A book for adults with demand sensitive nervous systems is here. You Were Never Broken covers why trying harder never worked, and what changes when you stop fighting your own wiring. Now available in paperback and Kindle.
Read articleMost articles describe PDA from the outside. This one describes it from the inside: the gap between knowing and doing, the inconsistency, the shame, and why the premise you've been operating from was probably wrong.
Read articleADHD paralysis and demand-driven shutdown feel almost identical from the inside. But the mechanisms are different, and the strategies that help one can make the other worse. Here's how to tell what's driving what.
Read articleYou're good at your job until you're suddenly not. The pattern of intense competence followed by collapse isn't a character failure. It's what happens when a demand sensitive nervous system meets the modern workplace.
Read articleYour partner asks you to take out the trash. It's a small thing. But something shifted in your body, and now you can't do it. This is what demand sensitivity looks like inside the relationship that matters most to you.
Read articlePathological Demand Avoidance. Pervasive Drive for Autonomy. Persistent Demand Avoidance. The name keeps changing because no one has landed on one that does the experience justice. Here's where we've landed, and why.
Read articleLow demand parenting means reducing the number of demands you place on your child so their nervous system has room to function. Here's what it is, what it isn't, and how to start without feeling like you've lost all control.
Read articleA tantrum is about wanting something. A PDA meltdown is about a nervous system that has hit its limit. The difference matters because what helps is completely different.
Read articleIt's 7:14 AM. You've said "put your shoes on" three times. Your child is on the floor. The bus comes in eleven minutes. The morning routine isn't the problem. The demand load is. Here's the math your child's nervous system is doing before 8 AM.
Read articleYour child asked to go to the park. You said yes. Now they won't put their shoes on. This isn't defiance. It's a nervous system responding to demands as threat. Here's what's actually happening and what to do about it.
Read articleMany adults are recognizing PDA in themselves for the first time, often after their child is identified. Here is what adult PDA actually looks like, why it went unnoticed for so long, and what changes when you finally have a name for it.
Read articleThe most common criticism of low-demand PDA approaches is that they're permissive. They're not. Demand reduction is a clinical intervention based on nervous system science — and it requires more skill, not less. Here's the distinction that matters.
Read articlePathological Demand Avoidance is frequently misdiagnosed as Oppositional Defiant Disorder. The presentations look similar on the surface but the mechanisms are completely different — and the treatment implications are critical.
Read articleIf you've just identified a PDA profile and typed "how to treat PDA" into a search engine, you've already discovered the problem: there's almost nothing telling you what to actually do in session. Here's where to start.
Read articleResidential treatment is where PDA is hardest. The entire structure of residential care is a demand environment by design. Here's what PDA-informed staff training looks like — and why standard behavioral frameworks are exactly wrong for this population.
Read articleThere is no empirically validated treatment for PDA — but that doesn't mean there's nothing to do. Here's what mechanism-based PDA intervention looks like, why standard approaches fail, and what the evidence actually supports.
Read articleClinicians are recognizing PDA at higher rates than ever. But recognition without a structured intervention framework leaves professionals knowing what they're looking at — and having no idea what to do about it. Here's what's missing from PDA training and why it matters.
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