Can I find a psychologist that actually knows about ADHD???

[TheViolist2000]

I got diagnosed a year ago. My problem has been finding a therapist/psychologist who truly knows about ADHD and specializes in it – under Medicaid. It’s frustrating because you read everywhere, “CBT’s the best treatment, get therapy this, get therapy that, but so far literally every ‘therapist’ that I encounter claims they know about ADHD when all they know is the inaccurate public definition of the condition, the “oh-yeah-ADHD-is-when-you-have-a-hard-time-focusing” definition, and I end up teaching them about my ADHD! (Also i don’t know why social workers qualify as therapists, my experiences with them have been awful in that none have given me practical, clinically based ways to manage my symptoms). That makes no sense like – I’m not coming here to fill in the gap that your psych professors decided not to cover in class!!! So the question is: has anyone else had trouble finding a therapist/psych that actually knows what the heck ADHD even is? And has anyone had luck finding such a specialist under insurance,?even more specifically, NYC Medicaid? Switching to HealthFirst soon so if anyone has been able to find anyone under that insurance please do inform.

[Penny Williams]

There are several clinicians that specialize in ADHD in the NYC area. The real question is do they take Medicaid. You can search the ADDitude directory by location:
https://directory.additudemag.com/

Penny
ADDitude Community Moderator, Parenting ADHD Coach & Author, Mom to teen w/ ADHD, LDs, and autism

[Chickster]

Oh God I hear you. I actually despise therapists now – they will book you for open ended therapy to talk about things that are not relevant and not only will you sprend a fortune your hopes will be just that little more crushed. Steer well clear of psychodynamic therapy & if they dont SPECIFICALLY say they treat ADHD avoid. I think CBT (& branches of) is probably the only thing that works but even then it must be ADHD focused. Oh they all ‘know’ about ADHD alright. Except they dont. Focus is the least of my worries, & yours too no doubt.

One thing to come out of COVID-19 is now they are all doing Skype so a therapist who knows what they are doing can be found even though they are not geographically near. Be ruthless though. Any waffle in the first session & they are out. You cant afford to have uninformed, unqualified people wasting your time – & more importantly your hope.

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