Therapeutic Skills for Neurodivergent Teens & Young Adults: Interoception Skills
Read Time: 10 minutes
Psst, you! Yeah, you! I’m here to let you in on a little secret. Get this: therapy isn’t just a space to spill your thoughts and emotions (although, obviously, we’re here for that too). Therapy can be a safer place to learn practical skills that make life more manageable and fulfilling.
These therapeutic skills, or tools as we sometimes call them, can be beneficial for everyone, but particularly crucial for those of us who fall on the neurodivergent spectrum. Many neurodivergent adolescents, teens, and young adults, including those with autism, ADHD, or sensory processing differences, struggle with body cues that can be crucial to interpreting emotional or physical needs and navigating an ableist world. These inner sensations, like knowing when to use the bathroom or when to eat when hungry, are called interoception skills.
Without further ado, let’s dive into what exactly interoception is, how this skill impacts neurodivergent folx, and how therapy can help you build practical skills you can use to strengthen it.
What is Interoception?
As mentioned before, interoception refers to the internal sense of what's happening inside your body. It’s your ability to feel hunger, thirst, the need to use the bathroom, temperature changes, and even emotions like anxiety or anger. Essentially, interoception is how you monitor your body’s internal states.
For neurodivergent individuals, interoception can be a bit more challenging to navigate. The connection between physical sensations and emotions may feel blurry, delayed, or overwhelming. This can lead to difficulty recognizing when you’re hungry, full, cold, or tired. Alternatively, you may be confident in how you feel internally, but find yourself constantly misread by others (even if they’re well-intentioned), which can lead to self-doubt and confusion.
Psst...by the way…
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Why Interoception Matters
Whether you or your child struggles with interoception or with being understood, knowing how to notice, understand, and regulate these inner sensations is foundational for emotional regulation (and subsequently, a higher quality of life). Without knowing what's going on inside your body, it’s tough to manage your feelings proactively. For example, if you struggle with interoception skills, you may not notice that you’re feeling stressed or anxious until you’re already overwhelmed, which makes it that much more difficult to calm down or ask for help.
Interoception skills provide a pathway to help manage sensory overload, meltdowns, and emotional dysregulation. If we take the time to practice interoception, we can improve our emotional regulation, which helps reduce anxiety and stress, making it easier to navigate the challenges of everyday life.
Common Challenges with Interoception in Neurodivergent Teens & Young Adults
Maybe as a neurodivergent young person, you’ve struggled with the following when it comes to interoception:
Difficulty Identifying Emotions: You struggle to connect the dots between how your body feels and what emotions you’re experiencing. A racing heart might be mistaken for excitement when it’s actually anxiety.
Over or Under Sensitivity: Folx on the autism spectrum or with sensory processing differences may either feel too much or too little. For instance, you may not recognize hunger cues until you’re ravenous. You may also find it hard to notice pain or discomfort.
Delayed Responses: You have a hard time realizing you’re stressed or upset until long after the trigger occurs, making it harder to manage your emotions in real-time.
Difficulty Self-Regulating: You react impulsively or struggle with meltdowns or shutdowns.
Difficulty Communicating Your Emotions: While you may understand how you’re feeling, you find it frustrating that others seem to misunderstand you and sometimes speak for you.
If this resonates with you, it’s important to understand that you’re not alone, nor are you “broken.” We all have different interoception signals that we interpret in different ways. The good news is that we all can benefit from strengthening these skills.
How Interoception Skills Benefit Teens and Young Adults
Learning more about interoception skills and practicing them can make it easier to form better relationships with ourselves and others, as well as manage school, work and daily life. Other benefits include:
Improved Emotional Regulation: By understanding our body's cues, we're better able to manage anxiety, stress, and other emotions before they feel uncontrollable.
Better Self-Care: With stronger interoception, recognizing hunger, thirst, tiredness, or the need for a break becomes more intuitive. This can help neurodivergent folx take better care of our physical and mental health.
Greater Independence: Developing interoception skills can lead to greater autonomy. We’re better equipped to handle daily tasks and self-regulate without constant reminders from others.
Increased Social Skills: Emotional awareness supports social skills. If we’re better able to understand and regulate our emotions, it’s much easier to communicate and engage authentically with others while avoiding misunderstandings.
Ways Teens & Young Adults Can Build Interoception Skills
At Interfaith Bridge Counseling, we sometimes suggest tools like weighted blankets, breathing exercises, and sensory-friendly activities to help neurodivergent teens and young adults strengthen their interoceptive abilities. We practice skills like:
Body Scans and Check-Ins: Teens and young adults can practice tuning into their bodies by focusing on different parts, starting from the toes and working up to the head. Ask yourself questions like: "What am I feeling in this part of my body? Is it tense, relaxed, hot, cold?"
Emotion-Body Mapping: Here we practice making connections between our emotions and physical sensations. For example, you can ask yourself, “Where do I feel anger in my body? Is it in my chest, stomach, or hands?” By mapping emotions to body sensations, we learn to recognize the physical signs before emotions become overwhelming.
Routine Breaks for Self-Reflection: We stress creating structured times throughout the day to check in with emotions and body sensations. Setting an alarm for these check-ins can be a helpful reminder for those of us who are still learning how to tune into our interoceptive signals.
Journaling: Finally, writing about feelings and physical sensations can help us reflect on our emotional and bodily experiences. Journaling about how our body feels when we’re anxious, angry, or happy can make those patterns easier to recognize in the future.
Learning Interoception Skills through Therapy for Teens & Young Adults in Denver, CO
It’s worth saying again: building interoception skills is important for everyone, but particularly for neurodivergent teens and young adults. Whether to better understand our bodily sensations and emotions or to better communicate our authentic selves to others, working on interoception skills can greatly improve our quality of life. At Interfaith Bridge Counseling, we’re here to support neurodivergent individuals and their families, providing the tools and guidance needed to strengthen these skills. Reach out today to learn more about therapy for young people in Colorado and how we can help you live a more fulfilling life.
About Our Author | Lena McCain MA, LPC. 0017723
Lena McCain is our Founder here at Interfaith Bridge Counseling, where she continues her support as our Clinical Director. She also holds a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Mental Health: Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University.
Lena’s drive and passions lie in the realm of community building and youth collaboration, which she has spent the last 12 years studying with an emphasis on one’s exploration of personal growth, community healing, and multicultural values. Lena’s expertise in these areas and the therapeutic field acts as a reminder to our community, teens, and young adults that they are not alone in their experience of life.