When it's more than 'just' anxiety: Navigating PDA

For the longest time we were told our 5 year old son was suffering with severe anxiety. Turns out he fits the PDA profile which is a nervous system disability and a neurotype of its own within autism. Treating it as just anxiety never helped, but anxiety is absolutely part of it when a sensitive nervous system is set to be more reactive, requiring more control and autonomy in order to feel safe. How can we recognise PDA? What is the difference between anxiety and PDA? What is it like for the parent of a PDA child to navigate that? I'm joined by the wonderful Dr Casey Ehrlichs of @AtPeaceParent s, a resource without which I would be totally lost on my parenting journey, who helps us better understand PDA, how it's characterised and precisely what a PDA nervous system needs. Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I Wish I'd Known About Anxiety: A Roadmap out of the Overwhelm and Back to Yourself here Follow me on Instagram @CarolineForan and @OwningItPodcas t, on Tik Tok here

You can listen to When it's more than 'just' anxiety: Navigating PDA online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

When it's more than 'just' anxiety: Navigating PDA is an episode from Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast by Caroline Foran.

This episode is 1:07:54 long.

This episode was published on May 4, 2026.

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