Wired to Feel: Autism as a Condition of Sensory Surplus

Powerful skills grounded in internal family systems therapy (IFS), polyvagal theory, and neuroscience to help you navigate your autistic brain, body, and mind.

There’s a saying: “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.” Autistic individuals are as varied and different from one another as non-autistics. The difference is that we are often measured against societal standards we cannot functionally meet. Before we can navigate an ableist world and create the change needed to thrive, we must first understand our unique neurotypes and sensory sensitivities, and learn to feel at home in our autistic bodies.

In this groundbreaking book, autistic psychologist Sarah Bergenfield explains how and why autism is an embodied condition of sensory surplus—a conclusion she has reached through personal experience and empirical evidence. Psychotherapist Martha Sweezy joins Bergenfield in offering an adaptation of the internal family systems (IFS) therapy approach, as well as skills grounded in neuroscience and polyvagal theory to help you manage the sensory disorganization caused by an overwhelming world, so you can understand and advocate for your needs and cultivate lasting self-acceptance.

Autism is a condition of perceptual diversity—characterized by differences rooted in heightened sensory awareness and intensity, and experienced simultaneously in the body, brain, and mind. Our responses to sensory stimuli, changes in routine, and lack of predictability manifest as the symptoms that others may observe, such as difficulties with communication, socialization, shutdowns, and sensitivities.

This book will guide you as you let go of the negative effects of being marginalized, othered, shamed, or stigmatized—so you can reclaim your confidence, live authentically, and flourish.