Neurodiversity and Unleashing the Brilliance Within | Erica Whitfield of Positive Development

Gifted programs are primarily dominated by the stereotypical gifted student who makes a lace. Now imagine being a twice exceptional child who's gifted, but may also have a learning disorder. But you're in this classroom primarily filled with the stereotypical gifted child. So the group is about talking about all of these things and talking about all of the ways that we show our brilliance, our strengths, our vulnerabilities, and then just about supporting each other and having that connection. It's really interesting to see the different types of kids interact with each other. So mind you, they're all like these super smart kids, but some are very black and white and concrete thinkers, and then some who are more autonomous in nature are creative and challenging. They can think outside the box and they challenge the status quo. So it's really cool to see, like, the debates that can take place, but it's also cool for them to experience the fact that there's a different perspective that we can have on a topic. And that perspective isn't necessarily right or wrong. It's really about what works best for us.

Welcome to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. We are here to inspire creative ideas and connections for entrepreneurs and advocates working to address our mental health crisis. As you listen, I hope you will experience new ideas and motivation to innovate in your business, your community, and in your life. Welcome back, everyone, to the Mental Health Entrepreneurs Podcast where we want to dive into creative ideas to address mental health needs. To that end, today I am talking to Erica Whitfield, who is a therapist specializing in neurodiverse clients, and she offers some creative coaching programs and also has some big ideas to better help this group of people. So, Erica, welcome.

Thank you so much, Rachel, and thank you for having me on. Of course.

It's great to have you here. So I know in conversations with people, I have a lot. This whole term neurodiversity comes up. And I'm curious, since this is an area of expertise for you, how would you define neurodiversity?

You know, to a certain extent, all of us humans neurodivergent. No two people think exactly in the same ways. But when we think about the ways that I, I feel like are commonly seen as neurodivergent, we're talking about our kids who may think in ways that deviate from what we consider to be the norm. So these may be our kids or people who have been diagnosed with ADHD or with autism, or many people don't know a term called twice exceptional where you're gifted, but you also struggle with a learning disorder. Or a mental health issue. And so because of that, our brains may be wired differently. We don't necessarily think in the same ways that we consider the norm. And so this is what I really think of when I think of that term. Neurodivergent.

Yeah. Yeah. Thinking in different ways, really. And I think about what an asset that can be when we think about creativity and creative problem solving. Thinking differently is actually a good thing.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I work a lot with gifted children, and there's research out there by Bets and Neihardt. It came out in 1988, and it even talked about how even in the gifted community, there can be six different types of gifted individuals. So, wow. All brilliant people that they think in dramatically different ways. There's a type called the successful type of very structured, organized, focused on success to your twice exceptional that we already discussed. To even a group that identifies as being underground, they're gifted, but they don't necessarily feel like they're in a setting where they can really show their gifts. We have the creative and challenging, the autonomous. There's even a type called the dropout risk. So even the gifted get stereotyped as just being this group of people who are exceptional in many different ways. But even in that population, we see all the different varieties of how our different ways of thinking can come to life.

And as we've seen this kind of bubble up, I see it in the media. I hear it talked about more and more. Do you feel like it's normally represented in helpful ways to these individuals, or do you see some issues there?

Tell me more about that, too. When you say, is it represented in helpful ways?

Well, you know, I. I hear a lot of language of, you know, do we use the term neurodiversity or do we not? We have the atypical typical.

Right.

We have the autism. Should we call somebody autistic, or do they want to be termed on the autism spectrum? There's just all this languaging, and I feel like how we talk about this matters.

Yes. That is such a phenomenal question. And I really think it comes down to what the individual prefers. And I know that can be difficult because our brains need a way to organize information. But what I've noticed, you know, even in certain types of communities, like the autism community, there's a portion of the community that still identifies with the puzzle piece. There's a portion of that community that says, absolutely not. It's degrading, and we want to use the infinity symbol. So even in like. Again, even in our Certain groups of neurodivergent individuals. I think it's so important when we start thinking about labels is, does this person want to identify with that label? Is this label going to be beneficial for them or not in their opinion? And then if they are given a label, how's that helping them? And then what are the unintentional consequences of them having that label, too? So these are all conversations that I like to have with the kids that come in to see me and their parents to decide, what do we want to do here? What do we want to call this? Do we want to call this anything?

Great. And so in. In terms of you deciding to specialize with this group, what has that journey been looked like? Maybe. What was your inspiration and how have you developed that expertise?

I had this awesome opportunity to be involved in a really cool network in my community, and it was a partnership between mental health providers, so several mental health providers in our community, a school system, and then also a network of nonprofit organizations. And they all came together to ensure that there were mental health treatment services in the school. And so because of that, I was able to get so much exposure to all different types of students. You know, the type of student that really started to speak to me was the student that was misunderstood, the student that was getting in trouble a lot, the student whose needs weren't being recognized. I didn't know it back then, but a lot of those students were the neurodivergent students. And I can still remember. Of course, I won't say them, but I still remember their names so clearly in my mind, because there was so much confusion about why these kids were acting the way they were acting. And the more I studied and learned about what it means to be neurodivergent, what it means to have adhd, autism, what it means. It means to be gifted, the more it started to connect of like, oh, that's why. That's why he was engaging in that behavior. That's why these behavioral interventions were not working. That's why he had that fixation on the certain object. So that's where my love came from, just being with these kids and seeing their needs.

That's great. And so let's talk a little bit about the therapy that you've developed. And then I also want to launch into your coaching program. But let's start with. Because the therapy came first. Is that right?

That's right.

Let's start with that.

Sure. I had worked in the school System for about 10 years, and then I decided to start my own private Practice. You know, initially I just knew what I wanted, to work with kids. And then I realized that a lot of high functioning, a lot of gifted kids were coming to my practice. And I said, okay, what's going on here? And through this, you know, even I had the original stereotype that I was going to be worked to of just like a group of high performers type A kids, kids who were super organized, kids who never got into any kind of trouble. But what I realized was that, no, there was so much diversity in these brilliant children and teens that were coming to see me. And so that's when I got introduced to the fact that some of them were struggling with their attention and focus. And some of them had hypersensitivities where they were easily triggered by things like light and sound. Some of them had hyposensitivities. So they're giving their friends hugs, but they don't realize they're squeezing the life out of their friends or they just think that they're tapping someone, but to that other child, it feels like a punch because they're not feeling the sensation as much as, you know, your typical kid would. So I started providing therapy that specialized specifically to address these issues because a lot of parents feel stuck. The school systems are so well meaning. They do everything that they can to make sure that things are in place, accommodations are made. But there's still a lack of understanding of what this population needs.

I think across the board. I think not even just in school systems, but in social service systems and community systems. There's a lot of confusion and maybe misunderstanding.

Absolutely.

Yeah. All right. And so then that led you to develop this coaching program I love. You know, we hear about coaching programs for adults all the time, whether it's executive coaching or life coaching, but this is specifically for kids. So can you tell me more about what you're doing for coaching with kids?

Absolutely. So the coaching program is really for my gifted kids that come in who feel like the weight of the world is on their shoulders. They've been stereotyped as that gifted child who should have all of the answers, who should not have any problems, who should know everything. And the stress of that is alarming. And the thing about a lot of the kids that I work with in this coaching program is that they don't feel like they should ask for help. They've internalized these messages of being put on like this wisdom pedestal of being this all knowing person that they feel embarrassed if they have to reach out and ask for help. They feel like they're going to be judged. They feel like maybe they're even losing a bit of their intelligence because they don't know something. So. And there's imposter syndrome. You know, they're looking around the class and comparing themselves to other people. And then imagine gifted programs are primarily dominated by, by the stereotypical gifted student who makes Ole's. Now imagine being a twice exceptional child who's gifted but may also have a learning disorder. But you're in this classroom primarily filled with the stereotypical gifted child. So the group is about talking about all of these things and talking about all of the ways that we show our brilliance, our strengths, our vulnerabilities, and then just about supporting each other and having that connection.

And so what have you found in running these? What's kind of happening in between the group members? What kind of learning are you seeing happening?

Well, it's, it's really interesting to see the different types of kids interact with each other. So mind you, they're all like these super smart kids, but some are very black and white and concrete thinkers. Okay, so there's like a right answer or a wrong answer. And then some who are more autonomous in nature are creative and challenging. They can think outside the box and they challenge the status quo. So it's really cool to see like the debates that can take place just because of the different ways of thinking. But it's also cool for them to experience the fact that there's a different perspective that we can have on a topic. And that perspective isn't necessarily right or wrong. It's really about what works best for us. Why don't we take in the things that make sense for us and then the things that don't make sense, okay, that may not be for us and we don't have to try their strategies. So it's, it's neat to just hear the different perspectives that happen in the group. So that's one thing I've really taken away from it. And then just like the magic that happens when we're in these sessions. The last coaching session I had really was predominated by like that challenging and creative type. And we did a session one day where literally one kid pulls out his guitar and serenades us with, you know, with a song that he just wrote. Another one of our kids, she like serenaded us with this beautiful song that she sang in session. And then right after that another kid's like, and here is this awesome picture that I just painted. It was so cool to have this space where our creativity could just be celebrated.

Yeah, that's beautiful. So how do you figure out the right fit for these groups? Are there certain things? Are you talking to them individually first? Maybe their parents? I'm curious about that process.

Yeah. So usually before our kids join the coaching group, they come in as individual clients. So we've had time to really get to know them and know what makes them tick. So we try to craft our groups by putting kids together who could really just flourish off of the energy of the other kids that are going to be in the group as well. We're really intentional about how we put our groups together so that our kids can have the best experience.

How'd you come up with this idea, too? I'm curious about that. Instead of making it a therapy group, you made it coaching, so I'd love to hear that thought process, too.

Well, here's the thing. You know, with our gifted kids and experiencing imposter syndrome, many of them want nothing to do with therapy. So they'll say, I'm fine. I don't need any help. So. But if we call it a coaching group, then I've noticed that they're more open to that. And then another thing that we do, too, to get them on board is after they participate in the group, they can come back and help me lead it. So they get to impact the next generation of kids after them that are going to do the group, too. And that's what they love, because then they can really step into, like, that leadership role and that expertise role. You can really see them come to life. And what I like most is I think they may even get, in terms of content more out of the experience when they come back and teach it. Because now they're in charge of, like, making sure that this next group of people really retains the information. Right.

I mean, teaching is the best way to learn something because you have to know it so well. I'd like to dive into some of your other big ideas. What's. What's on the horizon for you? What are things that you're thinking about?

Yeah, absolutely. So I have really started to embrace this idea that I am going to be like this solo traveler. So I just recently took a trip to Ireland, and one of the things that I've always wanted to do to connect this back to your question, I promise I haven't gotten off track. I want to take this coaching program and the work that I've done with the schools and, you know, we're even at the schools right now doing trainings to help teachers understand, like, how to have Neurodivergent friendly classrooms. We're doing all of this work, so I want to take it and put it together and start a school. And not even necessarily something that's going to be like this traditional brick and mortar building. I would love to start something like a travel school. So we're building our confidence, we're gaining these incredible experiences. We're learning about ourselves. We're gaining so much insight by traveling to different places and learning. And how awesome would it be if not only are we enhancing our personal development by doing this, but we're also getting credit for school? Yeah. So I want to create a school that really focuses like on this neurodivergence gifted population.

And I just think about how hands on that could be right. With learning different subjects, history, culture, all of those pieces depending on where you would go.

Exactly.

How do you envision that working with like kind of kids all over the country coming together? Yeah. Okay.

You know, I always think like, you know, grassroots initiatives are always the way to go. So I can see maybe even like the alumni of our coaching programs, all the kids who have participated in our Balance Intensity coaching program coming together. And we start by taking a trip to Ireland or to Switzerland or somewhere like that, and then branching it out. Branching it out and making this something that could be accessible to anywhere, to anyone.

That's amazing. Where are you in the process of this? Just sort of. It sounds like this is like a little bit like the incubator stage maybe.

Yeah, yeah. So right now I'm actually putting together a little test run with adults. So I'm taking a group of six therapists to Ireland and we are going to. We're. We're actually just going to make this like a conference type thing, like a really small conference. We're going to get together almost like a retreat and we're going to talk about all of these things that I've learned over time that can help our neurodivergent kids. We're going to talk about like, you know, strategies outside of behavioral strategies that can be used, the importance of connection. We're going to be talking about like how to help our kids lean into their gifts versus just focusing on vulnerabilities that we often associate with problems that we see with our kids in schools. So we're going to do a learning experience and from that I want to branch it out and start offering these trips to our parents here at our practice and start taking our kids outside of the country into these awesome new places with their parents and just seeing how that develops over time, and then eventually we'll turn that into something where they can even get school credits for attending these trips. Awesome.

I love that you have this amazing plan.

Thank you so much. And it is really exciting.

You should be. So what has this entrepreneurial journey been like for you? You're obviously a creative thinker yourself. This is an idea I really don't think I've heard of anywhere else. Right. Which is exciting. But I'm curious what that's been like with you developing your business, developing these programs, and then going into this new venture as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So my journey as a mental health entrepreneur has been incredible. I mean, just from starting in the school system to identifying these needs that were present there, to then being able to have creative freedom now to bring to life anything that I want. I mean, that's invaluable. I think the biggest part about being an entrepreneur is the mental battles that you have to fight with yourself. When I was first getting started, there were so many times where I had to say, like, oh, this is gonna work. What am I doing here? There's all of these fears and insecurities that start to enter your mind when you're creating something new that maybe no one else is even doing, and you're wondering if it's gonna work. But it's so cool now to be on the other side of that, where I'm, like, 100% sure now I'm 110% sure. I'm, holy smokes, this works. This is an incredible business. I am impacting so many people in positive ways, and I'm going to keep going and grow this as big as I can get.

Wow. That confidence is something I don't hear a lot from entrepreneurs. How do you think you got there?

By first just being put in situations that were scary, but I just had to figure them out and building off of that confidence, you know, like, knowing, like, okay, I got through this thing. So here's another scary thing. I can get through that. Honestly, keeping a gratitude list, too. So I've been keeping a gratitude list for the last five years on my phone, and whenever something major happens, I put it on the list. Whenever something scary happens, but I figured my way through it, I put it on the list. So I take that list out and I read through it, and it's so crazy because, like, I'll surprise myself. Like, oh, yeah, that really scary thing happened back then, but I figured it out. I also believe that when you're on the right track and you're doing something that you should be doing. You are going to get resources that come to you from out of nowhere to help you through difficult obstacles, too. And that's the really, really cool thing. So on the days where I'm like, all right, Erica, how are you going to get through this one? I take a step back and, like, something's coming to help me get to the next level with this. And it always does, every single time, because I'm aligned with what I'm doing. I'm acting in integrity, and I don't think you can ever go wrong when you're doing those things.

Hmm. I agree. I sort of bring the concept of flow. That's how I conceptualize that. Right. If you're moving in that flow of the energy and everything like it, it will all work. It will all be what it's supposed to. To be. It's pretty amazing.

Yes. Yes.

So, last question. We're almost out of time here, but is there a piece of advice that you would give to other mental health entrepreneurs or people that just have a creative idea that they might want to implement? What would you say to those folks?

I would say, know that the more creative your idea is and the more your brain may try to convince you not to do this thing, because it sounds so outside of the box. I think that's your giant green waving flag that you need to lean completely into it, because no person on this earth can be the person that we are. You know, no one can be me. Like I can be me. No one can be Rachel. Like, Rachel can be Rachel. We're put here for a very specific reason, to bring something very specific to life. And so really lean into that, because that's where the magic lies. And then you imagine diving so deep into this focus that you have and this passion and desire so much so to the point where no one else even knows the things that you know, because you've become that much of an expert into it, that's where you can open up some really magical things for yourself. So dive deep into it. Ask yourself this question, too. Am I doing these things because I feel like I have to do them, or am I doing these things because I want to do them? And if you feel like you're doing something because your idea won't come to life, there's a red flag. Lean into the things that you want to do. Have faith in yourself that you can bring those things to life. And little by little, you'll see that progress happen to the point where you have that big confidence to say, oh, well, I did this and now you're inspiring another group of people to do exactly what you've done. And you, you've spread this huge positive energy wave out into the world that's going to keep going.

Amazing. I love that. Well, thank you so much for being willing to talk to us. I love the programs that you're doing. I cannot wait to hear about this school. Keep talking to me about that. Maybe we'll bring you back in a year or two and have you talk about how all of that is going and the next things on your horizon.

Sounds awesome. Thank you so much, Rachel.

Of course.