Check your neurodiversity profile: sensitivities and talents * PsychosisNet

This page contains two tools from the book Wat psychisch lijden is by Jim van Os. You can read the ideas behind them on What mental distress is. First you look at your profile: where are your sensitivities and talents? Then you look at where that profile is now in friction with your environment. The tools give no score and no diagnosis.

1. Your neurodiversity mixing desk

Picture a neurodiversity mixing desk with 7 sliders. For each slider you read 3 sensitivities and 3 talents. For each statement, indicate how well it fits you. After that you see your profile in a chart: fairly flat, or with peaks and valleys.

This is not a test and not a diagnosis. There are no norm scores: the chart shows how your sliders relate to each other, not how you relate to other people. Your answers stay on your own device and are not stored anywhere.

2. Where is the friction for you?

Mental distress arises when your specific neurodiversity profile clashes with the environment you live in. A sensitive sensory profile in an open-plan office with bright light. A visual thinker at a school that works only with language. A socially sensitive person in a group where you do not belong. The same profile can work fine in a different environment.

That is why the second question is: where is that clash for you right now? Distress often feels like fog, everywhere and nowhere. It helps to cut that fog up into 6 areas where the friction usually is.

For each area, set the slider to how much friction there is right now.

This is a map to find your bearings, not a test and not a diagnosis. Your answers stay on your own device and are not stored anywhere.

PsychosisNet does not offer a chat or a helpline. If you need to talk to someone now, see Need help now? for helplines by country.

Prof. dr. Jim van Os, Chair Division Neuroscience, Utrecht University Medical Centre. Jim works at the interface of ‘hard’ brain science, health services research, art and subjective experiences of people with ‘lived experience’ in mental healthcare.

Jim has been appearing on the Thomson-Reuter Web of Science list of ‘most influential scientific minds of our time’ since 2014. In 2014 he published his book ‘Beyond DSM-5‘, and in 2016 the book ‘Good Mental Health Care’. In 2026 he published 'Wat psychisch lijden is'.

Want to read more?

Blogs by Jim van Os can be read here

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