Psychotherapy is a broad term used to include any talk therapy that helps individuals with a broad range of mental illnesses and emotional difficulties. What’s even more, psychotherapy does not only benefit those with these conditions; it can also help the parents of children with mental illnesses and emotional difficulties. One of the conditions which most often benefits from psychotherapy, for both parent and child, is ADHD.

What is Psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is the foundation on which recovery thrives. While there are numerous forms of psychotherapy, they are all focused on talking or finding an alternative outlet to express thoughts and feelings.

Some examples of the range of psychotherapy approaches include:

• Psychodynamic therapy
• Interpersonal therapy
• Cognitive-behavioral therapy
• Dialectical behavioral therapy

Psychotherapy for Children with ADHD

Children with ADHD must learn to adapt to a world that consistently works against the way their brain functions. This can not only be challenging, but it can cause additional problems such as bullying, poor self-image, and anxiety. Psychotherapy offers a way to bring out the best in the child while also teaching them strategies to ease their struggles.

Through the variety of play and art-based psychotherapies offered, children can learn how to make and keep friends, helping to ease what may be a serious problem in children with ADHD.

Psychotherapy also offers skills and strategies that those with ADHD can learn to make living with their condition easier.

Psychotherapy for Parents

Psychotherapy offers parents of children with ADHD a reserve of ADHD resources. Having a child with ADHD can be difficult for parents. Their behaviors are often exacerbated by typical parenting techniques, and in some situations, parents may not know the best way to provide a child with ADHD guidance. This can leave many parents struggling with parenting, and they may feel hopeless about what to do for their child.

Psychotherapy teaches positive parenting techniques for children with ADHD. In addition to providing parents more information on how their child’s mind functions, psychotherapy also offers information on the best way to parent, including how to work around unfavorable behaviors. Since ADHD manifests differently in every child, psychotherapy offers individualized guidance on how parents can help their child and the symptoms their child has.

In addition to offering parenting tips and tricks, psychotherapy is also an excellent source of ADHD resources. There are important things for parents to understand about ADHD so that they can better understand their child, and psychotherapy offers a way for parents to talk with a therapist about these things and how it impacts their child.

Research consistently shows that children respond well to parents who have empathy, understanding, limit-setting tools, and self-awareness. Psychotherapy helps equip parents with these skills, allowing their children to flourish. In addition, with these skills, parents can form stronger bonds with their children and set better examples.

If you are interested in learning more about how psychotherapy benefits children with ADHD and parents of children with ADHD, reach out to Abbey Neuropsychology Clinic at (650) 215-6840 for more information.

Sources

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotherapy

[2] https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/adhd.html