking forward to being part of the Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy Conference Australia 2025 — a space w...
08/07/2025

✨ I’m really looking forward to being part of the Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy Conference Australia 2025 — a space where lived experience, practice wisdom, and deep care come together.

As a proudly Neurodivergent human, I wanted to share a few things about how I tend to connect — especially in busy, high-energy spaces like conferences:

🌿 I love gentle, one-on-one chats — especially if we’re diving into identity, systems change, neurodivergent practice, or the special interest currently guiding your work.

🌀 Starting and ending conversations can feel clunky for me. If I hover at the edge or slip away suddenly, please know it’s likely me navigating the social energy — not disinterest.

💬 I don’t always initiate conversations, but I genuinely welcome being approached — especially if we share lived experience or resonate around similar values.

⛅ Small talk is tough — but if you want to skip straight to the heart of things? I’m there with you.

🤍 Sometimes I go quiet or need time to decompress — that’s just part of how my brain and body process connection and information.

So if you see me at the conference — feel free to say hello, wave from across the room, or invite me into a slower moment. And if there’s a little awkwardness? That’s just part of the neurodivergent charm. We get to meet each other where we are.

LOAPAC-Neurodiversity Affirming Psychologists Australia

Just because someone is gifted doesn’t mean they aren’t struggling.💡 For multi-exceptional individuals — those who are b...
08/07/2025

Just because someone is gifted doesn’t mean they aren’t struggling.

💡 For multi-exceptional individuals — those who are both gifted and multiply disabled — giftedness can actually mask disability. Their strengths are often used to downplay or dismiss their challenges.

🌀 Abilities may be praised, while very real support needs are overlooked.
🌀 Masking can look like confidence, competence, or compliance — all while someone is quietly burning out.
🌀 Many aren’t fully identified or diagnosed — especially when their giftedness compensates for areas of difficulty.
🌀 Gender, cultural, and class-based biases can further delay recognition, especially for those who don’t fit the narrow stereotypes of giftedness or disability.

The result? Multi-exceptional people are often left navigating life without appropriate support, understanding, or accommodations.

It’s time we stop assuming wellbeing based on performance — and start recognising the complexity that lives beneath the surface.

💡 Read our latest blog post - link in bio.

✨ Through the lens of multi-exceptionality, we’re invited to rethink what inclusion really means — beyond checklists and...
06/07/2025

✨ Through the lens of multi-exceptionality, we’re invited to rethink what inclusion really means — beyond checklists and compliance.

It asks us to redefine intelligence to include the emotional, intuitive, creative, and sensory.

It urges us to build systems that honour contradiction, complexity, and care.
It reminds us that healing isn’t about fitting in — it’s about coming home to all the parts of ourselves that were once too much, too different, or too invisible to be named.

This is how we create belonging — not by asking people to change, but by changing the spaces we welcome them into. 💫

💡 Read our latest blog post - link in bio.

Address

Nundah, QLD

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Cathartic Collaborations posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Cathartic Collaborations:

Shortcuts

Share

Category