You Don't Have to Feel Your Way to Wellbeing — Introducing the SOFT™ Framework

By Annette Friar · July 2026 · 8 min read

In my last article, I tore into the NHS 5 Steps to Wellbeing — not because they're bad ideas, but because they're built on a single, unspoken assumption: that you process the world through your feelings. That if you just connect more, give more, be more mindful, the emotional release will come and you'll feel better.

For a lot of neurodivergent people, that assumption doesn't just miss the mark. It's actively harmful. It pathologises a different way of processing and prescribes a cure that works against our operating system.

Now I want to show you what I'm building instead.

I call it the SOFT™ Framework. It started as an aromatherapy assessment and consultation model — a way to match sensory-safe products to neurodivergent nervous systems. But when I went through breast cancer treatment, I realised the same framework could extend into something much bigger: a neurodivergent-affirming approach to mental health, trauma, and wellbeing.

The core thesis is simple. You don't have to feel your way to wellbeing. You can frame your way there.

Empathic disequilibrium: why "just feel it" doesn't work for everyone

Before I get into the framework, I need to explain why the swap from "feel" to "frame" isn't a preference. It's a structural difference in how some brains work.

In 2022, Dr Varun Warrier and his team at the University of Cambridge published a paper that changed how I understand myself. They identified something called empathic disequilibrium — an imbalance between cognitive empathy (understanding what someone else is thinking or feeling) and affective empathy (feeling what someone else is feeling).

Most people assume empathy is a single dial — you're either empathetic or you're not. Warrier's research showed it's two separate systems. And in autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people, these systems are often out of balance. You might have high cognitive empathy and low affective empathy, or vice versa.

I have high cognitive empathy and very low affective empathy. I can understand what you're going through. I can build a precise mental model of your situation, predict what you might need, and respond practically. But I don't feel your pain in my body. I don't catch your emotions like a cold.

Here's where it matters for wellbeing: traditional counselling and the NHS 5 Steps are built entirely around affective empathy. They ask you to sit with feelings. To notice them. To share them. To connect emotionally with others. The entire pathway assumes that emotional processing is how you heal.

If you operate on cognitive empathy, that pathway doesn't just fail — it tells you you're doing it wrong. You're "avoiding" your feelings. You're "intellectualising." You're "not engaging with the therapeutic process." I've been told all of these things by well-meaning professionals who were working from a manual that wasn't written for my brain.

The double empathy problem in therapy

There's a related concept that matters here. Damian Milton's double empathy problem (2012) describes how communication breaks down between autistic and non-autistic people — not because one side is deficient, but because both sides experience the world differently and struggle to bridge the gap.

The same thing happens in therapy. A neurotypical counsellor and a neurodivergent patient are operating from two different emotional processing systems. The counsellor reads "not crying, not showing emotion" as avoidance or denial. The patient is processing — deeply, thoroughly, cognitively — but in a language the counsellor doesn't recognise as processing.

This is what researchers call therapeutic masking — the pressure to perform the emotional behaviours the therapist expects, rather than processing in the way that actually works for you. It's exhausting, it's counterproductive, and it's one of the reasons neurodivergent people drop out of therapy at higher rates than the general population.

The SOFT™ Framework: three layers, one system

SOFT was originally four letters that described how I assess sensory needs: Sensory, Olfactory, Formulation, Therapeutic. That's the Profile layer — how I assess someone's individual needs before I recommend anything.

Then I built the Pathway layer — how I guide someone through a consultation: Stabilise, Orient, Feel, Transition. In aromatherapy, "Feel" is the right word. You genuinely feel a scent. You notice whether it calms you, grounds you, or overstimulates you. Olfactory processing is sensory and embodied, and for many neurodivergent people it's one of the most reliable ways to access regulation.

But when I started applying SOFT to mental health and trauma — specifically to my experience of cancer treatment — I hit a wall. The "Feel" step, which works beautifully in aromatherapy, is exactly the step that fails in therapy for people like me. The assumption that you must feel your way through trauma is the problem I was trying to solve.

So I swapped it.

The key substitution: Feel → Frame.

In the Pathway layer, "Feel" is right — you genuinely feel a scent. But in mental health, the assumption that you must feel your way to wellbeing is the problem. The Wellbeing layer swaps that letter — and that swap is the thesis: you don't feel your way to wellbeing on cognitive empathy, you frame your way there.

Here are the three layers side by side:

S and O and T stay the same. Only the F changes. That's deliberate — the framework is coherent across all three layers. The difference is in how you handle the middle step, the processing step, because that's where the operating system matters most.

The four steps in detail

Stabilise

Regulate the nervous system before any cognitive or emotional work begins. This is not optional. It's not a warm-up. It's the foundation.

During my cancer treatment, the single most effective intervention I experienced wasn't counselling or medication — it was the team who played music and sang while inserting my port. They regulated the sensory environment, and that regulation made everything downstream possible. No one called it "stabilisation." No one logged it in a care plan. But it was the reason I could function.

For neurodivergent people, the sensory environment is the intervention. Fluorescent lighting, beeping monitors, unfamiliar smells, waiting room noise — these aren't background details. They're nervous system threats. If you don't manage them first, nothing else works.

Orient

Map the situation cognitively. Build the model before you enter it. Understanding is the beginning of processing.

When I was sent to the chemotherapy room, no one showed me what it looked like. No one told me what would happen, in what order, or how long it would take. I sat in a chair surrounded by other people receiving treatment, with a line going into my arm, and I had no map. For someone who processes cognitively, that's not anxiety you can breathe through — it's a structural deficit. You can't process what you can't model.

Orient means giving the brain what it needs: the sequence, the environment, the duration, the sensory landscape, the people involved. Not to reduce anxiety (though it does) — but to make processing possible in the first place.

Frame — the substitution

This is the step that replaces "Feel." And it's the heart of the framework.

Frame means constructing a cognitive framework that gives the experience structure and meaning — through logic, not feeling. It's not emotional suppression. It's not avoidance. It's a different processing method that produces the same outcome: the experience becomes integrated, understood, and navigable.

Think of it this way. The NHS model says: sit with the feeling, name it, share it, and the feeling will transform. The SOFT model says: build a frame around the experience — understand why it's happening, what it means, what your options are, what the sequence is, what you can control and what you can't — and the experience becomes processable.

I'll give you a concrete example. During radiotherapy, I was positioned on a machine by different strangers every day. My body was exposed, touched, and arranged by people I'd never met. The NHS model would say: sit with the feelings this brings up. Talk about them. Connect with a support group.

I couldn't do that. Not because I was avoiding — but because my processing system doesn't work that way. What I needed was a frame: This is what's happening. This is why. This is the sequence. This is who will be in the room. This is how long it takes. This is what I can control. This is what comes after. Once I had that frame, the experience was held. Not emotionally — structurally. And for my brain, that's what "processed" looks like.

This is where alexithymia research matters. Alexithymia — difficulty identifying and describing emotions — is common in autistic people and frequently co-occurs with interoceptive differences (difficulty sensing internal body signals). Research by Mahler and colleagues shows that for people with high alexithymia, asking them to identify and sit with emotions isn't just unhelpful — it can increase distress, because the emotional signal is unclear in the first place. Framing bypasses this entirely. You don't need to name the feeling. You need to understand the situation.

Transition

Move forward with a structured, adapted plan. Not emotional resolution — functional progression with contingencies.

When I was sent home after surgery with a drain hanging out of my body, I had a phone number and a leaflet. The drain came out early. I didn't know what to do. The nurse came out at 9 or 10 at night. There was no plan for what came after discharge — no structured transition, no contingencies, no map of what to expect.

Transition in SOFT means you don't just survive the hard thing — you have a structured, adapted plan for what comes next. You know what's likely to happen. You know what to do if it doesn't. You know who to contact and how. It's not emotional closure. It's functional progression.

Why this isn't "intellectualising"

I can already hear the objection. "This is just intellectualising. You're avoiding your emotions."

No. Framing is processing. It's how cognitive empathy processes experience. When I frame a situation, I'm not running from it — I'm building the structure that lets me hold it. The outcome is the same as emotional processing: the experience becomes integrated, understood, and something I can move forward from. The method is different because the operating system is different.

Saying "you must process this through feeling" to someone who processes through cognition is like saying "you must read this with your ears." It's not that the person is broken — it's that you've prescribed the wrong sense. The SOFT Framework prescribes the right one.

What I'm not saying

I'm not saying emotional processing is wrong. For people with high affective empathy, the NHS 5 Steps and traditional counselling can work well. I'm not trying to replace their tools.

I'm saying it's not the only valid pathway. And when it's the only pathway offered — when every wellbeing resource, every counselling model, every mental health intervention assumes emotional processing — then the people who need something different are left with nothing. Or worse, they're pathologised for needing something different.

I'm also not saying that neurodivergent people don't have emotions. We do. Sometimes overwhelming ones. The difference is in how we access and process them. For some of us, the route isn't through sitting with the feeling — it's through building a frame around the experience that the feeling exists within. Once the frame is built, the feeling has somewhere to go. But the frame comes first.

Where this goes next

In my next articles, I'll take this framework into the real world. I'll walk through four specific moments from my cancer treatment — the chemotherapy room, radiotherapy, the drain at home, and the rotating cast of practitioners — and show you exactly where each SOFT step was missing and what would have changed if it had been there.

I'll also share the "How to Work With Me" template — a one-page guide you can fill in and hand to every practitioner, nurse, and clinician, so you don't have to re-explain yourself every time. And I'll publish a brief for cancer care teams: four changes that cost nothing and would transform the experience for neurodivergent patients.

The SOFT™ Framework isn't a rejection of the NHS. It's a complement. A second pathway for a different operating system. Because wellbeing shouldn't require you to process in a way your brain doesn't work.

You don't have to feel your way there. You can frame your way there. And both are valid.

References

Warrier, V., et al. (2022). Empathic disequilibrium is associated with autism and autistic traits. Nature Communications, 13, 5367. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32910-w

Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of the double empathy problem. Autism, 16(5), 485–487.

Mahler, T., et al. (2021). Alexithymia and interoception in autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51, 2891–2904.

NHS (2023). 5 Steps to Mental Wellbeing. NHS Choices. nhs.uk

Mitchell, P., et al. (2021). The lived experience of autistic people in therapeutic settings. Autism in Adulthood, 3(2), 154–165.

Read next: SOFT in Practice: The Chemotherapy Room — When Orient Fails

Start here: Why the NHS 5 Steps to Wellbeing Don't Work for Neurodivergent People (Article 1)

Explore: SOFT™ consultations — email-based, no pressure, Annette responds personally.