This is an article I wrote for “Arts of Thought,” a website which shares articles from many different perspectives covering topics like the collective unconscious, self-help skills, philosophical wisdom, and spiritual development. I’ve written two other pieces for them, Neoteny: The Art of Being Young at Heart, and ‘‘The Spiritual Odyssey: New Theories of Developmental Psychology.”
This article focuses on a concept I adapted from evolutionary biology that I call ”positive niche construction” (PNC). Some good examples in the natural world include birds building nests, beavers building dams, bees building hives etc.). I first developed PNC while applying it to my own life and in particular to the mood disorder (unipolar depression) that I’ve had most of my life. Here’s the article:
Managing My Mood Disorder Using Positive Niche Construction
by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.
”I’ve written two books on neurodiversity (The Power of Neurodiversity, and Neurodiversity in the Classroom). In the process of working on these books while simultaneously being in therapy to treat a mood disorder (unipolar depression), I began to pull together what I feel is a workable wellness model that can serve as part of the therapy process for both therapists and clients alike. I call it ‘’positive niche construction.’ It’s based on a concept in evolutionary biology called ‘’niche construction.’’ A good definition of this idea would be: ‘’Helping to ensure the thriving of an organism by directly modifying the environment in such a way that it enhances that organism’s chances for survival.’’ Niche construction is what birds do when they build nests, when spiders spin webs, when ants create ant hills, when beavers build dams and so forth (for more examples, go to nicheconstruction.com). I’ve basically taken this idea and applied it to human ecology, so that a basic definition would go something like this: ‘’Helping to ensure the thriving of a child, teen, or adult by directly modifying the environment in such a way that it enhances that person’s chances for success.’’ In this article, I’d like to outline the basics of positive niche construction and how I have used it to build my own positive niche, thereby enhancing my own mental health in the process of coming to grips with my neurodivergence.
I’ve identified eight basic components for positive niche construction. They are:
- 1. Becoming aware of one’s strengths,
- 2. Relating to exemplars or positive role models who have the same neurodivergency
- 3. Enhancing one’s social networks,
- 4. Using assistive technologies
- 5. Employing strengths to work through difficulties
- 6. Envisioning career aspirations based on strengths
- 7. Making specific modifications to one’s environment (work and/or home setting, or in the case of application to education, to a student’s classroom)
- 8. Developing one’s inner resources
I’m going to go through this list and describe how I have applied it to my own mental health goals. I should mention here that I’ve had a mood disorder all my life, that I’ve had five distinct depressive episodes since I was thirteen, that my father also had a severe mood disorder that kept him from working as a pediatrician for fifteen years, and that I’ve been depression-free for the past seventeen years (partly due to the application of positive niche construction interventions, and partly due to the four psychoactive medications I take for the disorder).
- Strength Awareness. One of the things I focused on in my two books on neurodiversity was the body of research over the past thirty years that has focused on the strengths, assets, and advantages of people who have been diagnosed with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, intellectual disabilities, and social and emotional disorders such as bipolar, PTSD, and obsessive compulsive disorder. In my own case, I learned that people who are depressed often have a number of positive traits. People with mood disorders tend to be more realistic, have a philosophical outlook on life, are good at deep reflection, have a strong immunological response (a fact which surprised me), and also often have a greater degree of compassion for humanity and in particular for those who have suffered. One of the symptoms of depression is fixating on the negative aspects of one’s life, so this unearthing of positive traits has had itself a kind of therapeutic effect on my general outlook. The psychiatric community so often focuses on what’s wrong with neurodivergent people and neglects what is positive in them (e.g.. they turn the positive trait of ‘’reflection’’ into the negative trait of ‘‘rumination’’). So becoming aware of these strengths has made me feel better about myself, bolstered my positive mood, and helped me to communicate the importance of strength awareness to the neurodiversity community.
- Exemplars. I believe it’s important for neurodivergent individuals to learn about people who have their own specific neurodivergence and who did great things in life. One good example for autism spectrum disorder is Temple Grandin, the animal engineer with autism who has become a leading spokesperson for the neurodiversity movement. For depression, there are wide range of individuals such as Abraham Lincoln, Francis Ford Coppola, Frida Kahlo, Robert Lowell, Winston Churchill, and Lady Gaga. By focusing on exemplars (such as having a framed picture of them in your study), you have the shining example of people who don’t let a mood disorder get in their way in living a successful life. Sometimes this works in an idiosyncratic manner. For example, one of my exemplars is David Foster Wallace, since I’m a writer and I find him to be one of the greatest modern writers. Unfortunately, he died by suicide in his forties due to his depression. A few years back, I read his biography by D.T. Max, Every Love Story is a Ghost Story, and learned that while he was working on his novel The Pale King, he felt that his creativity was beginning to wane and he attributed some of this to his taking the medication Nardil (a monoamine oxidase inhibitor – one of your heavier duty depression medications). So he stopped taking it, which caused his depression to resurface, and despite going back on Nardil and trying other medications, nothing could stop his slide toward eventually his taking his own life. This taught me a good cautionary tale: don’t stop taking your medications on your own, especially if they’re keeping your depression at bay!
- Enhanced Social Networks. This one is especially important for people with mood disorders. They (we) tend to isolate, yet isolation causes or exacerbates symptoms of depression. I’ve always tended to be a loner and have just a few good friends. So I’ve identified this area as a ‘’weak spot’’ in my mental health program. As a result, I pay close attention to the importance of being in relation to other people. If I haven’t called a person for a few weeks, I make sure to reach out. I’ve been in some kind of professional therapeutic relationship for most of my adult life (I now see a psychologist once every six weeks, and a psychiatrist every three months to monitor my meds). I make it a point to stay in contact with my surviving family members (I call one sister every Sunday night). When I was asked if my meditation group could meet in my house, I first said no (the isolate talking), but then I had a dream which gave me a cue that it was vitally important that I say yes, which I did, and it was a good thing I did. Even relatively minor social contacts I regard as having value, from the post office clerk to the grocery store checkout person. I recommend that people create a ‘’sociogram’’ which is a mind-map of all the relationships in your life with indications of whether they’re positive or negative (part of this program involves cutting out relationships that seem to be devitalizing or positively harmful to your mental health), and note what you’re doing to strengthen the positive links.
- Assistive Technologies. There are an unbelievable number of apps available that can help a person manage their neurodivergence. For depression, there are mood trackers, and while I only use the ‘’timer’’ function of one of these (Insight Timer), I have my own ‘’low-tech’’ mood tracker, which is a piece of paper with columns where I record the date, my mood (a 4 is suboptimal, a 5 average, and a 6 on the upswing), and other vital data (including my sleep patterns). When I met online with my psychiatrist this week to review my meds and general mental health, he asked about my mood, and I was able to tell him ‘’I’ve had only eight 4’s in the past 365 days’’). But these mood trackers can do much more, helping a person set goals for their mental health, learn self-regulation strategies, and more.
- Strength-Based Learning/Problem Solving Strategies. This particular component of positive niche construction came out of my work in K-12 classrooms. I was a special education teacher for several years, and it always used to bug me that special ed teachers were giving these labeled kids more concentrated doses of what they were failing at. It seemed to me that they should be given material that uses their strengths to help them with their difficulties. So a child with strong visual-spatial skills but weak reading ability should be given reading material with lots of pictures (and should write stories that they illustrate themselves). For my own mood disorder, reflection is a strength and what I need in order to help ameliorate the negative aspects of my mood disorder is to focus on the positive. So journal keeping is one strategy that meets those requirements, and in fact, I’ve kept a personal journal for over forty years. For several years I ended my journal entry for the day with what I called an HM. I’d jot down in a few words my Happiest Moment for the day. Now I use my personal journal primarily to record and interpret my dreams.
- Envisioning Careers. This component of positive niche construction is more relevant to people who are in careers that are not making them happy. It involves again identifying one’s strengths and then determining careers or jobs that make use of those assets. In my own case, I struggled for years as a special education teacher, but also used to go to lots of personal growth workshops. I remember in one of them spilling out my difficulties to the workshop leader and having her respond: ‘’try turning those problems into assets.’’ It took me a while to figure out what she meant, but I remember the grand day when I spread out all my existing published writings on the floor of my apartment and started crying as I realized that I wasn’t meant to be a special education teacher, I was a writer. Making this career shift in my head resulted not too long after in my being able to support myself entirely on my writing and speaking (and have done so for the last forty years).
- Environmental Modifications. One of the main things that lowered my mood was in fact, working for other people within a set work day schedule. It stressed me a great deal to have to bump heads with authorities and be always ‘’on’’ (in the classroom) with children and adolescents for hours at a time. After I left teaching, I had an interim low- stress ‘’career’’ as a freelance typist of college students’ term papers and dissertations. This enabled me to segue into a lifestyle where I could set my own hours and worked for myself as a professional writer and speaker of topics on learning and human development. I still had the people who hired me to deal with as ‘’authorities,’’ but I could always walk away if it wasn’t working (and that happened very rarely). I make my own schedule, which is different from the ‘’neurotypical’’ day. I get up at a little after noon, reach my peak working effectiveness from around 3 to 9:30 pm, and go to bed at 3:30 am. I think people like me who are the ‘’night owls’’ represent a special category of neurodivergent individuals. I have my own large office at home where I work at an improvised stand-up desk, have a skylight and large window bringing in lots of natural light, and take frequent breaks to restore myself. So I say to neurodivergent individuals, pay attention to your personal and working environments, and see what you can do to spruce them up, to make them comfortable low-stress places in which to work and live.
- Inner Resources. This component is all about constructing your ‘’inner niche’’ (your state of mind, personal feelings, attitudes, and motivations). It includes what are usually called stress-reducing activities, including exercise, meditation, yoga, visualization, mindset, and progressive relaxation. The most significant inner resource in my life has been mindfulness meditation. While suffering through one of my major depressive episodes thirty years ago, I took an eight-week course in Marin County with Jack Kornfield, a noted teacher of mindfulness training. I practiced mindfulness intermittently for the next several years, but when I was hit with my last depressive event, a monster of a depression that lasted 16 months, I started practicing it every day without fail (and still do). Mindfulness, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is a simple practice of (mostly commonly) sitting in a relaxed posture, either on the floor or in a chair, closing your eyes, and focusing on your breathing. As you do this, random thoughts and feelings usually appear in your awareness. All you have to do is notice the interruption in a nonjudgmental way, and then return to your sensations of breathing (in your belly, chest, or nostrils) and keep doing this for a set period of time. This practice has helped me immensely with negative thoughts and feelings. Instead of getting trapped in them in the course of daily life, or spinning them out into long unhelpful ‘’stories,’’ I just notice them and move on with my life. This keeps them from digging foxholes in my mental and emotional life where they can chronically plague me and diminish my life spirit. The literature indicates that it is very effective in treating mood disorders.
So, that’s a look at the eight components of positive niche construction. There are undoubtedly other components out there to add to this basic model, but this can be a helpful ‘’map’’ for clients in therapy, students in classrooms, or anybody anywhere who wants to value their neurodiversity and make it a plus instead of a minus in their life.”
See an article I wrote on neurodiversity elsewhere on my website.
For more information about this model and about neurodiversity in general, see my two books:
