ADHD Therapy for Women in Vancouver, BC

 No. Many women come to therapy suspecting ADHD but not yet diagnosed. I can help you make sense of your experiences and connect you with assessment resources if appropriate.

Yes. Therapy and medication work differently and can complement each other. Therapy helps you understand your nervous system, build regulation tools, and develop strategies that work for your brain.

It varies. Some clients feel significantly better after 12-16 sessions. Others prefer longer-term support, especially if working through diagnosis grief or deep burnout.

No. As a clinical counselor, I don't prescribe medication. However, I can connect you with psychiatrists or physicians who specialize in ADHD assessment and medication management.

ADHD in women often looks different than the stereotype. Common signs include chronic overwhelm that doesn't improve with organization systems, emotional flooding or intense emotional reactions, difficulty starting tasks even when motivated, time blindness (losing track of time or misjudging how long tasks take), sensory overload from everyday stimuli, exhaustion from masking or appearing "together," perfectionism paired with fear of failure, and rejection sensitivity where criticism hits harder than it should. Many women with ADHD describe feeling like they're "running at 150% capacity just to appear normal." If you've been told you're "too sensitive," "too much," or "not living up to your potential," and you struggle with executive functioning despite being intelligent and capable, you may have ADHD. A formal assessment with a psychologist or psychiatrist can confirm diagnosis, but therapy can help even before diagnosis.

Yes. Absolutely. This is one of the biggest myths about ADHD in women. Many women with ADHD were high achievers in school because they developed intense compensatory strategies like perfectionism, people-pleasing, over-preparing, or using anxiety as motivation. Intelligence and ADHD are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many highly intelligent women with ADHD went undiagnosed precisely because they could mask their struggles and "perform" well academically. The effort required to maintain that performance, however, often leads to burnout in adulthood when demands increase and old coping strategies stop working. If you succeeded in school but felt like you were working twice as hard as everyone else, if you relied on last-minute panic or hyperfocus to get things done, or if you're now struggling with adult responsibilities despite past academic success, ADHD may explain why.

ADHD in girls and women is chronically underdiagnosed because the diagnostic criteria were based on how ADHD presents in boys. Girls with ADHD typically internalize their symptoms (anxiety, depression, self-blame) rather than externalizing them (acting out, disrupting class). Girls also develop masking strategies early, learning to appear organized and attentive even when internally struggling. Additionally, girls with ADHD are more likely to be the "daydreamer" or "chatty" type rather than hyperactive, which doesn't trigger concern from teachers or parents. Many women weren't diagnosed until adulthood when life demands (parenting, career, managing a household) exceeded their capacity to mask. If you were described as "sensitive," "scattered," "anxious," or "not living up to potential" as a child, those may have been unrecognized ADHD symptoms.

ADHD masking is the effort women with ADHD put into hiding their symptoms and appearing "normal" or neurotypical. This includes forcing yourself to make eye contact, suppressing fidgeting or stimming, over-preparing to compensate for poor working memory, using excessive organization systems to manage executive dysfunction, monitoring your speech to avoid interrupting, and constantly scanning social cues to avoid rejection. Masking is exhausting because you're using enormous amounts of mental energy to perform neurotypicality rather than working with your natural ADHD brain. Many women describe masking as "holding everything together on the outside while chaos reigns inside." The exhaustion from masking often leads to ADHD burnout, where even basic tasks feel impossible. Therapy helps you identify where you're masking, build strategies that work with your brain, and reduce the constant effort of performing normalcy.

Yes. ADHD presents differently in women due to both biological and social factors. Women with ADHD are more likely to have the inattentive type (less hyperactivity, more internal restlessness and mental overwhelm), experience more emotional dysregulation and mood swings, develop anxiety and depression as secondary conditions, use masking and compensatory strategies that hide symptoms, struggle with rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD), and experience hormone-related symptom fluctuations (worse during menstrual cycles, pregnancy, perimenopause). Women also face different social expectations that make ADHD more impairing: women are expected to manage households, remember details, organize family life, and regulate emotions, all of which are executive functions impaired by ADHD. This is why many women's ADHD becomes more apparent during motherhood or perimenopause when demands exceed capacity.

ADHD symptoms can appear to worsen with age, but it's usually not that the ADHD itself is worsening. Instead, life demands increase while your capacity stays the same or decreases due to hormonal changes, accumulated stress, or burnout from years of masking. In your 20s, you may have had fewer responsibilities and more flexibility. By your 30s and 40s, you're managing careers, relationships, households, children, aging parents, and more complex executive functioning demands. Additionally, hormonal changes during pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause can intensify ADHD symptoms because estrogen affects dopamine and executive functioning. If your ADHD feels worse now than before, it's likely that your coping strategies are no longer sufficient for your current life demands. Therapy can help you build new strategies that work for this stage of life.

Fear around ADHD diagnosis is very common, especially for women who've spent years believing they were just "lazy" or "not trying hard enough." You might fear that a diagnosis will confirm you're broken, that people will judge you, that it will affect your career, or that you'll lose your sense of identity. Here's what's important to know: ADHD is not a character flaw or moral failing. It's a neurological difference in how your brain processes information, regulates attention, and manages executive functions. Getting diagnosed doesn't change who you are; it gives you a framework to understand your experiences and access support that actually works for your brain. You can pursue therapy for ADHD symptoms even without formal diagnosis. Many of my clients start therapy suspecting ADHD, and we work on regulation and executive functioning strategies while they decide whether to pursue assessment. Diagnosis is a tool, not a label, and you get to decide what to do with that information.