ADHD Counselling in Vancouver
How did you feel the first time you realized you might have ADHD? Was it relief to have a name for something you’d never quite been able to put a finger on? Or, did you feel fear about what this meant for you moving forward? You might also still be in the curiosity stage and have no idea what to feel yet.
Many of our clients also come in as adults who were diagnosed with “ADD” in childhood and are re-figuring out what that means to them now.
Or course, ADHD’s primary reputation is for affecting attention. In reality, it’s so much more. It can shape how you start things, switch between things, manage time, regulate emotions, navigate relationships, recover from overwhelm, and make sense of yourself.
ADHD can come with beautiful and creative perks, but can also be challenging. We hope that we can support you in figuring out how to relate to it all.
Our counsellors offer adult ADHD therapy, and several also offer teen ADHD counselling. We welcome self-diagnosis, childhood or late-diagnosis, and those grappling with the early stages of curiosity. ADHD counselling can be about finding practical ways to make life easier but it's also about understanding why something that seems simple to everyone else can take so much out of you.
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Keep reading to learn more about ADHD therapy.
Browse our ADHD counsellors further down the page.
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Know you want support but not sure where to start?
Our counsellors are people first. We truly believe that no one is broken, even when we feel stuck, overwhelmed, or like something is wrong with us. You’re just human, and being human can be complicated (and sometimes frustrating) to navigate.
Come take your shoes off, curl up with some tea, and let’s make a plan.
Our Find a Counsellor form can connect you with a counsellor who feels like the right fit for you:
ADHD Doesn't Always Feel Like What it Looks Like on the Outside
You might know you have ADHD and be looking to figure out how to relate to yourself in a way that feels better. Or, you might just know your brain doesn't seem to work the way you grew up thinking it ’should’. Either way, ADHD can look a bit different for everyone.
You might:
know exactly what you need to do and still be unable to start, and sometimes feeling caught in what people describe as ADHD paralysis. Or, you work hard to do exactly what you ‘should’, but it takes so much more energy than you’d like it to
have a great deal of excitement and motivation to plan or begin projects, but a hard time maintaining the focus or energy needed to finish them
become completely absorbed in something and lose track of everything else
struggle to estimate how long things will take, sometimes experiencing what’s often called ‘time blindness’
feel like you’re constantly in ‘waiting mode’: planning for later, waiting for tomorrow or something to happen so that life can finally start or feel a certain way
need an enormous amount of effort for things that seem easy for other people
forget things you genuinely care about, or find it hard to motivate yourself to do foundational things like eat, go to sleep, get up etc.
feel overwhelmed by noise, interruptions, or too many decisions at once
swing between getting an incredible amount done and days when even basic tasks feel impossible
spend a lot of energy hiding or masking how difficult things actually feel
find yourself often overstimulated or seeking out intensity, novelty or stimulation in different ways
None of this means you aren't trying.
The amount of effort something takes is often almost completely invisible from the outside.
Sometimes Starting Is the Hardest Part
You can want to do something, understand why it matters, have done it successfully before, and still find yourself unable to begin. That gap between intention and action can be hard to wrap your head around, especially after years of others not understanding why you can’t just get it done.
Like many, you may have found ways to work around the challenges over the years: just pushing through despite exhaustion, bargaining with yourself, last-minute pressure, elaborate systems, or someone else keeping you accountable. Over time, that constant effort can contribute to burnout, including the kind of exhaustion people describe as ADHD burnout and become another source of pressure, and shame that one day everyone will see through the facade. Counselling can be a place to get curious about what's actually happening when you get stuck, without turning it into another pressure cooker.
When Your Brain Can Focus for Six Hours, Just Not on That
ADHD isn't simply a lack of attention, but can provide this wild superpower of being able to focus intensely on something with incredible brainpower while a three-week-old email sits unanswered. Time can also feel confusing, with five minutes feeling like plenty until it isn't, and a week feels impossibly far away until the deadline is tomorrow.
The answer is definitely not to just try to "be more productive." We can look at what makes things easier or harder for you and your brain specifically, and what fits with your values.
ADHD, Emotions, and the Nervous System
While showing up to life’s demands can be challenging, where ADHD can really hit hard is with emotion regulation, when something feels overwhelming, disappointing, or unexpectedly intense. You may react quickly and strongly, then need a long time to settle, even while knowing intellectually that it isn't a catastrophe. Emotions, relationship challenges, conflict or losses can rock you and leave you feeling raw in ways that you feel quite deeply, which of course can be a gift and a learning curve all in one. Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) can also add to the puzzle, where perceived rejection, criticism, disappointment, or disconnection can land with a weight that feels difficult to shake.
To support both your brain, but also to meet those who identify with being deep feelers or highly sensitive humans, our counsellors may also draw on somatic and body-based work, emotion-focused work, parts work, ACT, or DBT skills. This way we can work on all aspects of you, including your ability to use your feelings and intuition without becoming overwhelmed or shut down.
ADHD and Your Relationships
Relationships can often be where ADHD shows up the most, but also gets talked about the least. It’s common to:
Care deeply about someone and still go days without texting back, not because you forgot them, but because you forgot the phone existed
Feel like you're always catching up on a conversation everyone else remembers clearly
Fall fast for partners, but have a difficult time letting go
Love someone intensely and still struggle to show it in the specific ways your partner might need
Find yourself stuck in patterns of people pleasing or being afraid to set boundaries
In a partnership specifically, this can settle into its own pattern:
What it can feel like from the inside:
You forget something that mattered to your partner, just because your brain genuinely didn't hold onto it the way theirs did.
A conversation or plan can slip away from you without you meaning to lose it.
Getting swept into something can mean a whole evening disappears without you choosing that over them.
What your partner might perceive
They may assume that if it mattered enough, you'd simply do it, the same way it works for them. They might assume you don’t care.
They may quietly adjust without telling you, assuming what this might mean.
They may assume that you chose something else over them, and assume that they are less important than they truly are to you.
Neither of you is wrong about what you're experiencing. You’re just seeing one reality in different ways and may need help to bridge the gap. Underneath the strain, the same intensity and depth that can bring challenge, is exactly what someone loves about you.
There are real strengths ADHD can bring into a relationship. You bring the gift of spontaneity, humour, intensity, creativity, and the ability to get completely absorbed in another person.
Counselling can help you understand the patterns that have build up between you and those you care about, rather than reducing the relationship to one person's ADHD vs. one person’s neurotypical understanding of the world.
Our Relationship & Couples Counselling page goes deeper into the relationship side of your life
Meet Our Counsellors who offer ADHD Counselling
Finding the right counsellor matters. Our team brings different personalities, experiences and therapeutic approaches to their work with ADHD.
We offer free 15-minute consultations so you can connect and ask questions first.
The following ADHD therapists have availability for new clients. Whether you’re already looking for support for yourself, or in some cases, for your partner or teenager we are here to support!
When ADHD Has Shaped How You See Yourself
Being misunderstood →
called lazy, careless, inconsistent, too sensitive, or not trying hard enough
Recognizing ADHD →
sometimes decades later, sometimes without a formal diagnosis at all
Believing it →
some part of you starts to agree with what you were told
What comes up next →
relief, grief, anger, confusion, or "this explains so much" and "what do I do with this now?" all at once
Part of this process is figuring out what you actually want to be different, and what you've just been trying to fix because you were told you should.
ADHD in Women and Girls
ADHD can be missed for years in people who've learned to compensate, mask, overachieve, or quietly meet expectations in ways that hide what's actually happening underneath. For many women and girls, being capable, conscientious, sensitive, or high-achieving can make it harder for others to recognize the amount of effort it takes to keep everything together.
If this is you, you may have learned early to work harder, stay organized at any cost, or push through overwhelm rather than letting anyone see how difficult things feel. By the time you reach adulthood, those strategies can look like being highly competent from the outside while leaving you feeling completely awful underneath. If this is a part of your story, we can definitely create space for the grief and frustration that comes with years of keeping up while seemingly expending more effort than everyone else.
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Noticing what's happening in your body, building a different relationship with overwhelm.
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Making room for difficult experiences while getting clearer on what matters to you.
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Emotional regulation and navigating intense experiences.
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Understanding the part that wants to get things done, the part that avoids, and the part that's exhausted from trying.
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how ADHD intersects with shame, belonging, and relationships.
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CBT is useful for some people and concerns, but not automatically where we start, especially when a highly structured, homework-based approach creates more pressure than support.
How Our Counsellors Work With ADHD
What ADHD-Affirming Counselling Looks Like
While ADHD isn't something we're trying to erase, difficulty is still difficulty, and it's completely okay to want things to feel different or easier.
We try to tell the difference between a real capacity limit and avoidance, rather than assuming every struggle is a motivation problem. There is room for movement, fidgeting, rambling, big emotions and breaks in session, not just stillness. The goal will never be to fit your brain into a shape that’s not your own, but rather to build a life that actually works for you.
Our Counselling Rooms Aren't Built Around Sitting Perfectly Still
There isn't fluorescent lighting, and you'll find things like blankets and fidget tools available if they're useful to you. You'll probably see our counsellors reaching for them too!
You make sense, and you’re not alone.
Your brain was never the problem you were told it was.
All of our counsellors offer a free 15-minute consultation. This offers you the chance to connect and ask questions about how they work, and get a sense of who you might feel comfortable with. It also helps us understand what you're looking for, so we can help you find a counsellor who feels like a great fit for where you are.
If you’re looking for an ADHD therapist in Vancouver, our counsellors offer both in-person sessions at our Kitsilano clinic (1682 West 7th Ave, Suite 300, Vancouver BC) and online for clients anywhere in British Columbia & beyond.
Frequently Asked Questions About ADHD Counselling
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ADHD itself doesn't necessarily worsen with age, but a few things can contribute to things feeling more intense.
Many people develop ways of masking ADHD, consciously or not, and compensate so well that the difficulty stays mostly invisible, even to themselves. Over time, or especially after a diagnosis, that masking can become harder to sustain. Once you know what you've actually been working around, it can be difficult to keep pushing through the same way, and symptoms that were being quietly managed can start to feel more present.Hormonal changes can play a substantial role in how ADHD affects the brain and nervous system as well, so shifts around the menstrual cycle, postpartum, and especially perimenopause and menopause can make ADHD symptoms noticeably more intense.
Increasing responsibilities, less external structure, sleep, stress, and burnout can all layer on top of this. Some people seek counselling because strategies that worked earlier in life no longer feel like enough. -
Absolutely. Our counsellors work with adults at every stage and love working with both youth and adults diagnosed in childhood, or diagnosed later in life. We also really enjoy working with those who are still exploring whether ADHD explains some of what they've experienced.
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Not as a standalone service. We're counsellors rather than coaches, which means we look at your whole experience rather than focusing only on behaviours or getting yourself to do the thing.
That said, many of our counsellors weave practical strategies into counselling when they're genuinely useful. We're just as interested in what builds up around ADHD over time, such as shame, unrealistic expectations, the sense you should be managing things a certain way, and what it can feel like to loosen your grip on these feelings and beliefs that weren’t ever really meant to be carried by you.
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We don't offer formal testing or diagnosis ourselves, but we're happy to refer you to someone who does.
Counselling can also help before or alongside that process: making sense of what you're noticing, wondering whether a diagnosis would matter to you, or figuring out what comes next after receiving one. Sometimes a diagnosis answers one question and opens up several more.
RCC (They/Her)
Collaborative · Authentic & Human · Gentle Warm & Validating · Welcomes Humour · Challenges Clients · Client-Led · Skills & Tools · Mind-Body · Insight & Patterns · Emotional Focus
LAUREN’S BIO & BOOKING →
Lauren brings a collaborative, open and human presence to counselling. They allow time for you to settle in without pressure, and become comfortable, with space for harder and deeper conversations once trust is built. Lauren brings lived experience as a longtime performer and artist, queer and neurodivergent person, and brings social justice, compassion and body acceptance into her work. The strives to create a space where each person can be fully themselves without the need to filter or hide who they are.
SPECIALTIES Neurodivergence · LGBTQIA+ · Anxiety & Panic · OCD · Depression · Burnout · Attachment · Family Relationships · Inner Child Work · Life Transitions
APPROACHES Somatic · DBT · IFS · Fat Liberation & Body Acceptance · Mindfulness · Anti-Oppressive · Narrative · Emotion Focused · Attachment-Focused · ACT · Trauma Informed · Sex Positive · Neurodivergent-Affirming