Counselor with ADD

[tere]

I recently ended a very brief episode of employment after disclosing to young adult patients (many of whom have ADHD) that I also have ADD.(I am a psychohtherapist) I did this because I totally GET what it is like to live with this since I have it too, and wanted to establish rapport with them. Unfortunately, it didn't go over well with management (although the patients have told me it made them much more comfortable with me and they appreciated my honesty) and ultimately I left the job due to repercussions from this. My question is this: if your therapist shared that he/she also had ADD, would this be helpful to you or would you find it off-putting?

[Steven Charles]

That is absurd, and it may also have been illegal, you should speak to an attorney. Under the "Americans with Disabilities Act", they can't dismiss you from your job, solely because of ADD. What kind of reasons did they give you for not wanting you any longer? Many of the foremost authorities on ADD are psychotherapists, &/or have ADD themselves. So they are on very, very shaky ground; plus, I'm surprised that as a trained psychotherapist, this came as a surprise to you, since I would assume it's often an issue with patients you see that have AAD, or other mental health conditions...

If my therapist said they had ADD, I'd consider it a plus, the same way most of the best drug treatment counselors are those who are former addicts, etc.....

Here's a link for more info: http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-ada.html

[tere]

Thanks for the concern, Steven Charles. It was definitely not a stellar moment in my professional life. Anyway, I would like to clarify that I wasn't let go from this job, but that after this discussion I realized that the job just wasn't a good "fit" for me at all and it was the straw that broke the camel's back in my deciding to leave. There were actually some people there who were quite supportive of me and others who most definitely were not, but I was not fired but left willingly after feeling that I wasn't valued. After this discussion, I actually stayed about another two months to see if things would get better and then left when I realized they weren't going to. The young adults I worked with really bonded with me and told me before I left that they appreciated my honesty and openess about having ADHD because many of them have always felt quite stigmatized by it over the years. But thank you for the link and the championing of the ADD cause!

[Jeremy Dyer]

To be frank, both. I would say it is fairly difficult topic because as a patient we would be there to get help, not to hear about others problems. I think personally though it would be very helpful to hear since so far all of my therapists don't listen to me very well and they don't understand what it is that i have to go through.

[tere]

Jeremy, I can sympathize that good therapists are hard to find. I have tried to be one of those good ones, and can only hope that I have succeeded more than I have failed. It is a big responsibility. My worst therapist story is when I went to a therapist once regarding anger management issues and to talk about getting back on Prozac and she ended up spending half the session telling me about her ex-husband who was a Lutheran minister and had sexually abused both their daughters! She then went on to tell me she thought my 5-year old son probably had bipolar disorder from a simple comment I'd made about him losing his temper. She had never even met him and I had given her no reason whatsoever to believe he had a mental illness, but she had trouble letting go of that and getting back to the reason I was there in the first place. Then, when she found out I was a therapist, too, she offered me a job even though I WAS HER PATIENT!!! It was like the Twilight Zone. I laugh about it now, but at the time, it was rather unsettling.

[DANA]

If it were me and my therapist honestly shared that she was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, I would be thankful that she told me about it. Personally, I do think that it would make me feel better knowing that she is experiencing similar challenges that I am. Also, I would feel confident that this therapist has much knowledge and education about adults with ADD/ADHD.

The professional who evaluated & diagnosed me with ADHD, never shared her own personal history or background of possibly having ADD/ADHD, but I have definitely seen with my own eyes many behaviors and heard subtle comments that have me wondering if she very well could be dealing with ADHD?

I have a question for you, tere.....When you thought about sharing your ADHD with your patients, did you question whether your supervisor would be in agreement with your decision? Also, how did management discover that you have ADHD? From you or your patients?

[Sarah Sears]

This is a great discussion. I am a therapist and work with many people with ADHD. I often disclose my ADHD diagnosis. The therapeutic rule of thumb that I go by when considering self disclosure is 'Why am I sharing this - is this for me or is the intended to be helpful for the client and how could it help the client?" Each client is different, so my disclosure happens at different times and in different ways. I always follow up my by saying, 'I know what it means for me to have ADHD, and I am curious about what it is like for you'. I say this because I want them to now that while I have similar experiences, that their experience is unique and important. Most of my clients have given me feedback that they appreciated when I shared my diagnosis and experience with them.

[tere]

Both of you raised excellent points, Dana and Sarah. Dana, I really think your question about whether or not I cleared this with my supervisors shed some light on why it turned out so badly. I did not do this and this is probably a considerable factor in the impact it had. As far as how they found out, I was fairly open with them about this from the beginning when they asked me to start dispensing medications in the morning and I refused due to my ADD. I told them that having ADD and managing multiple psychiatric medications for 24 young adults was just not something I wanted to take on and that they would have to find someone else (the other therapist had a nursing background and would have been an obvious choice). Since staff members had clearly begun noticing my forgetfulness and disorganization anyway, the disclosure of my ADD during the medication issue was probably a timely choice. In the past when I have disclosed my ADD to clients it has always gone well because I am fairly savvy about the things Sarah talked about in knowing when, why, and how to disclose. In this particular case, I think another huge factor was that one of the residents/patients I disclosed to used it as ammunition in complaining about me and the supervisor had to address it since the issue had been raised. The patient doing the complaining was a young man who was furious about having a female therapist anyway (he openly admitted this) and was in general looking for ways to discredit both me and the program so that he could avoid confronting his own issues (controlling mother/anger at all females, ect...). So he lobbed the ADD ball back at my supervisor and the rest is history......Ironically, every other single patient in this program with whom I shared my ADD benefitted from this disclosure and was thankful and appreciative. I guess you win some and you lose some. I guess the biggest outcome of all this for me is that I am almost certainly abandoning the field of psychotherapy as a career. Even though I spent two years after my masters' degree getting my clinical license to counsel, I have realized that I just really enjoy social work more and prefer to demote myself back to masters level social work jobs henceforth. I truly love social work in a way I never have counseling and, God willing and the creek don't rise, (pardon the Kentucky saying), I look forward to doing it again soon. Thanks to everyone who responded to this thread with such great feedback.