Therapy for Women with Late-Diagnosed ADHD across Pennsylvania and New Jersey

Online Therapy in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for Women with Late-Diagnosed ADHD

I provide ADHD-informed therapy for women with late-diagnosed ADHD. My clients find me after years of ADHD masking and burnout led them down a path that resulted in a diagnosis later in life. If you’ve read this far, I’ll bet you’re intelligent, got good grades and mask your struggles well to avoid being a burden, letting others down, or asking for help. When you finally get diagnosed with with ADHD, you see yourself and your struggles in a whole new light for the first time. You’re relieved that so many things about yourself make sense now, but then you get slammed with grief about lost time and missed opportunities. Having had my own experience with this, I know the value of embracing the entire emotional spectrum of feelings that come up when you realize you’ve been living with undiagnosed ADHD. If you’re a woman with late-diagnosed ADHD, I’m here for you!

If you are just discovering that you have (or probably have) ADHD and are negotiating the feelings around that, I get it and I am excited to help. The realization that you have ADHD is a major life event, and if you’re down for digging in and exploring the relief as well as the grief, you’re my people.

I’m not just ADHD-informed, I’m ADHD-lived. And I combine that with advanced training and 20+ years of experience as a clinical psychologist.

What sets me apart:

Doctorate-level psychologist
Yale University graduate
George Washington University graduate
20+ years treating women with anxiety, trauma, and neurodivergence
Personal lived experience with late-diagnosed ADHD
Warm, supportive, non-judgmental therapy style
Deep expertise working with high-achieving women
Licensed in PA, NJ, and all PSYPACT (so you can work with me from most states)

THE GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING LATE-DIAGNOSIS OF ADHD IN WOMEN

Step One: Answers to Some of Your Most Basic Questions:

What exactly is ADHD? A type of brain processing that can impair functioning.
Why do I have ADHD? Genetics, most likely. It’s a trait usually inherited from a parent.
How long have I had ADHD? Since birth. You’ve been “wired this way” all along.
Why was my ADHD missed when I was a kid? We’ll get into that in depth, below.
Why didn’t I just grow out of it? Because you can’t “grow out of” brain processing styles. Instead, you learn to leverage them and manage them.
Does having ADHD mean I’m broken or not normal? Absolutely not. Just different. In many ways, your way of thinking and behaving is an asset not just for you, but for others too.

Step Two: The Symptoms and Struggles of Women with ADHD:

Difficulty starting tasks
Difficulty planning
Time blindness
Trouble carrying tasks through to completion
Frequently losing and misplacing things
Difficulty prioritizing
Difficulty being on time
Perfectionism
Chronic self-doubt
Forgetting things (a partner’s request, a deadline, an appointment)
Missing important deadlines
Difficulty managing finances properly
Unpredictable levels of focus and attention
Easily distracted
Emotional intensity and dysregulation (people can feel like you’re “too much”)
Anxiety caused by the consequences of untreated ADHD symptoms
Rejection sensitivity/Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
Strong tendency to ruminate on perceived mistakes (“Why did I SAY that?!”)
Trouble keeping living and work spaces organized

Hi! I’m Jo-Ann

Licensed Psychologist serving Pennsylvania and New Jersey

Licensed in Pennsylvania and licensed in New Jersey. Also a member of PSYPACT, making it possible for me to work with clients in all PSYPACT member states.

My specialty is treatment for women with late-diagnosed ADHD. If you are navigating late-diagnosis ADHD, or if you strongly suspect that you have ADHD and would like help exploring the possibility, I offer telehealth therapy that’s tailored to your needs and life experiences.

I blend techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Psychoeducation, and Psychodynamic therapy that looks at how family of origin elements play a role in our psychological development.

My guiding stars are to educate and to support women with Late-Diagnosed ADHD.

I’m a Woman over 30. Do I Have ADHD?

Signs of ADHD in adult women:

Most women with ADHD don’t look hyperactive. They look and feel:

Overwhelmed, but high functioning
Exhausted from unconsciously masking to seem fine all the time
Perfectionistic but inconsistent
Emotionally intense (Emotional dysregulation)
Poor executive functioning
Highly self-critical
Easily overstimulated
Highly sensitive to perceived rejection

If these descriptors resonate for you, let’s look at some more:

Difficulty prioritizing tasks
Feeling overwhelmed when a task seems complex
Unpredictable ability to focus that you just can’t force
Trouble staying organized
Trouble being on time
Feeling things so intensely that your nervous system is easily triggered
Chronic procrastination
Social avoidance, even with close friends and family members
Rejection sensitivity
Yeah, you get it

Step Three: Understand Why So Many Women are Getting Diagnosed with ADHD Later in Life

There’s so much more understanding now of things that can cause women’s ADHD symptoms to show up clearly or to get much worse later in life. Long after most boys who were bouncing off the walls in elementary and middle school got tested and diagnosed with ADHD, girls with ADHD continued to be overlooked because our hyperactivity tends to be internalized. We’ve been out in the world, juggling multiple life and family roles, establishing our careers, becoming mothers or stepmothers, going through perimenopause and menopause, and along the way each of us had our ADHD symptoms surface and show themselves somewhere along the timeline.

One of the biggest reasons women are getting diagnosed later in life is that while they are getting their kids evaluated for ADHD and set up with accommodations for it at school, there’s been an “Aha!” moment when they realized their child’s ADHD symptoms look and sound VERY familiar…

But the main reason it’s taken so long for your ADHD to be recognized is because you were:

Smart, capable, and a high-achiever
Quietly anxious, not disruptive (internal hyperactivity)
Working very hard to look as relaxed and together as everyone else
Masking without knowing it (showing others what you thought they wanted to see)

Step Four: Understand the Coping Methods Women with Untreated ADHD Use:

Perfectionism
Procrastination until deadline-imminent panic spurs you to focus and work
Working late into the night and regularly sacrificing sleep
Distracting yourself from constant emotional overwhelm by zoning out a lot
Making lists, lists, and more lists (half of which you lose)
Generalized avoidance reactions to just about everything
Extremely harsh inner critic that part of you feels you need for motivation
Putting off connecting with friends or family until you feel calmer, but you never do
Hoarding e-books, webinars, and virtual conferences loaded with information you know will be useful for you, except you never find the time to look at any of it (don’t even get me started on expensive “productivity apps” for people with ADHD. I’ve got several on my phone that I feel daily guilt for not using).

Step Five: Who Can Women with Late-Diagnosed ADHD Go to for Help?

Therapists (Psychologists, Clinical Social Workers, etc.) (Note: NOT Coaching)
ADHD Coaches (Note: NOT Therapy)
Medication Prescribers (Psychiatrists, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners, General Practice Doctors, Primary Care Physicians)