Giancarlo Cristea — Neurodivergence-Affirming Psychotherapy

Giancarlo Cristea is an integrative psychotherapist and counsellor based in Bournemouth, Dorset, who works online with neurodivergent adults across the UK and internationally. He is autistic and ADHD himself, identified late, and a disability rights activist — so clients can expect a therapist who does not need masking, meltdowns, shutdowns or sensory overload explained from first principles, and who treats neurodivergence as a way of perceiving the world to understand rather than a problem to correct.

Sessions are shaped around the client rather than a standard template. Stimming, pauses for processing and direct communication are welcome, and the aim is a space where unmasking is safe. He draws on several therapeutic models and combines them to suit the person: Internal Family Systems, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, DBT-informed skills, Schema Therapy, polyvagal, person-centred and transpersonal approaches, and trauma-informed somatic work, with psychedelic integration also listed among his modalities. The issues he works with include ADHD, autism, AuDHD, PDA, OCD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia, and the experiences that tend to come with them — burnout, masking, rejection sensitivity, executive dysfunction, and the questions of identity that follow a late diagnosis or self-identification.

He is a registered accredited member of the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society, MNCPS (Acc.), a register accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, and holds a first-class BSc (Hons) in Counselling and Coaching from London Metropolitan University. Sessions last 50 minutes and take place online, in English or Romanian, which opens the door for Romanian speakers who would rather work in their first language. A free introductory call of 15 to 20 minutes, with no obligation, is the starting point.