Supporting Complexity: Neurodivergence, Chronic Health & Pelvic Pain
A 2-hour online interdisciplinary workshop exploring how we can better support neurodivergent people living with the overlap of pelvic pain and complex chronic health conditions.
This workshop equips clinicians with practical tools to attune to and support neurodivergent clients with pelvic pain while creating a ND affirming environment.
Which clinicians?
Physios
Osteos
GPs
Gynaecologists
Pain Specialists
No specialist knowledge of individual chronic health conditions is required.
The workshop focuses on supporting the person and the complexity of their healthcare experience, rather than the medical diagnosis or management of individual conditions.
Already attended The Neurodivergent Pelvic Pain Lens?
Perfect.
Supporting Complexity builds on that foundation but explores a different clinical question.
Rather than focusing primarily on recognising neurodivergent needs and adapting pelvic pain care, we zoom out to consider what happens when pelvic pain is only one part of a much larger health picture - and a neurodivergent person is simultaneously trying to manage symptoms, treatment recommendations, multiple clinicians and everyday life.
When managing health becomes a job in itself
Chronic illness requires an enormous amount of work.
Planning. Remembering. Monitoring. Prioritising. Transitioning between tasks. Tolerating uncertainty. Noticing and interpreting internal signals. Making decisions. Attending appointments. Implementing recommendations. And continually adjusting to a body whose capacity may change from one day to the next.
For a neurodivergent brain, those demands can interact with executive functioning, sensory processing, interoception, need for predictability, attention, energy regulation and overwhelm.
And in multidisciplinary care, another layer can emerge.
Each clinician may make an entirely reasonable recommendation within their own area of practice.
Together, those recommendations can become an impossible workload.
This workshop explores the whole load of being a patient, and what clinicians can do within their own scope to make that load more manageable.
Why This Workshop?
People rarely arrive in our clinics with one neat, isolated presentation.
For many neurodivergent people living with pelvic pain and chronic health conditions, there are multiple systems requiring attention at once.
Pain. Fatigue. Bladder and bowel symptoms. Food and hydration. Sleep. Movement. Sensory needs. Medications. Appointments. Rehabilitation. Work. Relationships. Executive functioning. Emotional regulation.
And often, the needs of one system compete with another.
The person may understand what would theoretically help. They may be motivated to engage in their care. But there can still be more demands than there is available physical, cognitive, sensory or emotional capacity.
Supporting Complexity is about learning to see that whole picture.
Online via Zoom on 18th October, 22nd October or 1st November
2 hours duration (with breaks)
Recording available for 3mths post workshop.
Option to share or ask as much or as little as you like. You can just listen if that’s what you’d prefer. No breakout rooms here. It’s a safe space.
Option to have your video off, pets on laps, use chat instead of speak, ask anonymous questions, use fidgets or move around - anything that supports your brain and body in this space.
Fee: $85 + GST
Afterpay available (we know the cost of living is insane and have tried to keep prices low and offer payment options).
If you would like to access Afterpay, please email admin@lauragracepsychology.com.au and we will invoice you directly.
The details:
You’ll explore:
We’ll look at supporting the intersection between neurodivergence, pelvic pain and complex chronic health through areas including:
The cognitive and executive functioning workload of managing chronic illness
Sensory processing and interoception when the body is producing multiple or competing signals
Fluctuating capacity and why what is possible one day may not be possible the next
Treatment burden: appointments, exercises, medications, monitoring, behavioural changes and self-management
When reasonable recommendations from different clinicians inadvertently compete
The tension between routine, predictability and an unpredictable body
Prioritising when everything feels important
The cumulative impact of investigations, procedures and repeated healthcare experiences
Recognising when capacity - rather than motivation - is the limiting factor
Supporting autonomy and collaborative decision-making
Simplifying and adapting recommendations without losing their clinical purpose
Working collaboratively across disciplines while remaining within your own scope
From barriers to feasibility
Healthcare often asks:
“Why isn't this person doing what we've recommended?”
Supporting complexity invites us to ask something different:
“What is this person already being asked to carry - and what is actually feasible within the capacity they have available?”
Sometimes better support doesn't mean giving someone another strategy.
It means helping them work out what matters now, what can wait, what can be simplified, and what doesn't need to be carried at all.
What You’ll Take Away
Not expertise in every diagnosis.
Not another checklist of strategies to give your patients.
Instead, we want clinicians to leave better able to see the whole load.
To recognise competing demands.
To notice when treatment itself has become part of the burden.
To distinguish capacity from motivation.
To prioritise alongside the person.
To communicate and collaborate across disciplines.
And ultimately, to make your part of their healthcare easier to carry.