Writing
#1 new release in Popular Neuropsychology
For many autistic people, emotions can feel confusing, overwhelming, or difficult to make sense of. Traditional explanations often focus on deficits or pathology, overlooking the unique ways autistic brains and bodies experience the world.
In Wired to Feel, Martha Sweezy and I bring together neuroscience, predictive processing, Internal Family Systems, and lived experience to offer a new understanding of emotion—one rooted in curiosity, compassion, and connection rather than judgment.
Our hope is that readers come away with a deeper understanding of themselves and a greater appreciation for the remarkable ways human beings make sense of their experiences.
Other Published Writing
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A Neuroscience Perspective on the IFS Concept of Parts
With Martha Sweezy · Psychology Today · October 1, 2026
What are the “parts” we encounter in IFS? We explore the possibility that parts represent learned anticipatory patterns: expectations about what will happen, accompanied by familiar ways of feeling and acting. We also consider how relating to these patterns as parts can engage empathy and compassion toward ourselves.
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A Neuroscience Perspective on the Concept of Self in IFS
With Martha Sweezy · Psychology Today · July 20, 2026
We explore Self through predictive processing, proposing that balanced precision may help explain the conditions supporting curiosity, compassion, and flexibility. This account connects the experience of Self with the capacity to consider different perspectives and learn from new information.
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Internal Family Systems and the Predictive Brain
With Martha Sweezy · Psychology Today · Updated April 26, 2026
We examine how past experience shapes the expectations that organize attention, emotion, bodily responses, and protective behavior. We propose that repeated, manageable experiences of curiosity and connection can help those expectations change, including through practice outside therapy sessions.
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What Is Autism? Rethinking Autism as Sensory Surplus
New Harbinger · April 25, 2026
Beginning with a personal experience of overwhelm, I explore how sensory intensity, prediction, and uncertainty can shape autistic experience. The article asks how our understanding of autism changes when we consider an abundance of sensory information and the conditions needed to make sense of it.
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My Autistic Identity Crisis
Parts & Self · August 8, 2024
I explore the uncertainty of living without an autism diagnosis and the changes in identity that recognition can bring. Drawing on personal experience, I examine the impact of having that identity questioned and how clinicians, friends, and family can offer meaningful support.
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The Autistic Self—Reframing Ideas of Pathology
Parts & Self · December 14, 2022
Drawing on my experience as an autistic person and IFS practitioner, I explore why sensory and neurological differences must inform IFS practice. I consider how diagnosis can support self-understanding and why expressions of Self need to be understood within each person’s neurodevelopmental experience.