ADHD Focused Supervision: The Importance of Finding a Supervisor Who Understands ADHD
By Kristen Dammer
If you are a therapist living with ADHD, I get it because I too am a therapist with ADHD. I understand how painful it is to return emails on time, especially if it is an email involving tasks or deep thought when you are already out of energy for the day. I understand how painful it is to complete documentation on time consistently.
I understand how if you have 4 clients back to back, how difficult it is to have energy for the rest of the day, and possibly even the next day. I understand that you are awesome at remembering details about each client, but when you have too many new clients or changes in your schedule, all client details become scrambled.
Yes, all therapists can relate to these feelings, but to someone with ADHD, it is a whole level of intensity that others without ADHD do not fully understand. Not all clinical supervision can feel supportive if your supervisor does not understand the unique challenges with ADHD. Here are three reasons why it is helpful to work with a supervisor knowledgeable in ADHD.
Breaking Down ADHD Stigmas and Misconception
Living with ADHD often involves dealing with societal stigmas and misconceptions about the disorder. Having a supervisor who understands how impactful ADHD is to all dimensions in life is paramount to feeling supported. ADHD is still in the realm of moral failure by many, meaning statements like “oh everyone has some ADHD” or “just try a little harder” or “connect to your motivation” are extremely dismissive of someone with ADHD.
ADHD is not a moral failing. An ADHD brain is designed differently, meaning it is not a moral challenge, it is a neurodevelopmental, structural challenge. Having supervisory-level deep understanding can help you find moments of ADHD acceptance, thereby reducing self-defeating thoughts, stigma and isolation you feel in suffering silently.
Tailored Strategies to Help With Executive Functioning Challenges
Therapists with ADHD can find it difficult to explain why they have specific challenges with these executive functioning skills:
- Paperwork
- Scheduling
- Returning emails
- Organization
- Task initiation
- Timekeeping in session, and
- Procrastination
Neurotypical supervisors might apply a one-size-fits-all approach or linear method to keeping up with tasks, which can leave someone with ADHD feeling less than. If a supervisor understands that ADHD sees time management in stimulating and not stimulating and fun and not fun (Solve It Grid) this can help find specific strategies to make those EF tasks associated with therapy tasks easier.
Supporting Deficient Emotional Self-Regulation
In terms of deficient emotional self-regulation (DESR and ADHD: The Overlooked Emotional Component of ADHD), learning strategies to help with the emotional competent that can show up in sessions and other work-related areas are important parts of ADHD-specific supervision.
Therapists with ADHD often work with clients with ADHD because of the same concepts in this blog…you get it. If you find yourself in session with a tangential, talkative client and have a difficult time interrupting or keeping track of all the important details to circle back to in a therapy session, finding yourself being pulled into all the interesting details of your clients tangent, it can be helpful to realize this is“normal.” Creating mindful strategies is important to your clients progress and your therapeutic development.
Awareness of Transference and Countertransference
Keeping in mind transference that shows up specifically with ADHD clients and therapists is helpful to be aware of. ADHD is a spectrum disorder, meaning it will show up differently from client to client. Yes there are fundamental components of someone with ADHD, but each person with ADHD will have differences in the severity and types of struggles. It is not a one size fits all.
Oftentimes, therapists with ADHD can be two steps ahead of their clients or can over-relate to clients experiences, which can impact the clients unique journey in therapy. Maybe you notice impulsive control during sessions– jumping in too soon when a client is sharing or having your mind wander when a client is talking about too many seemingly “unimportant” details in their stories.
Or you may have to mask your body’s natural tendencies to want to move. Or even seeing all the connections in your mind to your clients current challenges and past experiences but having a difficult time articulating your thoughts, so you feel “less than.”
When you can move to a place of understanding, humanity, accepting these as “normal” parts of ADHD, you can slow down any thoughts of feeling “less than” or imposter. We do not need to be perfect. Finding spaces to be yourself in sessions allows you to be a role model for clients that have been masking into rigid states their whole lives! Supervision can help you understand all these mentioned occurrences can happen in a session.
ADHD-Informed Approaches to Therapy and Your Own Journey
Actively participating in your own ADHD journey starts with you. Asking yourself what you need to find places of acceptance in your day and most importantly–to remember you can find places of acceptance in your day to begin with–helps the process.
Use what tools work for you and realize they might look entirely different for your client and this is okay. Remember if you try to direct your client to “your” solution and become frustrated that they “aren’t changing,” you are also moving ADHD back into a realm of moral failure. Everyone with ADHD is unique. Meeting clients and therapists you are supervising exactly where they are at–allows people to feel truly supported and understood.
Having tools, concepts, and knowledge in your back pocket when working with a client or supervisee with ADHD is important. When working with a client with ADHD, the journey almost always involves finding moments of acceptance, which allows for more room to think outside the box when trying to problem-solve everyday challenges.
My Strategies as an ADHD Therapist
I find it helpful to combine Tamara Rosier’s Solve it Grid with BF Fogg’s Tiny Habits. Key terms in the practical solutions:
- Using prompts to remind you
- Body-doubling
- Chunking
- Habit stacking
- Pivoting
- Regrouping
- Meditation (like the Gatha that doesn’t allow other thoughts in your head during meditation time)
- EFT tapping
- Paleo timekeeping, and most importantly,
- Celebrating each completed task of the day.
All of the helpful tools lead to moments of acceptance. I always say moments of acceptance because of the difficulty with ever completely staying in this acceptance state because if we think that acceptance is all or nothing, we will continually fail.
Having ADHD is difficult and so often misunderstood. Allowing yourself space to talk about the impacts of ADHD as a therapist in supervision leads to places of self-acceptance. A supervisor who themself is knowledgeable in the implications of ADHD on all facets of life, especially as a therapist allows your own journey to feel more supported.
An ADHD-informed clinical supervisor can also provide specific ADHD strategies to use in session, as well as a space to discuss resources and research in the field of ADHD, allowing more space for acceptance in your journey as a human and therapist. If you are independently licensed and seeking ADHD- informed clinical consultation, check out our clinical consultation group for ADHD therapists, facilitated by an ADHD clinical supervisor. You can get clinical support in a way that is helpful for you!
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Author Bio
Kristen Dammer is a clinical supervisor, therapist, and blogger with Firelight Supervision and Catalyss Counseling. Kristen specializes in trauma, ADHD, and perinatal counseling with adults and is trained in EMDR. Kristen enjoys providing clinical supervision and consultation to beginning to advanced clinicians in private practice, hospital, and agency settings.
