The Resistance-to-Recognition Pattern: What Happens When New Truths Challenge What We Thought We Knew

“Does neurodiversity even exist? Can you prove it? Can’t evidence be faked?” This was a question I was asked recently while delivering management training to a large corporation.

I understood why it was asked. There is a lot going around at the moment questioning neurodiversity.  And questioning is good: We should never take anything at face value. Evidence should be examined critically, claims should be challenged, and our understanding should be allowed to evolve.

But there is a difference between critical thinking and resistance to something that challenges what we thought we knew. What I am seeing in the media and in wider society feels, to me, like part of a much more familiar pattern.

The resistance-to-recognition pattern

When something challenges an established understanding, there is often a recognisable progression:

1. Something becomes visible: A truth that was previously overlooked, misunderstood or poorly understood starts to become more visible.

2. It challenges what we thought we knew: The new understanding doesn’t fit comfortably with existing beliefs, assumptions or explanations.

3. We question, deny or explain it away: This is often where resistance appears. The evidence is questioned. Alternative explanations are proposed. The phenomenon itself may be dismissed or reframed as something else.

4. Evidence and lived experience accumulate: Over time, the evidence grows. But so does something else: the lived experience of the people actually experiencing it. That lived experience can be particularly difficult to dismiss because it isn’t an abstract concept. These are real people describing what their lives are actually like.

5. The reality can no longer be denied: Eventually, denying the reality becomes harder to sustain than accepting it. Understanding changes.

We have seen this before

This isn’t a new phenomenon. There are many examples throughout history of things that were once viewed through a particular lens, only for that understanding to change as evidence accumulated:

Homosexuality was once explained through things like trauma and parenting and was classified as a mental illness in the DSM until 1973.

Left-handedness was historically treated as something that needed to be corrected, with theories that it was caused by trauma or other pathology.

And then there was the belief that the Earth was flat…

Our understanding of the natural world has changed dramatically as evidence challenged ideas that once seemed obvious, and we don’t understand everything yet, so of course it’s still happening.

Neurodiversity is a relatively new framework for understanding neurological differences, and our understanding of it is still developing. This pattern is exactly what we should expect. There will be debate. There will be disagreement. There will be poor research alongside good research. There will be questions about definitions, models, assessment, diagnosis and how best to support people. That is healthy.

History tells us that the evidence and understanding will become increasingly established, and we will reach an equilibrium where there is recognition, acceptance and ultimately respect.

If the pattern I see is correct, we are somewhere around Step 3. We just need to get through this rocky bit to get to Step 5, where things will look a lot better. And yes, that feels challenging at the moment, but it will pass.

When a wave hits a boat, the boat rocks. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is going to sink. It needs time to find its balance again.

For me, the important thing isn’t to pretend that the waves aren’t happening or to fight every single one. It is to avoid taking on water while they are.

I know what this kind of noise can do to my own nervous system. I know that spending hours watching, reading and responding to every challenge would leave me angry, upset and distracted. So I’m choosing not to. Instead, I’m choosing to put my energy somewhere I think it can make a difference: I’m going to keep supporting neurodivergent people to live their best, most authentic lives and to thrive. I’m going to keep supporting businesses and schools to get the best possible outcomes for their employees and pupils. And I’m going to keep contributing to research that helps us understand neurodiversity better.

Because that is where I want my energy to go: towards understanding, towards better support, and towards a future where neurodivergent people don’t have to spend quite so much energy explaining or defending themselves.

If all the noise around neurodiversity is making you feel unsettled, you don’t have to engage with all of it. You don’t have to watch every documentary. You don’t have to read every argument. You don’t have to respond to every challenge. And you don’t have to prove your reality to everyone who questions it.

Look after yourself.

The boat will settle.

And I can see something really rather lovely on the horizon.