1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Thriving With Adult ADHD
For people with ADHD, managing daily life at work and at home may feel like a constant struggle. In Thriving With Adult ADHD, therapist Phil Boissiere offers a collection of strategies meant to support people with ADHD as they learn to navigate these challenges, which all stem from the same thing: problems with executive functions. Executive functions are skills that help with complex cognitive tasks such as organizing a schedule, maintaining focus, switching between tasks, and controlling emotional responses.
Boissiere is a marriage and family therapist who has over 10 years...
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Thriving With Adult ADHD Summary How ADHD Works
Boissiere explains that struggling with executive functions can make many aspects of daily life more challenging for people with ADHD, including relationships, jobs, and finances.
For example, if you frequently feel overwhelmed and you’re unable to regulate your emotions, you might lash out and harm your relationships with friends and family. If you can’t keep your schedule organized, you may miss important deadlines and appointments, hampering your success at work.
(Shortform note: According to some experts, unchecked challenges of ADHD don’t just affect your ability to fulfill your responsibilities—they can make it more difficult to do the things you enjoy as well. Missed deadlines and backlogged tasks can make you feel stressed and guilty during your free time. Likewise, hobbies that require executive functions (like planning) can feel too overwhelming, even if you enjoy them once you’ve gotten started. For example, you may love baking but avoid it because you know managing the cleanup will be too challenging.)
In this section, we’ll look at the brain’s role in ADHD and...
Thriving With Adult ADHD Summary Strategies for Managing ADHD Challenges
Now that we’ve explored how ADHD works, let’s dive into the specific challenges that people with ADHD face and the strategies they can use to prevent these struggles from ruling their lives. Each of the five challenges relates to a specific executive function that helps daily life run smoothly:
- Maintaining control over your emotions
- Making plans and keeping your life organized
- Forming memories through focused attention
- Pausing before taking action or responding
- Being cognitively flexible
Challenge #1: Maintaining Emotional Equilibrium
As we’ve touched upon, people with ADHD often struggle to regulate their emotions. This means that if you have ADHD, you might find it harder than the average person to recognize the feelings you’re experiencing and moderate their strength.
(Shortform note: Emotional dysregulation can be broken into three categories: emotional reactivity/negativity/lability (ERNL), emotional recognition and understanding (ERU), and empathy/callous unemotional traits (ECUT). ERNL refers to the tone and intensity of emotional...
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Shortform Exercise: Create a Management Plan to Match Your ADHD Experience
Boissiere states that although people with ADHD share similar characteristics, every person’s experience is different. Reflect on your personal experience and make a plan for implementing a management strategy.
Which of the five challenges that Boissiere names affect your life the most? Why? (For example, maybe you’ve gotten in trouble at work and missed out on opportunities for promotions because you struggle to prioritize tasks and you miss project deadlines. Or maybe you have excessive credit card debt because of your poor impulse control when it comes to shopping.)
