Psychotherapy Treatment for ADHD in Adults

For adults with ADHD, the same treatments that work for children may or may not be helpful. One major question is whether different kinds of counseling approaches can be helpful. For example, there’s been recent work on more executive functioning coaching for adults with ADHD. But it may be particularly helpful to get counseling around a combination of symptom management and executive functioning. Such counseling isn’t necessarily as helpful for children, where the counseling benefit comes more from parent efforts with a counselor to help the parent guide the child’s development. But for adults, it’s a potentially different story. 

What The Science Says

A study reported a few weeks ago provides encouragement for modified psychotherapy intervention. An individually formulated cognitive behavioral treatment was added to “treatment as usual” in a properly controlled, randomized trial. The treatment created noticeable improvement in executive function and reduction in ADHD-symptoms. The sample size was small (30 per group) but the result nonetheless holds out new hope for further psychological treatment development for adults with ADHD that can markedly improve quality of life.
Source:
Cognitive-behavioural therapy for adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: a proof of concept randomised controlled trial. Dittner AJ, Hodsoll J, Rimes KA, Russell AJ, Chalder T. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2017 Dec 27. doi: 10.1111/acps.12836. [Epub ahead of print] PMID:29282731
Dr. Nigg cannot advise on individual cases for ethical, legal, and logistical reasons.