If you or your loved one go into fight, flight, freeze, shut-down, or people-pleasing out of fear in daily life, a PDA lens will likely be supportive to you. This is especially likely if you/your loved one are sometimes unable to do one or more tasks of daily life that you want to do, or if you have a pattern of exerting control over people or tasks to feel safe. Click below for a description of PDA as we define it in The PDA Safe Circle.

The PDA Safe Circle™ Approach goes deeper than many other courses on PDA. It gives tools to support PDAers throughout our lives, not only in burnout, and it helps PDAers of all ages understand ourselves; it's not only to help teachers or parents to support PDA children. With simple visuals and actionable exercises, the Approach helps you conceptualize what is going on for your PDAer (you or a loved one) and make grounded decisions to decrease distress and increase thriving. It's an entire schema of understanding and action that is effective both in burnout and out, for kids, teens and adults. In articulating the Approach, I stood on the shoulders of many wonderful disciplines, including disability justice, evolutionary psychology, Internal Family Systems, indigenous child-rearing, Design Thinking, improvisational theater, and even hospital clowning!

You bet. By using the extended metaphor of a circle and its boundary to explain the PDA nervous system, The PDA Safe Circle™ Approach explains PDA quickly to anyone, including those totally new to the idea of nervous system threat responses, and those who are skeptical about PDA. The visuals also give a framework for a PDAer to understand themselves - even if a PDA or neurodivergent identity is outside their safe circle.

​Membership gives you access to The PDA Safe Circle™ community, available through the Mighty Networks app on iOS, Android, and browser. Inside the app, you get access to: A robust asynchronous course covering all 6 Elements of The PDA Safe Circle™, including exercises and descriptions of accommodations  Weekly Office Hours with Rabbi Shoshana. Day and time change up every month. Affinity circles and events to welcome new members, build face-to-face connections, and learn about specific topics. ​​Community Feeds where members and Rabbi Shoshana support you in applying The PDA Safe Circle™ Approach to your questions. ​​​Invitation to join Cohort Experiences where Rabbi Shoshana goes deep into The PDA Safe Circle™ Approach in a series of live sessions. There is an additional tuition charge for cohorts. Opportunities share your passions, skills, and expertise with others. An SOS Library of short videos and guides for crisis moments. (This feature is still being built out.)​ Recording of past events and office Hours that you can watch or listen to like a podcast. Direct message features to facilitate 1:1 connections.

Yes! While much of the attention in PDA is on kids and parents, The PDA Safe Circle™ supports kids, teens and also adults. Our members include PDA adults, parents of PDAers (many of whom are also PDA), and parents of adult PDAers. Spouses and partners of PDAers are also welcome to join,

When you become a member of The PDA Safe Circle™, you immediately get access to all the features of our app, including the full PDA Safe Circle™ Approach course. At this point, there is no option to purchase the course separately.

Yes. I'm here for you. The PDA Safe Circle™ Approach is powerful during deep burnout. It also guides you through the murky stage of burnout recovery. It then continues to support the PDAer and their family over time, preventing future burnouts before they happen.

Absolutely. The rollout of PDA awareness has been highly unequal across race and class. As a white cis-woman with class privilege committed to social justice, it was very important to me to create a community and approach to PDA that placed awareness of race, class, and other intersecting identities at the center of my work - not as an after thought. The exercises of The PDA Safe Circle™ invite all members to reflect explicitly on how race/racialization, class, gender, other disabilities, and Western culture are impacting their PDAer's disability. The exercises in The PDA Safe Circle™ Approach then invite you to include the specific constraints of your life - which may include the effects of racism, economic instability, and more - as you design for a life of decreased distress and increased thriving for your specific PDAer. I'm a community organizer by training who thinks a lot about how to create social change. My plan is to train coaches and clinicians in The PDA Safe Circle™ Approach, and prioritize spots for Black and brown providers to increase the pool of culturally competent PDA-skilled providers across race and ethnicity. I am constantly learning how to be a better ally across race, class, disability, and gender, and am always open to feedback.

Great question. Every aspect of the Approach comes straight out of what it feels like from the inside for me to be PDA and parent a PDAer, including our disabling threat response and the gifts that come with our wiring. My personal experience has then been checked against hundreds of conversations with PDA clients and parents of PDAers to inform The PDA Safe Circle™ Approach. I've seen lives transformed over the course of weeks and months and have collected testimonials below to give you a sense of what is possible. When obvious outer transformation isn't possible, the Approach guides you through inner work to decrease suffering given the constraints of your/your loved one's life.

Membership is open to PDAers 18+, as well as parents, partners, and loved ones of PDAers or suspected PDAers of all ages. You or your loved one do *not* need any clinical identification of PDA to be welcomed in our community. If you think a PDA framework will help you or your loved one thrive, you are welcome here. We do have community guidelines, and ask that everyone who joins have the ability follow them.

Absolutely! Many people join just to have the exercises and resources on tap on their phone, or to listen to past office hours. This is a low demand space. You get to choose how you interact or don't. If, like me, you struggle to be part of a group unless you have a specific high status role, you can let me know and we'll work together to identify a role for you to play that serves both you and the community!

You can join on a monthly or annual basis. (An annual basis gives you two months free). Everyone gets a free trial week. Monthly rates are $60/$45/$25 depending on your level of financial security. Annual rates are $600/$450/$250 You'll be able to self-assess your membership rate before you sign up. Thank you for your honesty as we co-create a community that is financially accessible to all and sustainable for my family.

I am 100% committed to financial accessibility. As a member you will pay the dues amount that corresponds with your self-assessed level of financial security, breaking down the barriers to support that many have faced. If my lowest standard monthly rate would put you in debt or prohibit you from paying for basic needs, let me know and we'll find an amount that works for you. If your financial situation improves, you can let me know and pay it forward to others in need. I depend on members' honest assessment of their financial bracket to make the business sustainable for me and my family.

My plan is to offer a robust certification course for coaches and clinicians in 2026. Click below to join the waitlist for this program.

Yes. I have different rates for members and non-members, but you are welcome to book with me regardless. Please note my availability is limited and I will likely encourage you to join so that you have access to the course materials we reference in sessions.