As a clinical psychologist, I lead attention skills groups and provide individual therapy for physicians, graduate students, medical residents, and attorneys navigating ADHD in demanding academic and work environments.
Professionals and students in Denver often come to therapy describing a version of the same experience: they know what they need to do, but they can't execute it consistently. They fall behind on things that matter, start tasks later than they intended, and struggle to stay organized despite wanting to do so. They have tried many strategies, such as making to-do lists, prioritizing, and setting reminders, but the changes do not take hold.
From the outside, this can seem like a discipline problem. From the inside, it rarely feels that way.
Attention difficulties are often framed as a focus problem, but they're more complicated than that.
Many people find they can focus intensely on certain things and barely at all on others. Tasks that feel unclear, unrewarding, or overwhelming are much harder to start. Last-minute pressure can be an effective way to generate focus until the costs outweigh the benefits. Strategies that help for a while stop working when demands shift; sometimes it's because the strategy itself was a workaround that had a limited lifespan.
These tendencies often overlap with anxiety, perfectionism, burnout, and self-criticism. Over time, repeated experiences of falling short can turn a manageable difficulty into something that feels like a character flaw, rather than what it actually is. That shift matters because it's no longer just about productivity — it's about who they think they are.
For some, that means finding strategies that actually match how their attention works. For others, therapy or a psychological assessment is an opportunity to understand how what looked like a character flaw was actually a treatable difficulty with identifiable causes.
If this sounds familiar, a consultation is a good place to start.
I also work with:
Procrastination · ADHD and Relationships · My Partner Has ADHD · Moms with ADHD · Work stress