Chances are, if you’ve found your way to me, you’ve already sought out other therapists, coaches, and/or psychiatrists. They may have tried evidence-based therapies for behavioral change or prescribed you or your child antidepressants or benzodiazepines like Xanax. But likely that made things worse… or didn’t do anything at all.

You’ve probably had conversations where all others could see were you or your child’s DISabilities, not your different abilities. You’ve likely sat across from skilled, trained therapists and thought. ‘Why aren’t they getting this?’

That’s because traditional psychotherapy and counseling is great for neurotypical brains, but not for those with ADHD.

I get it. By the time my typical client gets to me, he/she is often frustrated with the entire mental/behavioral health field, and will do anything for answers. I don’t blame them. I spent years in psychoanalytic, psychodynamic psychotherapy in twice-a-week, back-to-back sessions looking for reasons why I wasn’t living up to my full potential. I spent countless hours in the Self-Improvement section at Barnes & Noble and attempted to quiet my brain with weekly mindfulness courses for decades. I’ve used weeks of vacation time to attend silent meditation retreats and I’ve been to more “fix-my-life-in-a-weekend” workshops than I care to count.

What many traditional psychotherapies, books, courses and retreats fail to recognize about a neuroAtypical brain is this: the ADHD nervous system is not damaged or defective. The ADHD nervous system is unique, complete with its own operating system. In fact, our nervous system works quite well, sometimes better than our neurotypical counterparts; it’s just that our operating system abides by its own set of unpredictable rules.

As someone who specializes in neuroatypical brains, I know what you actually need is a partnership with a therapist and coach who will educate you on your unique brain and its wiring, and how it works differently. I also provide accountability through external consequences, benchmarks, homework and “working sessions.” People with ADHD crave strategies for real behavioral change and the ADHD nervous system needs activation.

That’s where I come in.

My clients thank me for never saying “just” do this or “just” do that and understanding that if they could, they would. They thank me for using a strengths-based approach that taps into their unique abilities, rather than another band-aid approach, designed for a different brain than theirs. My clients (and their loved ones) often thank me for being a straight shooter and bringing laughter and levity to the important work we do. In return, my clients say they celebrate increased focus and productivity toward achieving their goals, more effective communication with others, reduced stress and better control of their emotions.

Jessica McCabe, in her popular TED talk, says this about ADHD: “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. Unless it chats with another fish and realizes fish aren’t great at climbing trees, and that’s ok, because they live in the ocean. If you spend all your time trying to get a fish to climb a tree, you’ll never see how far it can swim.”

The bottom line? → You are not broken. You don’t need fixing.

You don’t need fixing because there is nothing wrong with you. Or your child. ADHD therapy and executive function coaching is not about “fixing” what is going wrong, it is about highlighting what is going right. You just have to stop climbing trees, when you were meant to live in the ocean.