ADHD Therapist: Finding the Best One

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Establishing a positive therapeutic relationship serves as the most important indicator of your overall ability to work on yourself. Several factors impact your ability to build this relationship with a counselor, including the therapist’s ability to understand what your life is like. So, if you or someone you love has ADHD and needs therapy, you need to find the right ADHD therapist.

Here are some questions you need to answer to get the right therapist for someone with ADHD:

What are the therapist’s qualifications and specializations?
How often does the counselor work with people with ADHD?
What types of therapy does the therapist practice?
What is the therapist’s style like?

Finding an ADHD Therapist

What Are the Therapist’s Qualifications and Specializations?

Legally, in the United States, anyone can advertise themselves as a counselor. While many people have actual credentials, you need to know how to ensure they have them.

People who become licensed counselors go through a rigorous graduate program during which they complete supervised internships. During this period, they gain experience counseling individuals before graduating and undergoing several thousand hours as an associate counselor. Then, they can apply for full licensure. So, by the time a counselor gets their full license, they already have conducted thousands of sessions.

Therapists who receive their full license often use abbreviations to indicate their credentials. These indicators change from state to state, but a common title is Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) or some variation of those terms.

The next item you need to look for involves the therapist’s specializations. These include their chosen areas of practice. Counselors can choose between a wide variety of different populations, conditions, and theoretical models. For the best treatment, you want to look for someone who works with clients with ADHD.

Usually, these counselors accommodate the needs of various people with ADHD, including providing toys or fidgeting tools. That way, the people they see are better able to participate in treatment.

How Often Does the Therapist Work with Someone with ADHD?

Most likely, therapists who specialize in treating ADHD see a lot of clients with this condition. However, if you can’t find an ADHD specialist in your area, you’ll want to ask counselors how often they work with ADHD.

Alternatively, you can find an ADHD therapist online.

What Types of Therapy Does the Counselor Practice?

Many types of therapy prove effective for treating ADHD. Here are just a few of them:

Cognitive Behavioral Theory (CBT)

CBT focuses on the ways we think and feel and how that impacts our behaviors. It serves as the gold standard for ADHD treatment, and many therapists opt for this form when addressing a client with ADHD.

When treating ADHD, a CBT therapist will focus on:

Providing education about ADHD and assisting the client with planning and organization
Teaching the client coping skills for dealing with their levels of distraction
Encouraging the person to think in an adaptive manner about their abilities
Addressing procrastination

The therapist may also involve other people in the client’s community, such as roommates or a partner.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy

A mindfulness-based cognitive therapy assists people with ADHD using the positive effects of meditation and mindful practices. By employing these techniques, people with ADHD might learn to grow more in-tune with their emotional states.

Here are some other benefits:

Decreased mind wandering. This is accomplished when the therapist helps the client how to increase their attention levels.
Increased awareness of the person’s emotional state. Many people with ADHD experience overwhelm due to having to deal with life’s everyday activities. Becoming aware of these emotions allows the person to better care for the self and prevent burnout in the future. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy also assists the person with regulating their emotions.
Improved executive function. Most people don’t think about executive function on a day-to-day basis. After all, executive functions include working memory, inhibitory control, and flexible thinking. These skills help people with organization, attention maintenance, and emotional regulation. However, many people with ADHD struggle with executive functioning, leading to problems at home, school, and/or work.

Narrative Therapy

Sometimes, people with ADHD experience a difficult time dealing with the stigma associated with having the condition. In some cases, people believe that they’re lazy or disorganized because they have a harder time with executive functioning. If this sounds like you or someone you love, rest assured that you’re not alone and help is out there.

Narrative therapy seeks to reframe people’s thoughts about their ADHD diagnoses and experiences. In this form of counseling, the therapist prompts the client to identify the “sparkling moments” in their life. These instances include any time the outcome of a situation differs from the client’s current thoughts about themselves. By helping the client pinpoint their strengths, the counselor reinforces that the client is an adaptive and competent person.

Play Therapy

Play is the language of children. Through playing, children process the world around them and express their thoughts and individuality. So, many counselors believe one of the best ways to perform therapy with children involves playing.

During a play therapy session, the counselor tracks themes and reflects what the client is doing back to them. This helps the child process and get their emotions out.

Play therapy also proves helpful for many children with ADHD. It teaches the clients about their emotions and improves social skills, self-control, and cooperation.

And the good news? Play therapy isn’t just for children! Some mental health professionals offer play therapy for adults, too.

What Is the Therapist’s Style Like?

Finally, the therapist’s style matters. When anyone enters counseling, they need to create an impactful connection with their counselor. However, not everyone responds equally well to the same style of counseling.

Some therapists tend to be very gentle and non-directive. Instead of approaching a matter head-on, they ask questions designed to tease out what the client is thinking and feeling. Other therapists still practice a client-led style, but they are a lot more direct about challenging the client.

To identify what type you might respond to best, ask yourself how you react to people in real life. Do you tend to listen to someone when they get you to challenge your current beliefs? Or do you prefer to come to the conclusions yourself?

No matter what you choose, ADHD therapy often works best when paired with psychiatric care.

What You Can Expect in Therapy

If this is your first time looking for an ADHD therapist, you might want to know what happens in a counseling session. First, the counselor will gather your information and learn more about why you’re seeking out mental health services. Sometimes, this constitutes the first session. Subsequent sessions involve the counselor using evidence-backed techniques to help the client through their circumstances.

In therapy, you’re always in complete control over what happens. If a therapist ever asks you a question you’re not comfortable asking or suggests a technique you don’t want to try, tell them. In most instances, the counselor will adapt to accommodate what you want.