Good Girls, Exhausted Nervous Systems: Gendered Socialisation and Neurodivergent Burnout
Tracks
Springbrook Room
| Tuesday, September 1, 2026 |
| 10:30 AM - 11:00 AM |
Overview
Brianna Thomas, The Psych Hive
Three Key Learnings
Understand how gendered socialisation interacts with neurodivergent neurobiology to shape masking, fawning responses, and chronic nervous system activation across development.
Recognise developmental pathways linking relational adaptation and self-monitoring to later burnout, identity disruption, and commonly misinterpreted mental health presentations in neurodivergent girls, women, and gender diverse people.
Apply neurodiversity-affirming clinical principles that shift therapy away from compliance and performance toward regulation, autonomy, and authentic engagement, supporting more sustainable therapeutic outcomes and reducing inadvertent reinforcement of masking within clinical practice.
Speaker
Ms Brianna Thomas
Clinical Psychologist, Phd Candidate
The Psych Hive
Good Girls, Exhausted Nervous Systems: Gendered Socialisation and Neurodivergent Burnout
Abstract
Neurodivergent girls, women, and gender diverse people are frequently described as coping well, socially capable, or highly empathetic. Yet many later present with chronic anxiety, exhaustion, identity confusion, and burnout that appears disproportionate to external stressors. Emerging clinical understanding suggests these outcomes cannot be explained by neurodivergence alone, but by the interaction between neurobiology and gendered socialisation across development.
From early childhood, individuals socialised as girls are often rewarded for compliance, emotional caregiving, and relational harmony. For neurodivergent people, these expectations can foster masking, fawning, and persistent self-monitoring as adaptive strategies for belonging and safety within neuronormative environments. While these adaptations may support short-term social success, they can also require sustained nervous system activation, increasing vulnerability to overwhelm, shutdown, and burnout over time.
This presentation reframes masking and burnout through a developmental and nervous system lens, integrating neurodiversity-affirming practice with insights from developmental psychology, gender sociology, and regulation science. Rather than conceptualising distress as individual deficit or reduced resilience, attendees will explore how cumulative relational adaptation shapes identity formation, help-seeking patterns, and mental health presentations across adolescence and adulthood.
Clinical examples will illustrate how traditional therapeutic approaches may unintentionally reinforce compliance-based coping or relational over-responsibility. Participants will be invited to consider practical shifts toward therapeutic environments that prioritise nervous system safety, autonomy, and authentic self-expression. By situating neurodivergent distress within broader social and relational contexts, this session offers clinicians a compassionate and contemporary framework for understanding burnout while supporting sustainable wellbeing for neurodivergent clients across the lifespan.
From early childhood, individuals socialised as girls are often rewarded for compliance, emotional caregiving, and relational harmony. For neurodivergent people, these expectations can foster masking, fawning, and persistent self-monitoring as adaptive strategies for belonging and safety within neuronormative environments. While these adaptations may support short-term social success, they can also require sustained nervous system activation, increasing vulnerability to overwhelm, shutdown, and burnout over time.
This presentation reframes masking and burnout through a developmental and nervous system lens, integrating neurodiversity-affirming practice with insights from developmental psychology, gender sociology, and regulation science. Rather than conceptualising distress as individual deficit or reduced resilience, attendees will explore how cumulative relational adaptation shapes identity formation, help-seeking patterns, and mental health presentations across adolescence and adulthood.
Clinical examples will illustrate how traditional therapeutic approaches may unintentionally reinforce compliance-based coping or relational over-responsibility. Participants will be invited to consider practical shifts toward therapeutic environments that prioritise nervous system safety, autonomy, and authentic self-expression. By situating neurodivergent distress within broader social and relational contexts, this session offers clinicians a compassionate and contemporary framework for understanding burnout while supporting sustainable wellbeing for neurodivergent clients across the lifespan.
Biography
Brianna Thomas is an AuDHD clinical psychologist working with neurodivergent children, adolescents, and adults, with a particular focus on girls, women, and gender diverse people. Her work explores the intersection of identity, nervous systems, and burnout within neurodiversity-affirming practice. Brianna is a Certified Synergetic Play Therapist who integrates creativity, play, and relational approaches into therapy and assessment. She is a PhD candidate researching neurodiversity-affirming autism assessment, a member of AusPATH, and co-director of The Psych Hive, a neuroaffirming psychology practice. Outside of work, Brianna loves spending time with her very enthusiastic bordoodle puppies.
