CBT to Support Adults with ADHD - by Antonia Dittner & Ailsa Russell & Trudie Chalder & Katharine Rimes (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This step-by-step guide, from expert professionals, helps clinicians develop formulation-driven cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) that is individually tailored to adult ADHD clients. Despite a growing number of adults being diagnosed with ADHD and seeking mental health services, clinicians continue to express a lack of confidence in being able to offer effective support.

Given the uniqueness of each ADHD client's experiences, this book sets out an approach for professionals to work with individuals to co-develop tailored CBT interventions rather than a using a 'one size fits all' approach. In a clear, step-by-step manner clinicians are guided through the three stages of therapy from Assessment and Therapy, Planning to Active Therapy, and finally Ending Therapy and Looking Ahead. Client handouts at the end of the book also form useful materials for providing further information to clients and recording the therapy process.

Taking a neuro-affirmative approach, this book will allow clinicians to support their clients to see their ADHD characteristics as differences not deficits.

Review Quotes

As a clinician who works with people with depression and anxiety disorders rather than directly on ADHD, I found this book really useful in providing information, ideas and ways that I could include aspects of the ADHD in my formulations alongside the mental health problem. The worksheets are great at gathering information and helping the therapist and patient make sense of how their experience of ADHD fits with everything else that is going on. Really helpful!--Dr Richard Thwaites, NHS CBT Therapist and Consultant Clinical Psychologist

Many clinicians lack confidence in their skills to help neurodivergent people. This clear, accessible guide adopts a neuro-affirmative approach, reminding us that people with ADHD have strengths and many ways of coping that they can build on with the help of CBT. Similarly therapists will discover that they already have many of the skills they need to work with this client group and it is more a matter of adaptation than learning a new set of techniques. This often means thinking more about "how" interventions are introduced and supported when clients have difficulties with attention and time management, as much as the "what" techniques are used. The formulation-based approach described here allows for neruodevelopmental and emotional problems to be integrated into a manageable conceptualisation that will be acceptable to clients, guide treatment and foster confidence in therapists.--Stirling Moorey, BABCP President

This important book is a highly useful and excellent resource for therapists working with adult clients with ADHD. What sets it apart from other works on how to treat adults with ADHD is that it addresses the heterogeneity of case presentations, which this diagnosis is known for, and provides concrete guidance for tailoring a treatment based on case conceptualization / formulation. I highly recommend it to clinicians working with this population.--Steven Safren, Ph.D., ABPP, Professor of Psychology at University of Miami

CBT to Support Adults with ADHD: A Therapist's Guide is an important, complementary addition to the evidence-based adult ADHD treatment manuals already on the market. The conceptualization-based CBT approach outlined by Dittner, Chalder, Rimes, and Russell offers a full range of skills but in a manner exquisitely tailored to the needs of adults with ADHD and furthermore to each client. This rich and valuable resource provides all the materials and guidance that practicing clinicians need to provide top-flight adult ADHD care.--J. Russell Ramsay, Ph.D., licensed psychologist and author of The Adult ADHD & Anxiety Workbook; Rethinking Adult ADHD; and The Adult ADHD Tool Kit

About the Author

Dr Antonia Dittner, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.
Professor Trudie Chalder, cognitive behavioural psychotherapist with a joint appointment with the Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.
Professor Katharine Rimes, Professor of Clinical Psychology at University of Plymouth
Professor Ailsa Russell, clinical psychologist and researcher based at the University of Bath.