Why I Opened ADHDifferently: ADHD Therapy from Someone Who Truly Gets It

ADHD Therapy

ADHD Therapy Through Lived Experience

While I was training to become a licensed therapist, I ended up working with a lot of people who had ADHD both children and adults. I immersed myself in ADHD education, attending seminars, reading textbooks, taking specialized classes, and receiving supervision on my ADHD-related cases. I wanted to be the kind of therapist who could really make a difference for people living with ADHD because I knew intimately, their struggles and their strengths.

But there was one key factor my training didn’t account for: I have ADHD myself.

And as I moved through my education, I started to notice something important, many of the ADHD strategies I was taught didn’t quite fit.

Challenges of Traditional Approaches

The recommendations often focused on surface-level challenges while overlooking core ADHD realities. They might teach how to “improve motivation” but completely skip over time blindness, which for many of us is one of the biggest daily hurdles. They would pathologize coping tools like fidgeting or doodling, labeling them as “problems to eliminate” instead of recognizing them as helpful ways to self-regulate. And too often, the ADHD interventions seemed aimed at making the people around the ADHD individual more comfortable, instead of helping the person with ADHD truly thrive. While Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is recommended, it needs to be adapted in order to work.

It felt as if much of the mental health field had studied ADHD from the outside but had never actually asked people with ADHD about their lived experiences.

In addition, the therapy process itself didn’t seem to account for people having ADHD. Welcome to therapy, here’s an entire packet of information for you to fill out ahead of time and don’t be late or we’ll drop you as a patient (one of the main reasons I decided to go virtual!)

I knew something had to change. I’d speak up in training, but my advocacy wasn’t always met with openness to the ideas I presented. Sometimes my experience was dismissed. While the field has been changing in recent years as more of us with ADHD use our voices to educate, people with ADHD don’t have time for the mental health field to catch up.

People with ADHD deserve support from professionals who not only understand the research but who also live the reality. We need ADHD therapy approaches that blend professional expertise with lived experience, offering strategies that actually work for ADHD brains, not against them.

That’s why I opened ADHDifferently.

Building Practical Strategies That Work

At ADHDifferently, I don’t view ADHD as something to “fix.” I see it as a unique brain wiring that comes with challenges, yes, but also incredible strengths. My role is to help you channel those strengths, build supportive systems, and develop practical ADHD coping strategies that make your life easier, more joyful, and authentically yours.

Because we’re different. And that difference is worth celebrating.
If you’re looking for ADHD therapy from someone who truly gets it, you’ve found the right place. Let’s work together to help you thrive, ADHD-differently.