Anne MacMillan

Language: English

Anne MacMillan, MLA, is the founder of the R.E.A.L. 10-Step Neurodiverse Family Systems Approach, supporting Level 1 autistic adults and their neurodivergent and neurotypical family members as they navigate Neurodiverse Relationship Dynamics (NRD). She has over 50 years of personal life experience within a neurodiverse family system, more than 20 years of personal life experience within a neurodiverse intimate life partnership, and has been supporting adult neurodivergents and their neurotypical family members in her private coaching and consulting practice since 2017. She has a research master’s from Harvard University in clinical psychology where she did some of the world’s first quantitative research on Level 1 autism and intimate adult life partnerships, receiving the Director’s Thesis Award for her work.  

MacMillan is the author of an upcoming academic book entitled Neurodiverse Family Systems: Theory and Practice (2025). Her programs are available worldwide through the UnitusTI Therapy and Education platform, a cloud-based system that helps psychologists, therapists, counselors, social workers, coaches, consultants, clergy, and domestic violence professionals as they support their Level 1 autistic adult clients and their neurodivergent and neurotypical family members. MacMillan and her UnitusTI team make it possible for professionals who have little understanding of neurodiversity to easily and effectively add neurodiverse family systems services to their practices. She offers professional neurodiversity credentialing, neurodiverse family systems programming and distinct programs for clients who are intimate life partners and/or parents and who would like to better understand how adult neurodiversity affects their families and relationships. 

The world is on the brink of realizing just how many Level 1 autistic adults are in our families and communities, many of them the parents of autistic children due to the reality that autism has a genetic component. Many of these adults have received multiple diagnoses and inadequate and ineffective treatments over the years and are just now coming to the realization that they are actually neurodivergent. Individuals who have autistic and/or attention neuodivergent (ADHD) children in their families may also, unbeknownst to themselves, have Level 1 autistic adults and other adult neurodivergents in their families. 

MacMillan’s practical 10-step approach offers a sequential yet flexible structure based on her foundational neurodiverse family systems theory that supports professionals and their clients as they cut through the confusion and find life solutions that actually have a chance of working. She offers multiple resources and theoretically-based quantitative assessments to facilitate client self-awareness and future research in the field of adult neurodiversity. 

MacMillan self-identifies as a high body empathetic, or a non-autistic neurodivergent with a high level of what she terms ‘body empathy.’ She also assumes she is attention neurodivergent (ADHD), although she has never sought a diagnosis. Her programs support individuals of all neurodivergencies and neurotypicals in neurodiverse family systems as they harness their strengths and navigate the challenges associated with their particular neurological variations. She is an AMS-certified Montessori teacher, trained to support children ages 3-12.  

R.E.A.L. Neurodiverse is available on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook and hosts a Facebook group for non-autistic intimate life partners of autistics as well as a group for autistic intimate life partners of non-autistics.