Autism in women doesn’t disappear — it shape-shifts. Underneath the surface of seeming social competence, many women live with constant self-surveillance, sensory distress, and a profound sense of difference they cannot name. Despite increasing awareness, many are still misdiagnosed or overlooked, receiving labels such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), social anxiety, or complex trauma while the underlying neurodivergence remains obscured.

Although the signs of neurodivergence in women are often striking once recognised, they rarely conform to the dominant diagnostic archetype. Autistic women may demonstrate fluent social skills, rich imaginations, and strong verbal ability, yet experience debilitating sensory overload, relational exhaustion, and a deep sense of not belonging. Their distress is frequently internalised rather than externalised, leading clinicians to overlook neurodivergence in favour of more familiar diagnoses like anxiety, depression, or BPD. Standard screening tools, still normed on male-biased data, often fail to capture these subtler yet clinically significant differences. The issue is not that autistic women present less clearly — it’s that we have not been taught to see them.

A Clinical Snapshot

Take Leila (not her real name), a 35-year-old client whose intelligence and expressiveness once earned her praise — and then suspicion. She was referred for chronic emotional dysregulation and interpersonal conflict, with previous clinicians querying BPD. But beneath the surface lay a different story: a lifetime of sensory overload, mimicry, and shame. Leila describes her childhood as performing normal and adulthood as being always on. She cannot remember a single day she felt at ease in her own skin. Therapy, for her, has been both a lifeline and a source of alienation — no one has ever mentioned autism.

Her story is far from unique. Recent studies, including Hull et al. (2020), have shown that camouflaging in autistic women is significantly correlated with internalised shame, depression, and delayed diagnosis. Yet many clinicians still lack the frameworks — and the confidence — to identify this masked presentation.

This online training, led by internationally renowned autism expert Professor Tony Attwood, offers a rare opportunity to deepen your diagnostic insight and therapeutic skillset for working with neurodivergent women. Drawing on over five decades of clinical experience and the latest research, Professor Attwood will explore the intricate interplay between gender, neurodiversity, and emotional wellbeing — and what therapists need to learn to work differently to fully support their neurodivergent women clients.

The Clinical Challenges

This webinar speaks to the quiet dilemmas therapists often carry:

• Why does therapy feel like it’s missing the mark, despite best efforts?
• Why do some highly intelligent clients present with inexplicable exhaustion, identity confusion, or overwhelming social distress?

Professor Attwood will unpack the phenomenon of camouflaging, exploring how autistic women develop sophisticated compensation strategies that shield their neurodivergence — and erode their wellbeing.

He will examine diagnostic blind spots, including the high rates of misdiagnosis as mood or personality disorders, and the particular emotional cost of being mis-seen.

You will also learn to identify neurodivergent burnout — not simply as chronic fatigue, but as a collapse of functioning after years of unrelenting self-monitoring. This form of burnout is not only under-recognised but often misinterpreted as emotional instability or resistance.

In addressing these challenges, Professor Attwood will draw on neurodiversity-affirming and trauma-informed models of care, as well as emerging screening tools designed specifically with women in mind.

The session will also touch on intersectional identities — including race, class, and sexuality — and the additional diagnostic complexities they introduce. For therapists working through a feminist lens, this offers a vital chance to reconsider how gendered structures and normative biases shape both diagnosis and therapeutic care.

Therapeutic Approaches and Frameworks

Participants will gain practical strategies for adapting therapy across a range of modalities. This includes working with emotional regulation, reframing internalised ableism, and helping clients build a positive and resilient neurodivergent identity.

Professor Attwood will offer guidance on modifying language, structure, and pacing in sessions — drawing on real-world clinical examples to show how even small shifts can dramatically increase therapeutic safety. He will also cover work with relationships and employment, both of which often act as sites of camouflaging and subsequent collapse.

Throughout, his teaching is grounded in the principle that therapy for neurodivergent women must do more than validate — it must equip, adapt, and genuinely see.

What You Will Gain

• Diagnostic clarity: Recognise gendered, masked, and internalised presentations of autism in women
• Differentiation skills: Learn to distinguish female neurodivergence from trauma, BPD, and mood disorders
• Clinical tools: Address burnout, emotional dysregulation, and social exhaustion as they uniquely present in women
• Therapeutic adaptations: Tailor communication, structure, and sensory pacing to meet the lived needs of neurodivergent women
• Affirming practice: Support clients in reclaiming identity, agency, and coherence within a strengths-based, neurodiversity-affirming model

Professor Tony Attwood is one of the world’s foremost authorities on autism. Over five decades, his contributions have shaped diagnostic thinking, clinical practice, and the wider cultural understanding of neurodiversity. He is known for his ability to make complex ideas accessible without sacrificing rigour, and for the warmth and clarity he brings to teaching.

Following his sold-out keynote at our London Neurodiversity Conference, Professor Attwood returns — by popular demand — to lead this focused online training on the realities of working with neurodivergent women. This is a rare opportunity to learn directly from a global leader on one of the most urgent topics in contemporary therapeutic practice.

This training is designed for psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors, and allied professionals working across all modalities. No prior specialisation in autism is required, but an openness to re-examining existing frameworks — and a willingness to sit with clinical complexity — will be essential.

Book now to join one of the world’s most respected voices on autism and transform the way you understand, diagnose, and support neurodivergent women in therapy.

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