Public Demand Avoidance: Autonomy and Care with Frances McCafferty

In this episode, Jacinta and Lachlan chat with occupational therapist and neurodiversity advocate Frances McCafferty about PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance), autonomy, and what it means to create truly neurodiversity-affirming spaces. Frances, who founded Embrace Neurodiversity with her husband, shares her personal perspective as an autistic PDAer, what PDA actually feels like from the inside, how demands can show up in surprising ways, and why safety and choice matter so much. Frances talks about how she balances her roles as a peer researcher, therapist, and advocate — and how we, at large, can all do better to support PDAers at home, school, work, and beyond! You can find more about Embrace Neurodiverity here. The website for PDA Society can be found here. We couldn't find the exact clip from "Everything's Gonna Be Okay" by Josh Thomas, so here's a trailerfor the first season of the show. It is currently no longer streaming on iview or any other service, but may be available elsewhere.