Does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Work for ADHD?

The challenges of living with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) aren’t just limited to kids. The condition often lasts into adulthood, where working professionals and sometimes parents have to contend with symptoms that make it difficult to stay organized, focus, and reign in impulsive behavior. Fortunately, like many other conditions that impact mental health, ADHD can effectively be treated with the help of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a popular non-pharmacological treatment for everything from anxiety and depression to eating disorders. What Is CBT?

This form of talk therapy analyzes the underlying reasons for certain thought patterns and helps people to change the way they view themselves and the way they react to these thoughts, usually in conjunction with one of several psychological disorders. Ultimately, it focuses on changing problematic thinking and behaviors so that you can feel better and improve your life.

How CBT Is Used With ADHD

CBT for ADHD involves analyzing how the condition’s symptoms—inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity—negatively impact a person’s life and then coming up with tactics for how to change thoughts and behavior to minimize these impacts. It works best for adults (not kids) with ADHD.

“CBT is not really that effective for children with ADHD,” says Yamalis Diaz, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor in the department of child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU Langone Health in New York City. This is because “kids with ADHD do not have the insight necessary to utilize [the skills] we’d be talking about in CBT.”

Adults with ADHD are the ones who can really benefit from CBT. “In adults, CBT is really focused on helping identify ways in which thinking and behavior is either helpful or not helpful,” Diaz says. “We really focus on the emotional impact of behaviors—the anxiety, depression, negative self-esteem, all of these very unfortunate side effects of a lifetime of ADHD bumps and bruises.” CBT also aims to identify triggers, and then ultimately, teach you how to reframe your thought process, she adds.

CBT can be really helpful with addressing hyperactivity and impulsivity, says Lidia Zylowska, M.D., associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and author of The Mindfulness Prescription for Adult ADHD.

How CBT and ADHD Medication Work Together

CBT may be effective at treating ADHD to the point that a person doesn’t need to take medication. But in other cases, it’s used in conjunction with medication.  While highly individual, the decision to use meds, talk therapy, or both will come down to the severity of your symptoms, how they impact your life, and some good old-fashioned trial and error to see which type of treatment works for you.

What to Expect in a CBT Session

A CBT session should include a discussion of the symptoms you experience. “That includes ADHD itself, anxiety, depression, trauma, and substance use. Those five areas tend to all cluster together, especially in adults, so we want to make sure we’re getting a good read on what’s causing what and how they’re tangling up in the brain together,” Diaz says.

Your therapist will then do a functional analysis, which Diaz describes as the process of identifying your situational triggers, reactions, and the consequences of those reactions. This allows the therapist to also identify if any of your negative behaviors have smaller consequences that are enforcing the behavior, Diaz says. The next step is learning and then practicing skills to reframe your thoughts and reduce the negative behavior.

Adding CBT to your ADHD treatment plan—either on its own or in combination with medication—can make a meaningful difference in improving symptoms and putting you back in control of your thoughts and emotions.

Excerpted from “Does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Work for ADHD?” from HealthCentral. Read the full article online.

Source: HealthCentral |  Does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Work for ADHD?, https://www.healthcentral.com/article/cognitive-behavioral-therapy-for-adhd | © 2023 Remedy Health Media, LLC. Last reviewed September 2022. Retrieved June 2023.

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