Chris Dabbs, Ph.D.

A frontal photograph of a bald, red-bearded White man smiling while holding a copy of Understanding and Affirming Autistic Clients in front of his chest. He is standing within a bookstore, surrounded by bookshelves. He is wearing a blue V-neck, short-sleeved sweater vest over a graphic short-sleeved collared shirt.

This holiday season, buy your favorite neurodiversity-affirming clinician a copy of Understanding and Affirming Autistic Clients: A Primer for Mental Health Professionals!

Find it wherever books are sold:

a.co/d/0oOSKCU

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/understand...

www.bloomsbury.com/us/understan...

Our paper exploring mental health clinician reactions to a national autism registry is currently under review -- the completion of which was specifically tied to fears I share with you

A cloud of my most used words in bluesky in 2025, which include: autistic, autism, mental health, clinical, psychology, and book.

yay for blasting this space with “autistic”

It's no wonder Mel Curth won a graduate teaching award -- this is amazing, actionable feedback that this essay was not deserving of.

What is happening at University of Oklahoma is disgraceful, but not surprising for anyone who's spent time in Oklahoma. A seemingly coordinated anti-trans attack against an award-winning graduate instructor just doing their job (and very well). It's very blatant and public trans erasure.

Recently took about six weeks, and around 40 back-and-forth comms, to get a study I'm working on through the ethics board, because we included autistics who may or may not need assistance engaging with the survey. There is definitely a convenience bias in research around vulnerable populations.

I've seen them a few times, and it's nothing short of a spiritual experience every time. Last year I saw them co-headlined with Primus (my first time seeing Primus) -- so good!

Definitely in my top 10! Opener was this sick punk group called Crazy & the Brains.

Introduce yourself with 5 concerts you’ve seen:
-Protomen
-Gogol Bordello
-BigX Tha Plug
-Coheed & Cambria
-Ghost

Handing back student work that’s been written by ChatGPT with a 0 followed by the comment “This essay will never stand in authentic wonder before the Beauty of God’s creation.”

I applaud the vulnerability it took to share this. Thank you.

Favorite independent media companies? I think my favorite of the more "traditional" independents are @zeteo.com and @theconversation.com but I also really like independents that blend satire with good journalism like @channel5bluesky.bsky.social and @the-goose-media.bsky.social

a cartoon of spongebob making a funny face Alt: An animated .gif of SpongeBob Squarepants on his knees, eyes closed, with hands clasped in front of him ostensibly begging.

It's application season! Here's one piece of advice for references:

For the love of all the gods, please only comment on your lived interactions with the applicant. Don't reiterate what they wrote about themselves if you weren't directly involved. If you have to do that, don't submit a letter 🙃

On this Trans Day of Remembrance, I'd like our allies to remember that silence is complicit to the violence against Trans people if witnessing mockery, abuse & threatening behavior

I know it's hard to speak up
Especially when bigots are scary

But there is power in every pushback
I believe in you!

Which reality? Ours? Insofar as the fictional characters often exist as abstracted representations of our reality — I think yes. Often their fictional realities are based on ours to the extent that they have an in-universe diagnosis that matches our own model. Sometimes not. Fiction is multifaceted!

Shoutout to @drtravislangley.bsky.social and (bsky-less) Robin Rosenberg who are featured heavily in the reading list for the course.

and I provide materials if you'd like to do the same (e.g., rubrics, lists of films and readings, assignment descriptions).

Excelsior!

I discuss the utilitarian nature of using fictional representations of real mental health conditions (i.e., psychological distance can be helpful for learning!), changes I've made to the class based on student feedback (e.g., centering sociocultural issues in comics, like asylums)

Would you take a mental health diagnosis class about superheroes, supervillains, and comic book characters?
🦸‍♂️ ⚔️ 🦹‍♂️

Well, I made one and write about it in my new open-access commentary 🙂

digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/jti/vol1/iss...

#academicsky #edusky

LORs are one of my favorite parts of my job. You mean I get to write a letter full of great things about an awesome person who trusted me to write said things? For all of the thankless service tasks in our profession, LORs are not one of them.

Trading tenure for Timbits - University Affairs Everything you didn’t know about relocating to Canada.

Academics are leaving the U.S. for jobs in other countries. I was one of them! In this short opinion piece, I write about my transition from 🇺🇸 to 🇨🇦, and I offer tangible advice for those trying to do the same.

universityaffairs.ca/opinion/trad...

I think so! Why do you think so?

Psychologists stop using AI to write clinical reports challenge (impossible)

These critics have never been on food stamps. They talk like SNAP is giving $6k a month or something.

When I was single on SNAP in 2019-2020, I got $130/month. When my family was on SNAP in the late 2000s/early 2010s, we got like $600/month — there were EIGHT of us.

I’m one of these who left — I know so many US academics looking to leave.

Uh oh. The lawyers are pissed 😬

The ableism gets ‘em every time

Understanding and Affirming Autistic Clients: Book Launch On October 29th, 2025, we held a launch event for Understanding and Affirming Autistic Clients at the University of Lethbridge. Below is a transcript of the speech I gave to introduce the book alongsi...

Today I launched our new clinical text that focuses on affirming autistic clients. To introduce the book, I took time to share my own autistic support needs, how they intersected with writing a book, and I asked why we're still treating disabled people like shit:

www.chrisdabbs.com/post/underst...

www.bloomsbury.com/us/understan...

Webinar: Shortcomings of the DSM-5 and an alternative approach to assessment and classification - HiTOP - NovoPsych The DSM-5 has shaped how mental health practitioners think about diagnosis and treatment — but it is not always the most effective approach.

I really enjoyed doing this webinar - sharing in case it's helpful for people interested in an introduction to HiTOP: novopsych.com/news/webinar...