Safety, Trust, & Authenticity: How PDA Experiences Can Inform Our Practices with Diane Gould, Ruth Hevelone, and Michele Kleinmann

Safety, Trust, & Authenticity: How PDA Experiences Can Inform Our Practices with Diane Gould, Ruth Hevelone, and Michele Kleinmann

From Born to Be Free: Supporting Neurodivergent Clients to Learn, Play, & Thrive by Meg Ferrell

July 1, 2026 · 49 min · Episode 4

About this episode

The episode discusses insights from a survey on PDA experiences and their implications for clinical practices.

The folks at PDA North America recently surveyed over 2,000 families about PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance, or the Pervasive Drive for Autonomy). What they learned has major implications for your clinical practice. In today’s episode, you'll hear from Diane Gould, Ruth Hevelone, and Michele Kleinmann. We talk about what they learned from their PDA Experiences survey, as well as the practices that are supportive for PDAers. We talk about respect, partnership, flexibility, authenticity, congruency, and more. We also address in depth that question that so many of us get when we are accommodating our Autistic clients: "What about the real world?" If you support PDA-ers, after you listen to this conversation, make sure to also check out our Patreon where we have providers talking in-depth about how they support PDA-ers in the context of everyday SLP, OT, mental health practice. They go into how to move through rupture and repair when they get it wrong, some of our guests talk about how to support PDA-ers in burnout, how to bring autonomy into everything including regulation, and more. It's just $7 for over 30-hours of content and you can find it at patreon.com/learnplaythrive. Your…

People in this episode

Host: Meg Ferrell

Guests: Diane Gould, Ruth Hevelone, Michele Kleinmann

Topics covered

  • PDA
  • clinical practice
  • autism support
  • flexibility
  • authenticity
  • partnership

Keywords

  • Pathological Demand Avoidance
  • Pervasive Drive for Autonomy
  • clinical practices
  • autistic clients
  • supportive practices
  • burnout
  • autonomy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: PDA North America, Patreon, SLP, OT, mental health

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