Therapy for ADHD
Do you often experience difficulty managing time and meeting deadlines? Maybe you find yourself frequently caught up in “side quests” and lose an hour (or two!) in what seems like the blink of an eye. Are you frequently distracted or forgetful? Maybe the people around you have given up on expecting you to show up on time, or become frustrated that you don’t seem to remember certain details. You might have difficulty completing “simple” tasks, even when it seems like you “should” have the time and ability to complete them (hello, laundry pile on the chair!). Have you gotten used to feeling guilty and helpless when these things just don’t seem to go your way, no matter how hard you try?
Or perhaps you have a different experience. Do you often feel restless, constantly needing to be moving or actively working on something? Are you catching yourself frequently interrupting people or jumping to conclusions or taking action with insufficient deliberation or planning? You might find yourself making inappropriate, insensitive, or poorly timed comments, accidentally offending people you wanted to get along with. You might also be noticing that your emotions seem to happen in bigger waves than other people’s, even if the feeling doesn’t last very long. Maybe you find yourself having to deal with loved ones’ reactions to your emotions, long after you yourself have gotten over it and moved on.
If you’ve noticed these signs in yourself, you may also be experiencing problems in relationships with your loved ones. Perhaps they complain that you are impatient with them, or always late, or not listening to them, or forgetful or spacey. They may accuse you of not caring about the feelings and needs of others. They might be frequently disappointed with you due to your difficulty remembering or following through on commitments. Ultimately, they may have lost trust or confidence in you – or even chosen to step away. Perhaps you’ve lost some confidence in yourself, too.
You might also be experiencing challenges at school or at work due to these symptoms. You may find it difficult to follow through on assignments or projects. Sustained focus on a boring task might feel near-impossible. Deadlines and due dates may have a habit of creeping up on you due to poor planning or procrastination. Subsequently, you habitually find yourself rushing to complete work at the last minute, or you miss deadlines completely. You may be intimately acquainted with the red-faced embarrassment of asking your boss or professors for an extension. Ultimately, you may receive poor grades or negative job performance evaluations. You may even have been fired, failed classes, or quit school as a result.
Difficulty managing these symptoms have probably left you feeling frustrated, embarrassed, or even hopeless. You may have learned to see yourself as someone less competent, less reliable, or even less worthy. However, I am here to tell you that not only have you been gifted with strengths, you can also improve skills in the areas that you have challenges.
Our work together will involve a mix of psycho-education, skills training, and ongoing skills practice. I will support you in achieving the following objectives:
Accepting the diagnosis and processing your feelings about it.
Identifying strengths that you can access to help you towards making progress in therapy.
Learning skills to improve ability in various areas including time management, organization, initiating and prioritizing tasks, reducing distractability, and decreasing procrastination.
Addressing harmful thought patterns that sap your motivation and have the potential to get in the way of your use of these skills.
Learning strategies to help you improve regulation of emotions and behavior that interfere with your goals.
Regularly practicing skills via exercises in between sessions.
If you choose, involving selected loved ones to help them learn about your treatment and to discuss how they might help to support your efforts; which may increase the likelihood of consistently implementation of skills outside of session.
Click the button below to schedule a free consultation so we can start the work to improve your life.