Session Topics

We’ll get started by identifying your reasons for starting therapy and setting goals.

I will help you to identify what areas of your life are being affected. For example - work, education, relationships with spouse, children, other family members, or friends.
We will focus in on what specific behaviors you would like to change. For example, missing deadlines, forgetfulness, timeliness issues, procrastination, impulsivity, feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, irritable (having a short fuse), etc.
Based on these insights, we’ll work to set goals that are measurable, achievable, positive and specific. We’ll look at long-term goals, which can take more than six months to achieve and short-term goals, which can be met in shorter periods of time and are steps towards long-term goals.

Next, our work will focus on learning new behaviors, thoughts, and practices that help you achieve your goals. This can include:

Replacing thoughts that lead to avoidance and procrastination with alternative ways of thinking.
Exploring motivation. For example, identifying what times of the day you are most motivated and committing to tasks during that time that are the highest priority.
Identifying and eliminating “procrastivity” - doing marginally productive tasks as a justification for procrastinating on more cognitively demanding tasks.
Setting short-term consequences and rewards for yourself to increase motivation.

Building emotion regulation:
- Tracking and noticing your emotions, including identifying triggers and negative stimulation.
- Identifying new positive coping activities and trying new strategies for self-soothing through the five senses.
- Choosing an action that is in alignment with your values and may be a different direction than where your emotions are pulling you.
Practicing new interpersonal skills:

Increasing assertiveness skills and healthy boundary-setting to avoid overcommitting.
Increasing communication skills for when we have let others down or made a mistake.
Practice in asking for what you need in the most effective way, therefore gaining connection and understanding instead of creating confusion or conflict.

Having a master calendar, checked daily and including details, such as travel time.
Organizing your to-do list, for example separating into personal/professional, short-term, long-term, etc. Assigning items for specific days and times.
Having a system in place to eliminate clutter and distractions.

Separating out and committing to downtime to increase effectiveness and avoid burnout.
Exploring techniques, such as practicing mindfulness, to reduce stress and increase internal awareness.
Checking in with sleep, nutrition, and exercise (ADHD makes these areas harder to manage, which can make everything else harder).