A clinician-facing account of PDA-style resistance through predictive processing, salience network gating, precision weighting, autonomy, and clinical formulation.
Neuro-affirming psychologist · AuDHD · Seeking internship placement from June 2026 · Perth WA
Author
Ethan Smith
Provisional Psychologist & Founder, PsychVault
Perth, Western Australia
1,400+
Clinical experience
~565
Hrs to registration
~16.5 hrs
Supervision remaining
2–3 days
Availability
Areas of practice
About
Ethan H. Smith is a provisional psychologist based in Perth, Western Australia, and the founder of PsychVault. He holds a degree in neuroscience alongside his clinical training — a background that informs how he thinks about neurological presentations and grounds his psychoeducation with clients and families. He is seeking a 5+1 internship placement commencing June–July 2026, available 2–3 days per week in-person or online.
His primary clinical interest is working with autistic individuals (including PDA profiles), ADHDers, and co-occurring neurodevelopmental presentations across the 5–21 age range. He works therapeutically across CBT, ACT, DBT, MBT, Solution-Focused Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing — individually and in groups, in-person and online. One of his more distinctive projects: designing and running a Minecraft-based social skills group for autistic adolescents, delivered both in-person and online.
Ethan has accumulated over 1,400 hours of direct client contact across complex neurocognitive and mental health presentations. Due to circumstances outside his control, not all of those hours are formally documented for AHPRA internship purposes — meaning he brings considerably more clinical depth than his remaining logged hours might suggest. He has a strong psychometric assessment background — Conners 4, WISC-V, WIAT-III, and Vineland — and holds deep working knowledge of neurodivergence-specific measures including RCADS, SCAS, EDA-Q, ASRS, SRS, and AQ-child, alongside an understanding of their limitations that he considers as important as the tools themselves.
Ethan is neurodivergent himself — PDA, AuDHD, Dyslexia, and Dysgraphia — and approaches neurodiversity as identity, not pathology. He is Gatekeeper-trained and experienced working across a broad risk spectrum, including high-risk presentations. He has supported community access and social connectedness for autistic individuals identifying within the LGBTIQA+ community, and volunteered at the Ross Greene / PDA Conference in 2024.
He built PsychVault because the gap between what clinicians create for their own practice and what the broader community can access felt unnecessary. His writing covers the practical side of the internship year, supervision, AHPRA registration, and neuro-affirming clinical practice.
Therapeutic approaches
Delivered individually and in groups, in-person and online.
Seeking internship placement — Perth, WA
I have approximately 565 hours remaining to formally log for AHPRA registration (~186 direct client contact, ~16.5 hrs supervision). This reflects formal documentation requirements, not my clinical experience — I bring 1,400+ hours of real-world practice. Looking for a 2–3 day per week placement with a Board-approved supervisor, commencing June–July 2026. If your service works with neurodivergent young people and you think it could be a good fit, I’d genuinely love to hear from you.
Get in touch →LinkedIn profileAssessment toolkit
Cognitive & educational
- WISC-V
- WIAT-III
- Vineland (adaptive functioning)
Neurodivergence & mental health
- Conners 4 (ADHD)
- RCADS · SCAS · EDA-Q
- ASRS · SRS · AQ-child
What he writes about
- The AHPRA 5+1 internship year — logbooks, hours, and what nobody tells you
- Supervision: finding good supervisors, spotting red flags, getting the most from it
- National Psychology Examination prep and strategy
- Neuro-affirming practice and documentation for autistic and ADHD clients
- Clinical practice realities: NDIS, assessments, and building a caseload
Professional development highlights
- Autism for Mental Health Professionals: Foundations — Dr Belinda Ratcliffe (8 hrs, 2022)
- WISC-V & WIAT-III for SLD Diagnosis — Dr Melissa Stephens (2022)
- CBIT & Habit Reversal Therapy — Dr Amy Talbot (2022)
- Attachment, Neurobiology & the New Science of Psychotherapy — Prof Jeremy Holmes (2022)
- Gatekeeper Suicide Prevention Training — Mental Health Commission (~6 hrs, 2023)
- Ross Greene / PDA Conference volunteer, Optus Stadium (2024)
Neuroscience (degree)
Brain-based foundations for clinical practice & psychoeducation
Edith Cowan University
Clinical Masters coursework
Macquarie University
Centre for Emotional Health — research internship
























































