Let’s just say it: CBT isn’t the magic bullet it’s often sold as — especially for ADHD.
If you’ve ever sat in a therapist’s office being told to “challenge your unhelpful thoughts” while your executive function is on fire, your dopamine’s in hiding, and you can’t remember what you came in for — you’re not alone.
CBT Assumes You Can Do the Thing
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is built on the idea that if you change your thinking, your behaviour will follow. And for some people, that can be true. But ADHD isn’t a thought problem. It’s a brain wiring difference — one that affects motivation, memory, time perception, regulation, initiation, and follow-through.
Telling an ADHD client to “notice the thought, pause, and reframe it” assumes they can catch the thought in the first place — and that they haven’t already spent years trying to logic their way out of their own overwhelm.
CBT tends to locate the “problem” in the client’s thinking.
ADHD is a neurological condition. Not a mindset issue.
Behavioural Pressure, Not Support
A lot of ADHD clients walk into therapy already carrying internalised shame:
“I should be more organised.”
“I should stop procrastinating.”
“I shouldn’t feel this emotional.”
CBT often reinforces those pressures — offering behaviour charts, rigid routines, homework assignments that rely on the very executive functions that are struggling. And when clients can’t keep up? It gets framed as resistance. Or avoidance. Or “not being ready for therapy.”
It’s the therapeutic version of “just try harder.”
No wonder so many ADHD clients leave feeling worse.
So What Do I Do Instead?
I work relationally, reflectively, and with radical compassion — not coddling.
Instead of trying to fix or reframe your brain, I help you understand it.
We look at what’s actually happening in your nervous system — and what strategies you’ve developed to survive in a world that constantly misunderstands you.
We sit with shame, not push it away.
We slow things down when urgency takes over.
We build from curiosity, not compliance.
And no — I won’t ask you to fill out a worksheet unless you want to.
This Work Is Not Behavioural. It’s Human.
Healing, for ADHDers, isn’t about becoming more functional on someone else’s terms. It’s about coming home to yourself. Reclaiming your voice. Naming your needs. Learning how to move through the world in a way that works for you.
It’s not always neat. It’s not always structured.
But it’s real. And it’s deeply effective — when the space is safe enough for the truth.