ADD COACHING:
A Bridge Over Troubled Water

Adult ADD clients, even after diagnosis, medication and counseling, may begin to feel frustrated that they are still unable to "get it together" as much as they had initially hoped. While they may have an increased ability to focus, they still may have trouble with clutter, money, time and staying on track. Even therapists who provide coaching during counseling sessions can only go so far. Many people require more frequent and/or side-by-side guidance or structure at home. Family members, however, may carry a backlog of resentment which prevents them from being effective coaches at this early stage.

I like to think of professionally trained coaches not only as an organizing tool in the lives of adults with ADD, but actually as an important therapeutic tool that can help clients restructure their external and internal worlds simultaneously.

In coaching sessions, deep and vulnerable feelings similar to those that arise in therapy are often touched. If a coach creates an atmosphere of safety, objectivity and acceptance, similar to encountered in therapy, feelings of shame or failure that have been buried (and are uncovered with each new pile) may emerge. These feelings can be taken back to therapy and worked through, consequently losing some of their power.

For the same reasons a person goes to a therapist for support instead of a family member when they are feeling overwhelmed by emotions, a coach can provide a neutral, non-reactive environment to adults with ADD who feel overwhelmed by the tasks of daily life. And just as in therapy, when painful areas that have been avoided for a long time are exposed, clients may begin to resist or avoid the coaching process. The coach who is trained in how to deal with this resistance by "gentle encouragement" and by "normalizing these feelings can make a critical difference in the continued success of the coaching relationship.

A partnership between the therapist, the ADD coach and the client can extend the therapeutic reach into a client s everyday life where so many of the difficulties are centered. As clients confront their most hidden areas in the presence of a calm, trusted person, the demons hiding under the piles become less threatening, and they grow in self-acceptance. As a client starts to feel more in control, they can begin to broaden their support and transfer some of the function of the coach to both family and other paid specialists. In this way the professional ADD coach truly becomes a "Bridge over Troubled Water" moving clients safely through rough waters to solid ground.