Is ADHD Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) For Me?
Think you have ADHD and wonder how counseling might help?
You have great ideas. You are creative and fun. You love to tinker and enjoy striking up a conversation with a stranger. You can get really focused on a topic and go extremely deep with it. You sometimes floor your coworkers or friends with your energy and ideas. At the same time, it’s often tough to get going on work and wrapping up the details is a bear. You have trouble shifting gears when your first plan isn’t coming together. You lose track of things, you lose track of to-dos, you lose track of time, and your phone always seems to alert you at the worst time. This isn’t the first time you have noticed or cursed your ADHD symptoms! Fortunately, CBT counseling for ADHD can help! After briefly discussing ADHD and neurodiversity, this article will help you imagine yourself participating in ADHD counseling.
ADHD, Neurodiversity, and You
ADHD, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, is a form of “neurodiversity.” Neurodiversity is a broad term conceptualizing neurological variety across the population. All brains are different!
ADHD is a diagnosis that describes a common cluster of symptoms that impact many people and seem to correspond to similar brain development and functioning. Attention-Deficit symptoms may include: low attention to detail, short attention span, difficulty listening, troubles with task completion, organizational and time management struggles, avoidance of tasks requiring attention, losing objects necessary for tasks, distractibility, and forgetfulness. In addition to symptoms of inattention, some people with ADHD also experience symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity. Hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms may include: fidgeting, leaving your seat/squirming, restlessness, inability to maintain quiet, acting as if “driven by a motor,” talking excessively, blurting out answers prematurely, difficulty waiting, and interrupting or intruding on others. If these symptoms sound familiar, you’re not alone! Six percent of US adults are diagnosed with ADHD (CDC- Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Diagnosis) and an additional 14-25% of the population experience the symptoms without diagnosis (Prevalence of Undiagnosed ADHD - PMC, Undiagnosed ADHD Survey | Ohio State Medical Center).
The ADHD diagnosis requires that symptoms have impacted you since childhood. If you exhibit ADHD symptoms, but did not experience functional challenges in childhood, it is likely that the high stimulus demands of the 21st century (ex. smart phones, so many screens, the internet, global non-stop news, seemingly infinite choices, jobs that demand constant analysis and decision making, and overstimulating environments, etc.) have overwhelmed your focus in a similar manner to ADHD. ADHD-focused counseling can help those of you who experience the environmentally induced attention challenges too!
In their book, ADHD 2.0, Hallowell and Ratey analogize ADHD to having a mind with “a race car engine and bicycle brakes.” They explain that people with ADHD struggle to switch between focused work and more open, imaginative, and creative thinking. Worse yet, their imaginative thinking can gravitate to negative, self-critical, and fearful thoughts that often sabotage their ideas and productivity.
Negative self-esteem beliefs associated with ADHD are often reinforced by common experiences in the world. Your parents may have struggled to raise you in a manner that met your needs. Teachers may have focused on behavioral interventions and offered you too little patience. They may have labeled you as a behavioral challenge early in life. In other cases, you may have hidden or “masked” your challenges, and your needs may have been neglected as you quietly struggled in school. As an adult, you may strain to focus on work or lose yourself down a rabbit hole and miss deadlines. In other situations, your ability to hyper-focus may lead to working without rest or even sleeplessness. Sleeplessness then compounds your attention challenges in a vicious cycle.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for ADHD can help! Should you choose to participate in therapy, you might engage in the following CBT counseling interventions for ADHD.
CBT Counseling Interventions for ADHD
Support
Counseling for ADHD supports you as you encounter “neurotypical” expectations of others. It helps you process your thoughts and feelings as you navigate life. Psychotherapy helps you recognize your strengths and the environments and challenges conducive to your success. The shared analysis might result in shifting how you spend your time.
Cognitive Coping and Restructuring
ADHD-focused counseling helps you develop or modify thoughts and beliefs to be more realistic and helpful. You will clean-up your “stuck points” about ADHD, neurodiversity, and life in general. It is often helpful to reconsider the beliefs that provide direction in life: beliefs about safety, trust, control, esteem, and relationships. More realistic and healthy beliefs will help you meet your personal and professional goals and experience a more fulfilling life.
Build Motivation, Structure, and Healthy Habits
Often people with ADHD symptoms struggle with motivation. Therapy can help you build motivation and momentum to try new things and keep going. Since your brain exhibits neuroplasticity, you can grow and learn to function differently. While people with ADHD tend to be averse to structure, they often recognize that it is helpful. Therapy can help you simplify life and increase routine to free up more of your time for creative and engaging day-to-day endeavors. Therapy can help with ending bad habits and building healthy habits. Therapy provides support and tips for planning and starting something new. It also offers accountability for your efforts between appointments.
Organization and Executive Functioning
No doubt you have tried many ways to keep organized and manage tasks! A therapist will help you explore what works best for you and provide encouragement to build and maintain organization and manage day-to-day.
Mindfulness Practice
While routine mindfulness practice may seem daunting to those who experience ADHD, evidence continues to accumulate about the myriads of ways that mindfulness practice contributes to mental health. Mindfulness is an excellent approach to recognize distractions and quickly return to present tasks and goals. You can practice mindfulness with different meditations: following your breath, scanning your body, visualizing light, feeling your feet touch the ground as you walk, or mindfully eating a snack. Practicing mindfulness generalizes to being more present and focused day-to-day.
Healthy Eating and Exercise
Food matters! A therapist can help you adjust eating habits to function better. In addition, exercise is ultra-important for focus. Increasing routine exercise and engaging in exercise that demands crossbody coordination or targets balance seems to be especially helpful for improving focus and attention.
Sleep Hygiene
According to the National Institute for Mental Health, 70% of adults with ADHD experience sleep problems. It can be difficult for people with ADHD to maintain sleep hygiene and routine. A therapist will encourage you to build and maintain the good habits of sleep.
Communication Skills and Social Support
Relationships can be extra challenging for people with ADHD symptoms. A therapist can help you sort out relationships and communicate more effectively. A therapist will encourage you to connect and engage with others for mood enhancement.
Depression and Anxiety
People with ADHD frequently experience co-occurring depression and anxiety symptoms. Improving and managing ADHD symptoms will help with anxiety and depression, but it is often necessary to target depression and anxiety symptoms directly too.
Considering ADHD Medication
Psychotherapy can be highly effective for addressing your ADHD symptoms. You may also wish to consider medication for ADHD. Most psychotherapists do not prescribe medication. However, they can be instrumental as you consider pros and cons of medication and monitor their impact.
How do I start ADHD Counseling in Seattle or Washington State?
If you identify with ADHD symptoms and ADHD-focused CBT counseling resonates with you, take the next step and find a therapist. If you live in Seattle or Washington State, please click through my website to learn more about working with me (Recalibrate Therapy | Mike Krepick, Seattle Psychotherapist)! If you think we might be a good fit for counseling, email me to schedule a free initial consultation (mike@recalibratetherapy.com).
If you live outside of Washington or want more information about searching for a psychotherapist, check out my previous blog to help your search (Find a Therapist in Seattle or Washington State). It is relevant for people who live inside and outside of Washington.
