Listen now (69 min) | In episode 82, Chris and Emma talk with Mattia Maurée about the intersection of ADHD, autism, and PDA—the Pervasive Drive for Autonomy. Mattia is an AuDHD coach and host of the ADHD Flourishing podcast. We discuss what it actually means to flourish rather than just cope or survive, why the pathology paradigm failed so many of us, and how positive disintegration offers a different lens for understanding intense neurodivergent experiences.
It is interesting to hear PDA framed as a '‘Pervasive Drive for Autonomy'‘. However, I find a logical conflict here. In TPD, the Third Factor, the drive for autonomy is an autonomous developmental choice. By turning this choice into a diagnostic label (PDA), doesn't that effectively pathologize the very agency Dąbrowski was trying to highlight? As someone seeking to be the Sole Administrator of my experience, I find that replacing one set of labels with another, even '‘flourishing’' ones actually restricts the vertical growth the theory describes.
This westernized version of the theory feels like it is being used to sell a labelling system, which contradicts the whole point of TPD.
To be clear, this is a theoretical tension I'm genuinely curious about, not a dismissal of PDA experiences.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment, Natalia. This is exactly the kind of theoretical tension worth exploring, and I appreciate you framing it as genuine curiosity.
I think the key distinction is between identification and pathologization. I can identify with neurotypes or recognize common lived experiences of intensity without pathologizing them. For me, discovering PDA was not about applying a new diagnostic label to myself—it was about finally having language for an experience that had made me feel broken my whole life. The reframe from "pathological demand avoidance" to "pervasive drive for autonomy" is precisely an attempt to move away from pathology and toward understanding.
You raise an important point about the third factor and autonomous choice. But I'd push back gently on the idea that recognizing a shared pattern of experience automatically becomes a unilevel group identity. Finding others who share your experience can actually support the development of autonomy—it helped me stop internalizing the message that something was fundamentally wrong with me, which freed me to move toward my own values.
These labels didn't exist when Dąbrowski was developing his theory. What we're trying to do is offer people a nonpathologizing framework for understanding their differences—not replace one set of labels with another. The goal isn't to sell a labeling system; it's to help people stop pathologizing themselves so they can actually engage in the developmental work the theory describes.
Marni and I will actually be exploring PDA and TPD in an upcoming episode of PDA: Resistance and Resilience, so stay tuned for more on this. I think there's a lot more to say about how these frameworks can work together rather than in conflict.
Thank you for your reply. Now I'm curious whether, for you finding language for that experience functioned as a kind of foundation for autonomy? Something that made later Third Factor choices possible, rather than replacing them?
Yes, I think that's a fair way to put it. I discovered TPD first, and PDA came later. It was actually PDA that opened the door to considering autism, too. So it was all part of an ongoing journey rather than one pivotal moment.
By the time I found PDA, third factor choices were already possible for me. But that capacity came from years of incremental progress—therapy, relationships, studying the theory, doing the inner work. The language of PDA didn't create that capacity so much as it helped me understand myself better. When you've spent decades thinking your need for autonomy is a character flaw, finally understanding it as something real frees up a lot of energy that was going toward self-blame. "Why can't I just work like everyone else?"
And I'll add that honoring my autonomy has meant living positive maladjustment. That is not an easy path. It has cost me jobs and relationships. But it's the only path that feels like mine.
Pardon my uneducated and belated response but I see a nuanced yet significant difference between the two.
I perceived the third factor as an autonomous drive for cognitively directed personal growth.
Whereas my PDA proclivities are based more in a drive for autonomy holistically in how I live my life.
The third factor is specific autonomy in how I root out my own insecurities and develop my personality to a desired goal. This would be severely hampered if wasn't allowed to function in a natural way with my environment.
My PDA acts to format my environment to a form more conducive to improvement but the force to improve myself is based in the third factor.
My oversimplification goes something like this…
PDA is a mechanism that helps me know something is wrong.
The third factor is a mechanism that helps me determine what is right.
If I have misrepresented any of these ideas in TPD please excuse me. Also please correct me as I haven't ever talked with someone knowledgeable about this before and I am simply corresponding the TPD to internally derived theories.
Travis, no need to excuse yourself at all. I think you're onto something really insightful here, and I love how you've articulated this.
Your distinction resonates with me. The way I experience it, PDA is very much a nervous system thing. It's my body telling me something is off—that my autonomy is being impinged upon, that the environment isn't right for me. It's involuntary. I don't choose to have a stress response when I encounter a demand that threatens my sense of autonomy. It just happens.
The third factor, on the other hand, is where conscious choice lives. It's the dynamism where I'm actively deciding who I want to be, what's more like me and what's less like me, and then acting on that. Dąbrowski described it as a dynamism of conscious choice that directs your development.
Your description of PDA telling you something is wrong, and the third factor helping you determine what is right, actually captures something important. PDA is more like a signal from the nervous system. The third factor is what you do with that signal once you have the awareness and capacity to act on it.
I'd add one layer: for me, PDA also created a lot of confusion before I understood it. When your nervous system is constantly telling you something is wrong, but you don't have a framework for understanding why, you can end up blaming yourself. Understanding PDA helped me stop doing that, which freed up energy for the third factor work—the conscious choosing.
And you haven't misrepresented anything. The fact that you've arrived at these ideas through your own internal exploration is actually a beautiful example of what the theory describes. Thank you for sharing these thoughts.
Ooo I can't wait for this Chris and agree with your sentiments about the frameworks working in tandem rather than via push and pull. It shall make for an interesting episode indeed
This is my first introduction to PDA and positive disintegration and I had no this was an actual thing and not just me being...a crappy human. This is my life, even down to the chronic pain. To the accommodation, the temp jobs, the spotty resumes, the "treatment resistant depression" and SI and willingness to do dangerous things and misdiagnosis of bipolar, and the shame...question: can you recommend resources for parents with exceptional kids who are trying to parent "us?" Trying to help family members, which led to my own discovery and since I basically can't work I'm trying to help them with concrete skills to help their kid flourish (while not melting down and burning out themselves).
Welcome, Dove, and thank you for sharing this. I'm so glad the episode resonated, even though I'm sorry you've lived so much of what we described—the chronic pain, the misdiagnoses, the "treatment resistant" labels, all of it. You're not a crappy human. You never were.
What a gift you're trying to give your family members by helping them understand their kid through this lens. Here are some resources that might help:
PDA: Resistance and Resilience—the podcast I co-host with Marni Kammersell, focused specifically on PDA from a non-pathologizing, lived experience perspective.
Mattia's AuDHD Flourishing Podcast—exactly what we were talking about in this episode, focused on flourishing rather than just coping.
The fact that you're doing this work while managing your own health and limitations speaks to exactly the kind of care and integrity we were talking about in this episode. Be gentle with yourself too.
In light of some of this episode's discussion, I too am in the midst of a move. Also local, yet we know that doesn't mean it's necessarily simple! The power of transitions and moving over thresholds. A topic for another time.
I just listened today, and once again, you and Emma do not disappoint. I remember Mattia from the PDA: Resistance and Resilience podcast. It goes to show that your guests are engaging across much more than a single episode. We can be so multi-dimensional that differently focused podcasts bring a richness and depth to guests vis-à-vis related topics yet in differing realms.
I very much appreciated the discussion around the challenges associated with staying in a job. For me, it's deeply relatable. It also gives me comfort to have affirmation that I'm not alone in this aspect. As you discuss, our complexity does not always translate well to environments seeking uniformity and consistency. Those leading and managing such places aren't inherently bad (though in the moment they can feel downright devious and evil!). Rather I want to believe they are doing the best they can with the tools they have at hand (which might be less than optimal). And dealing with anything out of the norm can appear threatening... and, according, you may need to be extricated from the "system" for non-compliance.
I found my pattern is that I'd connect with someone in an organization who "got me." They'd often create a position for me based on my abilities that were difficult to classify within a standard job title. For many years, my most dreaded question at social gatherings was the quintessentially American, "What do you do?" 😸
And that dovetails with Mattia's "Do less." It recalls something I fashioned in my days at Silicon Valley startups of three decades ago. Most of these companies were touting products that would allow one to "do more in less time!" Something bothered me about that. In my more cynical early adulthood, I privately responded, "I want to do less in more time!"
More recently, I see that phrasing in a more positive philosophical and spiritual light. The longer I walk the paths of this world, the more I want to focus on being rather than doing. Thank you for helping to shed light on why this can be helpful and healthy.
I always think my comments are going to brief! 😹 You all inspire much thought and creativity for your listeners. We are grateful for that.
Eric, the pattern you describe—connecting with someone who "got you" and having positions created around abilities that resist standard classification—that's such a recognizable experience, and it's one that rarely gets named so clearly. The dread around "What do you do?" makes complete sense when your work has always lived outside conventional categories.
Your evolution of "do less in more time" is wonderful. From Silicon Valley cynicism to something genuinely philosophical, that shift from doing to being sounds like real development, not retreat. There's a big difference between opting out and growing into a more honest relationship with what actually matters to you.
And we appreciate the generosity you extend toward the people managing those systems. Holding both things, that being extricated for non-compliance causes real harm AND that the people doing it are often working with limited tools, takes a lot of maturity.
I'm so glad the episodes keep sparking this kind of thinking. And I hope your move goes smoothly! You're right that transitions over thresholds deserve their own conversation.
It is interesting to hear PDA framed as a '‘Pervasive Drive for Autonomy'‘. However, I find a logical conflict here. In TPD, the Third Factor, the drive for autonomy is an autonomous developmental choice. By turning this choice into a diagnostic label (PDA), doesn't that effectively pathologize the very agency Dąbrowski was trying to highlight? As someone seeking to be the Sole Administrator of my experience, I find that replacing one set of labels with another, even '‘flourishing’' ones actually restricts the vertical growth the theory describes.
This westernized version of the theory feels like it is being used to sell a labelling system, which contradicts the whole point of TPD.
To be clear, this is a theoretical tension I'm genuinely curious about, not a dismissal of PDA experiences.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment, Natalia. This is exactly the kind of theoretical tension worth exploring, and I appreciate you framing it as genuine curiosity.
I think the key distinction is between identification and pathologization. I can identify with neurotypes or recognize common lived experiences of intensity without pathologizing them. For me, discovering PDA was not about applying a new diagnostic label to myself—it was about finally having language for an experience that had made me feel broken my whole life. The reframe from "pathological demand avoidance" to "pervasive drive for autonomy" is precisely an attempt to move away from pathology and toward understanding.
You raise an important point about the third factor and autonomous choice. But I'd push back gently on the idea that recognizing a shared pattern of experience automatically becomes a unilevel group identity. Finding others who share your experience can actually support the development of autonomy—it helped me stop internalizing the message that something was fundamentally wrong with me, which freed me to move toward my own values.
These labels didn't exist when Dąbrowski was developing his theory. What we're trying to do is offer people a nonpathologizing framework for understanding their differences—not replace one set of labels with another. The goal isn't to sell a labeling system; it's to help people stop pathologizing themselves so they can actually engage in the developmental work the theory describes.
Marni and I will actually be exploring PDA and TPD in an upcoming episode of PDA: Resistance and Resilience, so stay tuned for more on this. I think there's a lot more to say about how these frameworks can work together rather than in conflict.
Thank you for your reply. Now I'm curious whether, for you finding language for that experience functioned as a kind of foundation for autonomy? Something that made later Third Factor choices possible, rather than replacing them?
Yes, I think that's a fair way to put it. I discovered TPD first, and PDA came later. It was actually PDA that opened the door to considering autism, too. So it was all part of an ongoing journey rather than one pivotal moment.
By the time I found PDA, third factor choices were already possible for me. But that capacity came from years of incremental progress—therapy, relationships, studying the theory, doing the inner work. The language of PDA didn't create that capacity so much as it helped me understand myself better. When you've spent decades thinking your need for autonomy is a character flaw, finally understanding it as something real frees up a lot of energy that was going toward self-blame. "Why can't I just work like everyone else?"
And I'll add that honoring my autonomy has meant living positive maladjustment. That is not an easy path. It has cost me jobs and relationships. But it's the only path that feels like mine.
Pardon my uneducated and belated response but I see a nuanced yet significant difference between the two.
I perceived the third factor as an autonomous drive for cognitively directed personal growth.
Whereas my PDA proclivities are based more in a drive for autonomy holistically in how I live my life.
The third factor is specific autonomy in how I root out my own insecurities and develop my personality to a desired goal. This would be severely hampered if wasn't allowed to function in a natural way with my environment.
My PDA acts to format my environment to a form more conducive to improvement but the force to improve myself is based in the third factor.
My oversimplification goes something like this…
PDA is a mechanism that helps me know something is wrong.
The third factor is a mechanism that helps me determine what is right.
If I have misrepresented any of these ideas in TPD please excuse me. Also please correct me as I haven't ever talked with someone knowledgeable about this before and I am simply corresponding the TPD to internally derived theories.
Travis, no need to excuse yourself at all. I think you're onto something really insightful here, and I love how you've articulated this.
Your distinction resonates with me. The way I experience it, PDA is very much a nervous system thing. It's my body telling me something is off—that my autonomy is being impinged upon, that the environment isn't right for me. It's involuntary. I don't choose to have a stress response when I encounter a demand that threatens my sense of autonomy. It just happens.
The third factor, on the other hand, is where conscious choice lives. It's the dynamism where I'm actively deciding who I want to be, what's more like me and what's less like me, and then acting on that. Dąbrowski described it as a dynamism of conscious choice that directs your development.
Your description of PDA telling you something is wrong, and the third factor helping you determine what is right, actually captures something important. PDA is more like a signal from the nervous system. The third factor is what you do with that signal once you have the awareness and capacity to act on it.
I'd add one layer: for me, PDA also created a lot of confusion before I understood it. When your nervous system is constantly telling you something is wrong, but you don't have a framework for understanding why, you can end up blaming yourself. Understanding PDA helped me stop doing that, which freed up energy for the third factor work—the conscious choosing.
And you haven't misrepresented anything. The fact that you've arrived at these ideas through your own internal exploration is actually a beautiful example of what the theory describes. Thank you for sharing these thoughts.
Ooo I can't wait for this Chris and agree with your sentiments about the frameworks working in tandem rather than via push and pull. It shall make for an interesting episode indeed
This is my first introduction to PDA and positive disintegration and I had no this was an actual thing and not just me being...a crappy human. This is my life, even down to the chronic pain. To the accommodation, the temp jobs, the spotty resumes, the "treatment resistant depression" and SI and willingness to do dangerous things and misdiagnosis of bipolar, and the shame...question: can you recommend resources for parents with exceptional kids who are trying to parent "us?" Trying to help family members, which led to my own discovery and since I basically can't work I'm trying to help them with concrete skills to help their kid flourish (while not melting down and burning out themselves).
Welcome, Dove, and thank you for sharing this. I'm so glad the episode resonated, even though I'm sorry you've lived so much of what we described—the chronic pain, the misdiagnoses, the "treatment resistant" labels, all of it. You're not a crappy human. You never were.
What a gift you're trying to give your family members by helping them understand their kid through this lens. Here are some resources that might help:
PDA: Resistance and Resilience—the podcast I co-host with Marni Kammersell, focused specifically on PDA from a non-pathologizing, lived experience perspective.
Mattia's AuDHD Flourishing Podcast—exactly what we were talking about in this episode, focused on flourishing rather than just coping.
The PDA Society (UK-based but excellent resources): https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/
Amanda Diekman's low-demand parenting approach—her book Low-Demand Parenting, and podcast with the same name
For positive disintegration:
Our podcast! We have a Dabrowski 101 episode and video on YouTube with an intro to the theory.
Dabrowski Center: https://www.dabrowskicenter.org/
For understanding giftedness and intensity:
Mellow Out by Michael M. Piechowski is an essential book: https://www.rfwp.com/bookstore/mellow-out-they-say-if-i-only-could/
The fact that you're doing this work while managing your own health and limitations speaks to exactly the kind of care and integrity we were talking about in this episode. Be gentle with yourself too.
Would it be ok to contact you via DM regarding a not quite related topic?
Yes, please feel free to reach out.
In light of some of this episode's discussion, I too am in the midst of a move. Also local, yet we know that doesn't mean it's necessarily simple! The power of transitions and moving over thresholds. A topic for another time.
I just listened today, and once again, you and Emma do not disappoint. I remember Mattia from the PDA: Resistance and Resilience podcast. It goes to show that your guests are engaging across much more than a single episode. We can be so multi-dimensional that differently focused podcasts bring a richness and depth to guests vis-à-vis related topics yet in differing realms.
I very much appreciated the discussion around the challenges associated with staying in a job. For me, it's deeply relatable. It also gives me comfort to have affirmation that I'm not alone in this aspect. As you discuss, our complexity does not always translate well to environments seeking uniformity and consistency. Those leading and managing such places aren't inherently bad (though in the moment they can feel downright devious and evil!). Rather I want to believe they are doing the best they can with the tools they have at hand (which might be less than optimal). And dealing with anything out of the norm can appear threatening... and, according, you may need to be extricated from the "system" for non-compliance.
I found my pattern is that I'd connect with someone in an organization who "got me." They'd often create a position for me based on my abilities that were difficult to classify within a standard job title. For many years, my most dreaded question at social gatherings was the quintessentially American, "What do you do?" 😸
And that dovetails with Mattia's "Do less." It recalls something I fashioned in my days at Silicon Valley startups of three decades ago. Most of these companies were touting products that would allow one to "do more in less time!" Something bothered me about that. In my more cynical early adulthood, I privately responded, "I want to do less in more time!"
More recently, I see that phrasing in a more positive philosophical and spiritual light. The longer I walk the paths of this world, the more I want to focus on being rather than doing. Thank you for helping to shed light on why this can be helpful and healthy.
I always think my comments are going to brief! 😹 You all inspire much thought and creativity for your listeners. We are grateful for that.
Eric, the pattern you describe—connecting with someone who "got you" and having positions created around abilities that resist standard classification—that's such a recognizable experience, and it's one that rarely gets named so clearly. The dread around "What do you do?" makes complete sense when your work has always lived outside conventional categories.
Your evolution of "do less in more time" is wonderful. From Silicon Valley cynicism to something genuinely philosophical, that shift from doing to being sounds like real development, not retreat. There's a big difference between opting out and growing into a more honest relationship with what actually matters to you.
And we appreciate the generosity you extend toward the people managing those systems. Holding both things, that being extricated for non-compliance causes real harm AND that the people doing it are often working with limited tools, takes a lot of maturity.
I'm so glad the episodes keep sparking this kind of thinking. And I hope your move goes smoothly! You're right that transitions over thresholds deserve their own conversation.