About Us

I am Annette Wells, a Registered Psychologist and the founder of New Dawn Psychology.

My work is grounded in neuroaffirming, trauma-informed and compassion-focused practice, with a particular interest in supporting autistic and ADHD people across the lifespan.

My professional approach is also informed by lived experience of autism and ADHD. This contributes to the importance I place on understanding masking, burnout, sensory needs, self-advocacy, identity and the experience of trying to function in environments that may not always fit the person.

I believe therapy works best when it is collaborative, respectful and flexible.

Rather than asking, “How do we make this person function more normally?”, I am more interested in questions such as:

What is happening for this person?
What does their nervous system need?
What has helped them survive until now?
What is costing them energy?
What would make life feel more sustainable?

Safeness. Connection. Belonging

At the heart of my work is the hope that therapy can become a place of safeness — not simply a place where nothing harmful is happening, but a relationship in which there is enough warmth, understanding, acceptance and connection for the nervous system to begin softening its guard.

For many people, particularly autistic and ADHD people, being with others can involve a great deal of monitoring.

Am I making enough eye contact?
Am I talking too much?
Am I being too emotional?
Do I look interested enough?
Am I coping well enough?
Am I asking for too much?

Over time, masking can become an important way of staying connected, avoiding criticism or reducing the risk of rejection.

I do not see these strategies as something that simply needs to be removed. They often developed for very understandable reasons.

Instead, therapy can offer an opportunity to gently explore what these strategies have protected you from, what they continue to do for you, what they cost you, and where you may want more choice.

I am also influenced by relational approaches to therapy and the idea of relational depth — moments where two people are able to meet one another with genuine presence, openness and understanding.

For me, the therapeutic relationship is therefore not simply the backdrop against which techniques are delivered. It is part of the work itself.

My aim is to meet the person in front of me, not just the diagnosis, behaviour or symptom.

That means allowing room for silence, humour, uncertainty, emotion, difference, sensory needs and different ways of communicating.

It also means recognising the difference between fitting in and belonging.

Fitting in can involve learning who we need to be in order to remain acceptable to others.

Belonging allows more room to be known as we actually are.

Therapy can become a place to gently explore the difference between:

“I know how to be acceptable here.”

and

“I can be known here.”

My hope is not to push people to unmask or disclose more than they are ready for.

Instead, I hope to create enough safeness and trust for greater choice to become possible.

Choice about what you share.

Choice about how you communicate.

Choice about when you mask.

Choice about what you need.

Choice about the expectations you continue to carry.

And perhaps greater freedom to discover what feels like you.

Safeness allows us to soften.
Connection allows us to be met.
Belonging allows more of the person to emerge.