Hope and Honor — The real reason behind coaching’s success with ADHD
As a student of the iACT Institute I have been hungrily devouring any and all information of ADHD for the better part of a year. Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the ADHD Parenting Solutions Summit. It was an exceptional collection of impassioned and devoted experts and advocates working on the front lines of ADHD research and care. Although I was left newly informed and inspired I was still amazed at the huge spectrum of considerations that goes into the diagnosis of the ADHD mind. With so many different approaches I wanted to dive down to why coaching has proven again and again to be so effectual in helping with ADHD.
ADHD can be seen as primarily a neurotransmitter problem due to a dopamine deficit. It has been posited as a heightened nervous system’s response to threat. Dr. Charles Barkley brilliantly explained ADHD as a blindness to the future, a intention deficit disorder, a rift between the back of the brain responsible for acquiring knowledge and the front of the brain responsible for putting that knowledge into play. With so many lenses focused on trying to define and explain what ADHD is it’s a miracle that we’ve been able to make any progress at all with this complex, highly individual brain disorder.
The wonderful news is that along the way it was discovered and universally acknowledged that coaching is the most effective method available to help ADHD’ers to overcome their obstacles and achieve their goals. Why is this?? It is because coaching honors the individual. ADHD has as many presentations as there are people who have it. Rather than prescribe packaged solutions or depend on medication alone, coaching partners with the individuals assuming that they can and will create their own best solutions. Starting with the assumption that all people are creative, resourceful and whole, coaching guides individuals to use their own strengths to create their own individual solutions. The efficacy of coaching lies in the belief that we all carry the divine spark to overcome our own obstacles and by honoring individual spirit and creativity it offers the hope that is necessary for any growth and change.
