ADHD Effect In-Depth Detailed Curriculum

Pre-reading

Optimizing ADHD Treatment E-book
Articles of interest
Welcome video

Session 1 – OPTIMIZING ADHD TREATMENT

  • Differences between you
  • Understanding your partner’s experience in the relationship
  • Treatment effect size
  • Optimizing treatment and common questions

Bonus video:  More on Medications
Treatment worksheet / isolating target symptoms
Article on medications

ADHD Effect on Marriage reading

Session 2 – TWO IMPORTANT PATTERNS, PLUS ANGER START

  • Pattern 1 – Misinterpretation of ADHD symptoms
  • Pattern 2 – Symptom/response/response
  • Unproductive responses to each other vs. finding productive responses
  • Introduction to the idea of the ‘Intentional Relationship’
  • Anger's inevitability, and 5 steps to taking control of anger (review steps 1-3 in this session)
  • Denial in both partners – what it looks like, and why it's destructive

Anger worksheet – to get you starting a conversation about anger, and evaluating the impact of your own anger
ADHD Effect on Marriage reading
Submit questions for written Q&A

Session 3 – ANGER, PARENT/CHILD PATTERN, MOVING TO RECOVERY

  • Steps 4&5 in controlling anger
  • How to use SMART measurement
  • Things to watch out for in angry communication
  • How to hear your partner’s reasons for anger more accurately
  • Role of grief in overcoming anger
  • Parent/child dynamics – why you experience it, why you need to get out of it, how to transition away from it

Catch up on past worksheets
ADHD Effect on Marriage reading

Session 4 - STRONG EMOTIONS IN ADHD-IMPACTED RELATIONSHIPS

  • The biology of emotional volatility in ADHD
  • Examples
  • Methods of addressing strong emotions that research suggests work
  • The underpinnings of strong emotions in non-ADHD partners
  • Examples
  • Addressing emotions in non-ADHD partners
  • Does your partner have an obligation to help you address your emotional issues?

Session 5 – COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES THAT WORK

  • The three stages of healing
  • Boundaries - what they are, and are not
  • Learning conversations
  • Verbal cues
  • Learning how to fight / “good fights”
  • Moving from negative/negative fights to positive/positive through “neutral”
  • Repair techniques
  • Apologies
  • Validation vs. invalidation

Validation tracking worksheet to understand your own validation patterns
ADHD Effect on Marriage reading

Session 6 – DIAGNOSING FIGHTS, AND CHORE WARS, SO YOU CAN CHANGE DIRECTION

  • How to ‘diagnose’ the type of fights you are having and determine appropriate approaches to changing direction
  • Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
  • Resolvable issues vs. unresolvable issues and what to do with each
  • Chore wars – what they are, and how to improve in this area
  • Identifying maternal/paternal gatekeeping
  • How do 'letting go' and 'giving up' relate to each other?

Chore score worksheet to help assess options for diminishing chore wars
Optional chapter 5 in Couple’s Guide to Thriving with ADHD (chore wars)

 

BONUS SESSION - GETTING BETTER ORGANIZED WITH ADHD

  • The emotional issues with organizing
  • Overarching strategies that work with the way the ADHD brain functions
  • Ideas that work

Session 7 – DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND BEHAVIORS IN BOTH PARTNERS, AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM

  • Lying - what's going on?
  • Financial lying
  • Job loss and work issues
  • ‘Better than you’
  • Pornography
  • Affairs

Article on lying
Learning conversation about a difficult to understand behavior
Submit questions for written Q&A

    Session 8 – REBUILDING TRUST AND FINDING JOY IN YOUR ADHD-IMPACTED RELATIONSHIP

    • Understanding 'ghosts'
    • Appreciating ADHD, mirror traits
    • Rebuilding trust
    • The science of finding joy together
    • ‘Attending’

    Brainstorming session for how to increase joy in your relationship
    ADHD Effect on Marriage reading

    Session 9 – INTIMACY, BOUNDARIES, AND FALLING BACK IN LOVE

    • The importance of conflict intimacy
    • Why your sex life isn't what you would wish
    • Building intimacy outside the bedroom
    • Sex and desire in brief
    • How boundaries strengthen your relationship and connection; how to create better boundaries

    Set one goal for change, and create plan
    Date for telling partner what you love about him/her