ADHD and Relational Psychodynamic Therapy
ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) is often described as an attention problem: a brain that cannot focus, that is easily distracted, or that acts impulsively. However, from a psychodynamic and relational perspective, ADHD is not a defect. It is an adaptation, an intelligent response to complex or unpredictable emotional environments that a child experienced as threatening or unsafe.
Attention as Protection
When a child’s environment is stressful, chaotic, or emotionally unpredictable, the mind learns to protect itself. As Gabor Maté says: We don’t stop paying attention because we don’t care; we stop paying attention because the environment does not feel safe to be fully present in.
We attend to what feels safe. That is why, when the nervous system has learned that closeness can bring pain or unpredictability, it turns elsewhere: to fantasy, to movement, to anything that feels less dangerous than full presence. In relational psychoanalysis, this is not considered laziness or a disorder, it is an intelligent response to emotional threat.
Understanding Symptoms Through Psychodynamic approaches
In relational psychoanalytic therapy, we do not try to silence these parts of you. We listen to them. We explore how early relationships shaped the way your mind organizes attention, emotions, and connection. We bring compassion to the inner voices that still carry echoes of criticism, shame, or abandonment.
What is often called “symptoms” — like impulsivity, distraction, or hyperactivity — are not personal flaws. They are ways the mind learned to protect and survive in a world that was once emotionally unsafe.
The Role of Art Therapy
Art can hold what words cannot. Art therapy is an embodied experience: it invites the body, the senses, and the imagination to participate in the healing process, helping you access subconscious parts of the mind that have long carried memories, relational patterns, emotions, and unexpressed needs.
Through the creative process and within the safety of an attuned therapeutic relationship, these hidden parts can emerge, be witnessed, and gradually integrate. Energy that once felt chaotic or fragmented can transform into creativity, connection, and self-exploration. Play, imagination, and creation become bridges back to yourself.
Relational and Art Therapy: A Path Toward Integration
In relational art therapy, the goal is not to “fix” attention. The goal is to listen to it, understand it, and accompany it. The therapeutic relationship becomes a safe space where clients can experience what was once unsafe or overwhelming. Through creative expression, scattered attention, impulsivity, and restlessness can find meaning and coherence.
ADHD ceases to be a defect and becomes a language that deserves to be heard. What once fragmented can be integrated; what was once misunderstood can be recognized.