3.ADHD - Coaching for Highest Potential

Today’s topic is Coaching, which is rapidly becoming the major treatment for ADHD besides medication. Now ADHD coaching - for those of you who associate coaching with a whistle and a stopwatch - this is not that kind of coaching.

Coaching is kind of a newer modality that basically comes out of the positive psychology movement. Positive psychology is sort of where the human potential movement has finally ended up. 

Clinical psychology has been used for decades and decades to treat people who have mental health problems to try to get them up to the normal level. Coaching works to get people functioning not just at the average level, but raising them up to their highest potential. That is, somebody is not going to come in for coaching and just want to get to the normal level - because that’s where they already are. They want to be the best they can be and they want all the help they can to be the best they can be. So it's a really different model than psychotherapy. For instance, when somebody who's got depression comes into a therapist's office, it's pretty obvious that what's wanted is some relief from the depression. When someone comes into a coaching program, they want to do something to improve their performance generally .They want to be better at their job, or a better husband, or or a better wife or a better parent. They want to be better than they are currently. And the real difference is that they come in with their own agenda. The client comes in with the agenda when it's a coaching situation. It's not the coach that determines the goals. So that's a really big difference, because the control for the direction is much less in the coach's hands than it is in the client's hands. The client provides the goals. The coach provides the expertise to get to these goals. 

There are basically two kinds of coaching.  One type is accountability coaching, which just says  you agreed to do this five times a day for the next three weeks. How are you doing on that goal? Have you been doing that? If yes, great.  And the other approach is expert coaching. And expert coaching is when the coach is an expert in ADHD. An ADHD expert would be able to help you cope better with problems with working memory or executive functioning. The goal is to get you to be the best you can be at whatever your particular area of difficulty is. One of the things that you do with ADHD coaching is develop skills. There are all kinds of compensatory strategies and techniques that help people who have problems with attention, concentration, procrastination, time management, focusing, and dealing with hyper-focus. Coaching can help you develop the skills to handle these issues. Coaching is useful for people at all levels - from the CEO of a company to elementary school students.

Typically, the coaching client is somebody who is very bright, very focused, and very involved in self-improvement. This includes most people with ADHD. Coaching is especially useful for adults who were not diagnosed until later in life. All their lives, they have had to struggle along by themselves trying to make the best of things, without understanding the difficulties caused by their ADHD. Many adults with ADHD were not diagnosed when they were young, and they didn't  grow up knowing they had it. They know that there are a lot of areas that they have troubles with, but they're not sure how much of it is ADHD and how much of it is something else, like being anxious or depressed. ADHDers frequently keep this a secret, but a lot of times they lack self -confidence. A surprising amount of time is spent teaching people, teaching clients about ADHD, and what it is, and how it affects them. Coaching can also help with learning how to manage emotional states, learning how to have better control, improving self-image, reducing stress, and frequently improving self -confidence. Coaching can be  a huge help in improving efficiency on the job.

I had a client who did not know until just recently that she was ADHD and she didn't realize that

the problems she had with clutter was one of the symptoms of ADHD. Every flat surface in her home or office had a pile of stuff on it. And her idea was that as long as she  could see it, she knew it was there. Because her working memory was so poor, if she couldn’t see something, it was as if it had disappeared. This caused her difficulties in her relationship with her husband, which we resolved with coaching. 

I think ADHDers like coaching because it's more like a relationship between equals. When

you go to a therapist's office or your doctor's office, there's no doubt about who's

in charge. Most ADHDers are a little more comfortable when by definition they have equal power and equal responsibility in the whole situation. ADHD coaching is typically time limited. It doesn’t go forever, but lasts as long as the ADHDer feels they are gaining the control they want over their ADHD and improving their lives.

Many clients don't fully understand their ADHD. Coaching helps them recognize what’s ADHD-related and equips them with tools to work with their unique brains. ADHDers are special and necessary. We need them because they're the people who think outside the box. And the people who think outside the box are the ones that solve the unprecedented problems that we now have. 

If you've got ADHD, you should look for ways you can get the most out of your abilities and the most out of your life. Because frankly, we need people who think outside the box who aren't  content with the regular way of thinking about things.

And don’t forget—ADHDers are the innovators and out-of-the-box thinkers the world needs now, more than ever.  If you’re ready to go from just surviving to fully thriving with your ADHD, give coaching a try. 

Feel free to give me a call  to see if coaching is something you want to do.

Visit my website at terrygingrasphd.com to learn more about Dr. G’s ADHD coaching services.

Feel free to give me a call  to see if coaching is something you want to do.