The Forums › Forums › Tools, Techniques & Treatments › Therapy/CBT › Pshychoanalysis anyone? › Re: Pshychoanalysis anyone?
I can’t see how changing one’s view of life would improve functioning with ADHD. The externalities do not change. The job is the same, familial pressures are the same, financial resources are the same. If someone wanted a lifestyle change, I can see psychoanalysis or CBT being helpful. That being said, I would be highly skeptical of any therapy that did not recognize the influence of ADHD, not only on how I think, but on what I can do. CBT might want me to change my thinking on something, but it does not give me the faculty to do the task any better. I was recently told by a CBT specialist that he could help me with some of my comorbid anxieties, but that CBT could not address the executive function deficits of ADHD.
Using a computer analogy, a psychoanalyst or CBT practitioner telling someone that the reason that they are not accomplishing X is because their software is faulty, i.e. thinking patterns and assumptions, when in reality it is the hardware, e.g. harddrive, that is not operating in a typical for human beings fashion and is getting in the way of achieving X.
The question is always, what do you want treated and what benefits do you want in the end. No amount of discussing your symptoms with a psychologist/counsellor will help you via a physical means to finish that book that you are struggling with, to eliminate the perseverative / hyperfocusing fixations, or to regulate your emotions. They may be able to teach you techniques to assist you when you are doing that behaviour, but the neurological under-pinnings (if recognized as neuro-chemical in origin) will still be there. A coach could do that as well.
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