You know what ADHD is. You know what therapy is but what in the world is ADHD therapy? What actually happens in there?
People ask us this a lot, so I wanted to lay it out plainly. I'm Matt, a therapist and the owner of Progress Therapy (PRGRS), a small practice in New York City that specializes in ADHD therapy. We offer virtual ADHD treatment across New York State, and this is how we think about the work.
By the end of this post, you'll know what ADHD therapy looks like in our practice. Every therapist is going to have a slightly different approach, so take this as one honest look inside, not the final word.
There's no recipe for ADHD therapy
This surprises people. ADHD therapy isn't one strict method that someone created and everyone follows out of a manual.
Think of the difference between following a recipe card vs. cooking for the person sitting at your table. The recipe gives you the same dish every time no matter who you are serving. A good cook looks at who's hungry and what they want, then pulls from everything they know.
Our approach works more like the cook. Different modalities can help with ADHD, and some people have built structured programs for treating it. We don't believe there's one best approach to follow. We combine a whole bunch of them, as needed, and meet you right where you are.
When I introduce our practice to new clients, I describe the work in three layers. That's a simplification. Living with ADHD is complex, and it touches every part of your life. But the layers make it much easier to see what we're doing and why.
Layer one: practical skills you can actually use 🛠️
ADHD has a lot to do with your executive functions. That's why motivation, time management, procrastination and emotion regulation can feel like such a battle. So it makes sense that concrete skills and tools help.
A few simple examples:
How do you manage a calendar in a way that works for you?
What can you put in place to reduce procrastination?
It gets more complex than that, but you get the idea.
Here's what matters: you don't need to process deep emotions or past trauma before you can put a skill in place. And this is where traditional therapy has often fallen short for people with ADHD. A lot of us picture therapy as talking things through and exploring what comes up. That's good, and we do it too. But people often come to us saying their past therapy was missing the practical piece.
If you have ADHD, you need that practical piece.
Layer two: the “emotional stuff” underneath the ADHD
The impact of ADHD comes in layers too.
Say you've been dealing with procrastination. There are clear consequences to that. Maybe you struggle at work. Maybe you get spoken to, or written up.
There's more going on beneath the surface, though. When you've been procrastinating for years, you can end up carrying anxiety, depression, shame and guilt. The procrastination has consequences, and then there are struggles that build up as a result of being someone who procrastinates. We hear people talk about this all the time.
Then there's the judgment. People with ADHD often get mislabeled. They get called lazy. They hear "you just don't care about this." That stays with you.
We're not going to skill our way out of these deep “emotional thins”. You can't just learn a new tool and watch the shame disappear. That part takes deeper emotional work, and an ADHD therapist in NYC or anywhere else should be ready to go there with you.
Layer three: knowledge 📚
The last layer is knowledge. Plenty of the people we work with already know a lot about ADHD. Some don't yet, and that's okay. Wherever there's a gap, we want to help fill it.
This is also the layer you can work on yourself. A few tips:
Stay current. Follow what the latest ADHD research is showing, from reputable sources.
Read broadly. Some people talk about ADHD as a superpower. Others talk about it as a serious disability. Read across those angles and you'll start to form your own understanding.
Be cautious. You're going to see startups and tech companies pushing the latest testing or the latest treatment. I still encourage you to read about them. Just keep checking reputable sources and multiple angles.
How the three layers fit together
On paper this approach to ADHD Therapy looks clean: layer one, then two, then three. In real life it's more fluid. Sometimes these things happen together, and sometimes they get their own stretch of time.
When we combine all three of these components in care, people tend to do quite well, because together they touch so much of what ADHD affects: the daily logistics, what you've been carrying underneath, and how you understand your own brain.
That's how we look at ADHD therapy at Progress (PRGRS) Therapy. If you'd like to learn more about us, read through our website at prgrstherapy.com. You'll get a good sense of who we are.
