Meet Caitlin

Hello!​

 

I’m Caitlin Hughes, an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker (AMHSW) and founder of Cathartic Collaborations, a neurodivergent-led practice offering professional supervision, speaking, training, resources and courses grounded in more ethical, neurodivergent affirming ways of working.

 

I support neurodivergent and queer practitioners through relational, values-aligned professional supervision that honours the fullness of who they are. I live and work at the intersections of Autism, ADHD, giftedness, and queerness, and this lived experience, alongside my professional training and research, deeply informs how I show up in my work: with warmth, clarity, creativity, and an unwavering respect for complexity.

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Beyond my direct work with practitioners and organisations, I share ideas through my blog, research, peer-reviewed publications, media contributions, conference presentations, and my podcast, Divergent Dialogues. Across these spaces, my work aims to make neurodivergent knowledge more accessible, challenge dominant narratives, and contribute to broader systems change.

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Who I Work With

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• Autistic folks and/or ADHDers.

• Twice-exceptional, Multi-exceptional, Gifted, intense, creative, and deep-feeling folks.

• Allied health and human services professionals, such as Social Workers (including AMHSWs), Psychologists, Occupational Therapists, Speech Pathologists, counsellors, coaches, and NDIS providers.

• Organisations, workplaces, and systems seeking to embed neuroaffirming practices and create genuinely neuroinclusive environments.

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Values

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Living in alignment with my values is deeply important to me, and I strive to embody them in every aspect of my work:​

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• Integrity: Being honest, ethical, and transparent

• Equity: Recognising and dismantling systemic injustice

• Wisdom: Integrating theory, practice, and lived experience as valid forms of knowing

• Curiosity: Remaining open, reflective, and growth-oriented

• Compassion: Holding space for both the messiness and magic of being human

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Practice Framework

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My work weaves together multiple layers:
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• Neuroaffirming: Valuing and supporting neurodivergent identities, strengths, and lived experiences.

• Trauma-Informed: Understanding the impact of trauma and working in ways that prioritise safety, choice, and empowerment.

• Neuroqueering: Challenging norms around identity, functioning, and relationships; deconstructing internalised ableism, sanism and heteronormativity; centring fluidity and authenticity.

• Systemic & Critical Social Work: Exploring how ableism, sanism, capitalism, heteronormativity, and cisnormativity affect wellbeing.

• Multidimensional Human Development: Considering the dynamic and interconnected factors that influence human growth and change.

• Positive Disintegration: Viewing growth and transformation as an ongoing process, often driven by deep, challenging experiences.

• Relational Ethics: Practicing in an attuned and accountable manner, that considers power dynamics.

• Existentialism: Navigating purpose, meaning, identity, and the liminal spaces of becoming.

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Therapeutic Modalities​

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I have had training in the following therapeutic modalities:

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• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

• Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)

• Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) & Attachment-Based Approaches

• Internal Family Systems (IFS – Parts Work)

• The Flash Technique (Somatic trauma processing)

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PhD Research

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My PhD research at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) explores what neurodivergent affirming mental health care means for autistic adults. Through participatory narrative inquiry, I am bringing together the perspectives of autistic adult service users and allied health professionals to better understand what makes mental health care feel aligned and affirming.

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The research centres autistic lived experience, epistemic justice, and collaborative sense-making, with the aim of contributing practice-relevant recommendations for allied health professionals, mental health services, and service systems seeking to provide more ethical, inclusive, and responsive mental health care for autistic adults.

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Read more about my research and peer-reviewed publications here.

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Philosophy

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Cathartic Collaborations was born from a simple belief: meaningful change does not happen in isolation. It happens through relationships, conversations, curiosity, and the willingness to question what we have inherited.

 

I don't see people as problems to be fixed or individuals existing separately from the worlds around them. I understand us as relational beings, shaped by our identities, bodies, histories, relationships, communities, environments, cultures, technologies, and systems. Our wellbeing is deeply connected to the conditions in which we live, work, learn, and belong.

 

This is why my work has never been solely about supporting individuals to adapt to existing systems. I'm equally interested in examining the systems themselves. I believe we need to ask not only how can people thrive but also what conditions make thriving possible, and for whom.

 

At the heart of my work is a commitment to collaboration. Not simply as a way of working, but as a way of knowing. I don't believe that knowledge belongs to any one profession, discipline, or institution. Research matters. Professional expertise matters. Lived experience matters. Community wisdom matters. Embodied, creative, and neurodivergent ways of knowing matter. Rather than placing these forms of knowledge in competition, I am interested in what becomes possible when they are brought into genuine conversation with one another. Some of the most meaningful insights emerge not from certainty, but from curiosity, dialogue, and our willingness to think together.

 

For me, catharsis is not simply emotional release. It is the moment something previously unnamed becomes speakable. It is moving from shame to context, from confusion to understanding, from isolation to shared recognition. It is what becomes possible when people, ideas, and systems are held with enough honesty, care, and curiosity for new ways of seeing to emerge.

 

The idea of ripples has become central to how I understand change. Rarely does transformation happen through one grand intervention. More often, it begins with a conversation that shifts someone's thinking. That shift influences how they practise, how they lead, how they relate, or how they design a service, a policy, a piece of technology, or a community. Those changes create further ripples, often extending far beyond what any one person can see.

 

Whether I'm providing supervision, speaking at conferences, facilitating training, conducting research, writing, consulting, or developing resources, I see my role as creating the conditions for those ripples to begin. I hope to create conversations that honour complexity, bridge different ways of knowing, challenge inherited assumptions, and invite us to imagine more ethical, accessible, relational, and inclusive ways of being with one another.

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