Ms Leyli Afsari
Leyli is a UK trained Psychotherapist specializing in working with children, adolescents, and families. She holds a Master’s degree in Counselling and Psychotherapy from the University of Strathclyde, a Bachelor’s Honors degree in Psychology with Counselling Skills from Middlesex University, and is currently pursuing her PhD in Psychology at Heriot-Watt University. She has worked as a counsellor in both Dubai and the UK and is registered with the Community Development Authority, Dubai.
When working with clients, she uses a Person-Centred approach to offer a warm, compassionate, and confidential space for people to explore their experiences without judgment. This promotes acceptance, respect, and individuality. It also enables clients to build self-understanding and awareness, thereby helping them develop healthier relationships and a better sense of self.
Leyli often sees clients that consider themselves as Neurodivergent. She works affirmatively and systematically to support autistic people, ADHDers, and other differences. She has training in concepts such as Executive Function, Working with Hard to Reach Children, and Working with Autistic Adults. She has additional training and experience in working with individuals with trauma, abuse, anxiety, and other mental health needs.
When working with young people, Leyli uses a strengths-based approach, and she prefers to include parents and school professionals in the therapeutic process to help the child thrive. Through the counselling relationship, she hopes clients can discover their inner strength to be able to manage life’s challenges and reach their full potential.
“Wait, don’t all autistic people…?” Examining differences in autism understanding and awareness in the UAE and the UK.
Across the globe, there is high variability in the awareness and understanding of autism and other types of neurodiversity. This study investigates the contrasting perspectives on autism between the UAE and the UK, the latter of which has seen a more recent movement in advocating neuro-affirmative models and fostering advocacy such as the Neurodiversity Movement (NDM) in enhancing inclusive and progressive attitudes. In this study, the general public from the UAE and from the UK completed the free association task (Abric, 1993) and the justification task (Di Giacomo, 1981) as a survey. The research questions were, 1. how does the general public view and describe autism?, 2. What are the key differences and similarities in cultural perspectives on autism between the UAE and the UK?, 3. How does the level of contact with autistic individuals influence one's understanding and perception of autism?
Descriptive statistics was used to summarize and describe the characteristics of the participants in the study. Word frequency analysis was used to identify frequently used words during the free association task to describe autism. After this, a word cloud was created to demonstrate the frequently used words. Inductive thematic analysis was then used to analyze the text in the justification task.
This presentation will outline the study’s findings, and how these will be used to guide an education-based intervention in the UAE with the aim of increasing public awareness, dismantling stigma, and empowering communities to adopt a more inclusive mindset.
References
Abric, J.-C. (1993). Central system, peripheral system: their functions and roles in the dynamics of social representations. Papers on Social Representations 2(2), 75-78.
Di Giacomo, J.-P. (1981). Aspects méthodologiques de l’analyse des représentations [Methodological aspects of the analysis of representations]. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive 1, 397-422.