The Artistic Voyage Through ADHD: Mindfulness and Empowerment

Navigating the complexities of ADHD can feel like venturing through a labyrinth with no exit in sight. But what if the very act of creation could serve as your guide? Join Aaron and me as we traverse the realm of ADHD and art therapy, illuminating the path from confusion to clarity. As a seasoned art therapist, I've witnessed the transformative power of creativity in individuals grappling with ADHD, and in our latest conversation, we pulled back the curtain to reveal how combining cognitive and somatic therapies with art can unlock profound personal growth and symptom management.

The synergy of mindfulness and artistic expression is a cornerstone of this journey. We discuss how engaging in art can ground you, offering an oasis of calm in the often chaotic ADHD experience. Mindfulness, distinct yet complementary to meditation, emerges as a beacon for those seeking to harness their focus and live more fully in the present. In sharing anecdotes and practical advice, I strive to arm listeners with an array of mindfulness tools tailored to both personal and professional settings, each one a brushstroke in the masterpiece of managing ADHD.

Yet, the landscape of ADHD isn't without its misconceptions. In a society where the hustle is glorified, we delve into the unfair branding of those with ADHD as lazy, unraveling the truth behind fluctuating energy levels and the need for compassion. We don't just stop at myth-busting—this dialogue extends into actionable strategies, workplace accommodations, and the necessity of mutual understanding in fostering neurodiverse-friendly environments. Empathy and empowerment are central themes as we share resources and strategies to uplift individuals with ADHD in their professional and personal lives.

This program is brought to you by:
Kindred Art Therapy
Visit https://www.arttherapync.com/ to schedule a free consultation.
- and -
Alynee Davis, PLLC
Visit https://alynnedavis.com/ to connect.
Alynne is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and Coach.

Be sure to visit BizRadio.US to discover hundreds more engaging conversations, local events and more.

Transcript

Aubrey: 0:59

Welcome to Kindred Conversations, the show where we shine a light on local mental health professionals, who are the unsung heroes of our community. Join us as we delve into their stories, journeys and the art of healing minds. Together, we'll break down stigmas and celebrate resilience. Today we have a special episode where we just talk about my practice, kindred Art Therapy, and the specialization that I've taken over the last year in ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I have joining me here today my show producer, aaron Matan, who is going to help out with some questions around this topic. Thanks, aaron.

Aaron: 1:40

Yeah, thanks for having me back on.

Aubrey: 1:43

Yeah, so I got into ADHD work mostly just because of my own experience with ADHD, but I actually had been working with teenagers with ADHD and autism for like the better part of the last five years before coming into private practice.

Aubrey: 2:07

And so when I came into private practice working with, you know, teenagers and adults, I found that in private practice it is more logistically feasible to be working with adults, not that like you can't work with teenagers in private practice, but there's just a lot more like red tape and things that you have to deal with as well as like after school schedules and stuff like that. And so I've had to pretty significantly limit the amount of teenagers that I see, because I also have kids myself and so working with adults, I mean I had originally really wanted to work with adults and then I kind of segwayed into working with teenagers, which I have no regrets about. I really enjoy working with teenagers, but just in the private practice world it's become a little bit too much. But I found that a lot of the skills that I learned in working with teenagers are very applicable to the work that I'm doing with adults. And so really just focusing in now with adults with ADHD, typically like professional adults with ADHD is usually those who are coming my way.

Aaron: 3:15

Well, it's interesting the kind of the crossover between using these practices for teens and how much of that is actually applicable to adults, which I guess that's kind of my first question, just for those of us who are not in the field, you know. Can you just start by explaining what art therapy is and how it specifically helps professionals with ADHD?

Aubrey: 3:40

Sure, those are like two different questions. So let me talk a little bit about art therapy first. So there's like thousands of art therapists in this country, where mostly supervised under the American Art Therapy Association, and those of us who are practicing art therapy. Oftentimes we practice in different ways. Some of us are oriented more towards like a psychodynamic theory think of like Freud and analyzing your past and your dreams and things like that. Some of us are more oriented towards like interpreting the figures in the art and then, for me, I was more taught in my clinical training around identifying emotions and identifying thoughts.

Aubrey: 4:32

So a lot of people know the terms like CBT and DBT.

Aubrey: 4:37

Those are like cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy.

Aubrey: 4:41

Those are really like the analysis of your thoughts and your behaviors and your actions and how your emotions play into that, as well as like somatic therapies, like going into your body and experiencing the way that you're feeling in that moment, and so I combine that with the art therapy that I use, and so a lot of times it's like having a client go, closing their eyes and just doing a short body scan and experiencing what they're feeling in that moment and then drawing from that like, okay, well, are you noticing any kind of sensations? Are you noticing any kind of colors that are coming up? Are you noticing like kind of like a jagged energy, like something that's like like kind of chaotic, or are you experiencing something that feels more like flowing and and soft? And so helping people to Take what they're feeling on the inside and then creating imagery around that in a physical form. So usually we'll use some type of fluid material like a, like an acrylic paint, or Like a soft pastel, like oil pastel, something like that, something that's very easy, very quick to move with and Something that's not going to create a lot of anxiety about, about the creation process, to be able to Be able to show like, hey, this is, this is what I'm, this is what I'm feeling, and maybe it's not a perfect representation, but it's better than me trying to describe it to you in words.

Aaron: 6:17

So that that's kind of the way that I work with art therapy hmm, and kind of specifically with Maybe clients or teens, you know, whoever, whoever it is that's benefiting from this With ADHD. Do you have any, any success stories that you would want to share? Obviously no personal information, but any, any kind of Profound breakthrough, specifically using art therapy, that come to mind.

Aubrey: 6:48

Yeah, so actually one of my favorites is the one that I'm working with right now a client who Came to me because he had been working with Clinician prior to me and that clinician was helping him by like Building some basic skills of like identifying his emotions and being able to like work through, like calming himself down in certain situations, and that was really helpful for him. But he felt like he couldn't really go deeper with that clinician, like he wanted to be able to get more to the root of what was really going on and Like diving more into just like relationship patterns and things like that. And so I really enjoy working with this client because of how Invested he is in the art therapy process. He's also a virtual client, and so he Shows up before session having already spent a few minutes before he started with just like Gathering his thoughts and creating art. Now, this is a process that I had actually already kind of instructed him on in one of our earlier sessions, but now he shows up that way and a lot of what is coming out through the process is like this pattern for him around perfectionism, and I'm able to identify it just by the way that he starts talking about his art and feeling like things are not good enough, that that he wishes that it could be a certain way, and then being able to draw parallels between some of the ways that he's thinking about his creations to like Well, this is kind of how it plays out in his relationships as well, and so it helps as like a springboard for us to be able to go deeper and to talk more in depth about like, okay, like this is what's going on.

Aubrey: 8:48

So this client does have ADD, has been diagnosed for most of his life and has been on and off of medications throughout his life, and I can't necessarily say that like Things are hundred percent better for him, right, like his life is all better and he's healed from ADHD. I mean, adhd really is like a lifelong condition, so it's not something that somebody's just gonna like magically their attention is going to be better. It's more of like how can we learn to accept ourselves so that, like, the things that are happening are not creating so much psychological pain? You know, like, like, oh like, instead of me forgetting about this thing and me getting really upset about that for myself and beating myself up and telling myself that I'm such a loser or I'm lazy or any of these like negative things that we tell ourselves, then really shifting our mindset to like, yep, I'm a human being who has ADHD and this is part of what it is, and then working on like ways to be able to incorporate skills that can help to mitigate some of those things.

Aaron: 10:04

Yeah, and I've always believed to, that there's, there's not a silver bullet fix to really anything in life, especially some of the, you know, bigger topics, and mental health is is a big one. So I mean, so you have the therapeutic techniques that you know, proof, proof, successful. Is there a role in mindfulness with your ADHD clients? Is that something kind of talking about the, the balance and the blend between you know different, different things you can do throughout your day to day, as well as kind of changing your, your mindset for the day to day? Do you find that that has an influence on whatever goal you're trying to accomplish with the client?

Aubrey: 10:54

Yeah, hugely.

Aubrey: 10:55

I mean mindfulness is is a big part of what I talk about with my clients and just for those who are listening in, like there's a big difference between like mindfulness and meditation, especially like the way that I talk about it with clients.

Aubrey: 11:10

So mindfulness from the way that I was taught and from you know a lot of ways that clinicians teach about it is really just about completely being in the present moment and experiencing that moment and so getting lost in what's going to happen and what's happened in the past, then all of these judgments that come up in our mind is our ways that our mind creates suffering for ourselves.

Aubrey: 11:38

So when we can be fully present in a moment and bring ourselves back to that moment and then we can find peace in that moment, that can really help to reduce feelings of like stress and overwhelm and frustration and all of the above right and so that that's a really challenging practice for anybody, especially for clients with ADHD. And so I think that the art can really help with being like bringing a client into the present moment, because when they're creating art, their hands are moving, their eyes are moving, they they can experience the sensations of the art, they can stay in the moment, with the colors of the art, and when their mind is kind of wandering off into these different Thoughts and different experiences that are that are not in that moment, then I can help to bring them back to that moment and it kind of like train them in a very physical way Around, like no, we're in this moment, right now, this is what we're doing.

Aaron: 12:43

So, yes, mindfulness is a big part of it and Kind of kind of lack of a better term. You know there's. If you've ever been the recipient of any type of, you know, mental health practice or whatnot, it's very easy to To Start to realize some of the things that you need to do it kind of in a in a sterile environment, like I said, lack of a better term. You know in that, in that space, it's really easy to pinpoint some of the you know, some of the practices and some of the Techniques that you can utilize. Kind of getting more into the specifics, how can Professionals with ADHD kind of incorporate these creative practices in their daily routine and how can they, how can they manage their Again, lack of a better term symptoms With, with becoming distractor or whatnot?

Aaron: 13:47

You know there's, there's a there's quite a few different Ways that that we can. We can tackle that and ways that we can do it. But what, what are just kind of the the most glaring kind of you know, snapshot ways of or advice you would give for incorporating these techniques into a professional day to day?

Aubrey: 14:11

yeah, this is a tough one, aaron, because there there isn't like a one-size-fit all four people, even Professionals. Like there's just so many different types of professionals, so many different things that are going on in both their personal and professional lives, and so, like there are some things that come to mind for me but I really want to share like a caveat that like, just because this doesn't work for somebody doesn't mean that it's not going to work for somebody else, and Just because, like you fit within the the ADHD or professional type of space, doesn't necessarily mean that like all things are going to fit for you. But with that said, like the, the first thing that comes to my mind is like, like graphic organizers and color coding is really helpful. Like, for example, like I teach people about, like a lot of people have a really struggling with like budgets right, and so I taught One of my ADHD clients this last week actually where you go through like a manageable portion of your expenses and your Income, right, so you go in your bank statement and say you're doing it for a week because that's how much you can Manage and you're you can handle in your brain before you start to feel like completely overloaded. So you go back through for a week, you like categorize them all by like Typing them out into spreadsheet and then you categorize them with like colors, so like using the color system to be able to like organize them, so like graphic organizers like that can be really helpful.

Aubrey: 15:52

I find Bullet journaling kind of fun and helpful. It can kind of be like a hyper focus Thing that people get into where they're like ooh, like, I want to start tracking this thing. Like I want to start tracking like how much water that I'm drinking every, every day, and so graphic organizers, a fun way to do that, or Like a grid journal, is what they are, and something that a lot of ADHD people find just intuitive is and I really try to normalize this and actually there's like work accommodations that you can ask for around things like this, but usually people don't need them is like doodling. Doodling is like a really great way to be able to be able to tune in and your listening skills, while like Decreasing the amount of load that's coming in in the visual cortex, because that's a lot of what's happening with the distraction is like there's so many things visually going on, and so the doodling helps to actually keep your hands busy, keep your eyes busy while your ears are listening. So those are some of the the ones that you know.

Aubrey: 17:06

I really try to normalize. Like I said, they're pretty intuitive for people. So most people with ADHD are going to be like yeah, I pretty much do that already Because we have a tendency to just kind of like make our way towards the things that work.

Aaron: 17:22

And also too, you know, for those, those listening, that you know say oh well, this isn't as applicable to me because I've never had a diagnosis or whatnot, but I mean several of the things that you're describing I use myself and time management is and focus on task oriented, like there's so many different applications to this, with or without ADHD.

Aubrey: 17:53

So these are, these are great things to to understand, just for somebody you know something that I think is really important for anybody who's listening is that 10% of our population has ADHD, and so, even if you don't have ADHD, someone that you work with likely does have ADHD, and so there are likely going to be accommodations that are going to be need to be made within the workplace to help make that person like up to par with the rest of the team, and so that's not to say like there are some really incredible strengths around ADHD, like when we are hyper focused and we can get our work done, like we can get our work done and probably a fraction of the time that it can take a neurotypical person to do it.

Aubrey: 18:45

But at the same time, if we're sluggish and we can't like muster the motivation to do it, it's probably going to take us three times longer to get our work done, and so being able to have the flexibility of the ebbs and flows that come with our ability to be on or off at certain times is is really a helpful thing, and it's why, honestly, like a lot of ADHD professionals work really well as entrepreneurs, because they can be a lot more flexible within their schedule and be their own bosses and kind of monitor and see things through in the way that it works for them and then they can have supports working with them and under them to help to like, bolster them up. But ADHD people are typically really good idea people, not the best execution people.

Aaron: 19:36

Yeah, understandable and you know, and I'm sure in a professional setting, accommodations is kind of a scary word for a lot of people because you, you don't want to be the person saying, hey, you know, I have, I have X issue and need why solution, even though you know evidence and statistics and the, the you're going to know yourself best and how to, how to get from point A to point B most effectively.

Aaron: 20:13

I'm sure there are a lot of people that you know that's, you know that's. Still, we're kind of in a, in a gray area, just culturally, where you know we're more aware of these types of conditions and these, these obstacles that people face. But I don't think it's across the board, just, you know, being realistic, open, open arms to making those accommodations. What do you, what do you think kind of the future of art therapy is for ADHD in the workplace, do you think? Do you think it's the focus on accommodations is would be more suited, or or having having ways to, for those individuals to to kind of work through it on the personal side and be able to just kind of administer some of those techniques themselves. Kind of which side do you think it? The responsibility falls on?

Aubrey: 21:19

Well, I think it's a little bit of both and I want to be careful because this isn't necessarily like an art therapy specific thing. I think it's more of like a human specific thing where you know the the employees and the employers that they're more and more understanding is needed on both sides and more education is needed on both sides with respect to just neurodiversity in general. I mean, this comes up with ADHD, but it also comes up with autism, it comes up with OCD, it comes up with bipolar, it comes up with other medical diagnoses around, like psychiatric diagnoses as well, and so the more that the individual knows about themselves, the better that they can advocate for themselves and the more that the employer or human resources department and things like that they understand, then they can also meet those accommodations and be able to create a better workplace environment in general. And then in terms of, like the art therapy piece, I feel like that's really a support for the individual and I'm not saying that that can't be something that could be incorporated into the workplace. That would be cool as well to be doing like in-service trainings and things like that. But really like in the shorter term, just more education in general is going to help everybody feel a lot better.

Aubrey: 22:50

One of the worst misconceptions that people with ADHD come up against and this is something that they both self-judged for and they're judged for is being lazy when realistically, that's most of the time not the case. Like, people with ADHD typically are actually very driven and hard workers. But, like I said before, it's a lot of the fluctuations in the energy that make it really difficult at certain periods of time for people to even be able to muster the motivation and the energy to like do work at that period of time. But that doesn't mean that like the next day they're not going to be like 150%. So the more that people can understand that, the more that they can let go of that judgment of like, oh, you're being lazy right now.

Aaron: 23:38

Good, good answer. Where can people go to get more information or find resources?

Aubrey: 23:44

So people can look me up on my website. It's wwwarttherapynccom, so that's where you can find out more about me. I'm also on Facebook on Kindred Art Therapy authentically underscore. Aubrey is my Instagram. I also have a blog on Medium and a LinkedIn page, so Aubrey, christine, baptista and you can look up more information. Find more information on this show on bizradious.