Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: The Difference Between A Coach And A Therapist

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.

And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.

I wanna talk to you guys about coaching and therapist, because I feel like one is not better than the other. In fact, I feel that if you use all the tools, you might actually land on something that might work for you.

So this week's topic is a very important one to me. I wanna describe the difference between a coach and a therapist. And I also want to give you insights on how to choose a good coach, especially for ADHD. I think it's so important to be able to have this mindset or frame of mind that way, you know, how to help yourself. First of all, I wanna say that it's very common still for people to not be even aware that.

There's ADHD, life coaches out there. And, you know, I wish I would have known this when I was going through med school and residency. I did not know that there would be other tools when I got diagnosed. I just kind of got told. Okay, well, here's a medicine and, good luck. And part of the diagnosis, I was very ashamed about the diagnosis.

I, I think the stigma of having something like this, I was making it mean that I was broken. And I think because I didn't know any better, I didn't know, to go ask for my medication to be adjusted because it wasn't working as well. It should. And I didn't realize that, you know, I was given Lin five milligrams and it worked great for a few hours, but then when it didn't, I made it mean all kinds of things about myself.

And even though I was a first year medical student, and again, in the medical field per se, I was not aware of how medications worked and that, you know, regular medication. Not extended release medications only lasted in your body about four to six hours. And that extended release medications would last in your body about eight to 12 hours.

So it is known that 6.1 million people in the 2016 were diagnosed with ADHD. And it is known that about four to 5% are adults that have ADHD, right. And even in 2016, there was a study that showed that 30% of medical students identified themselves with ADHD. And so I'm hoping most of those medical students made it through.

And they're now attendings. So that just tells you that maybe people are not talking about this. So if you're not somebody who has ADHD or know a colleague that has ADHD, it just might be that they're trying really hard to not show you how hard they're working. One in four Americans, you know, still feel like ADHD is a stigma.

It's a mental stigma. And so I wanna talk to you guys about coaching and therapist, because I feel like one is not better than the other. In fact, I feel that if you use all the tools, you might actually land on something that might work for you. And yes, while I am a physician. And of course I do believe in ADHD medication.

I'm not here to say that medication is the only way I've been a blessed enough to use medication that has helped me. But I understand that not everybody's able to use medication. In fact about 20% of people cannot tolerate medication. It's important to know that when you at least have the diagnosis, then at least you can start to open up your brain and become curious and understand how it works so that you can start to figure out tools to help you.

So with that being. A coach. So when you look at a coach, you're looking at somebody who's gonna help you with certain things like a coach will look where you're currently at, like your present state of being and will help you to get to where your future state of being is. So it will help close the gap of what you haven't accomplished yet.

So it works more on behavior per se. Techniques to get you the behavior or the outcome that you want. So with the coach, they might be able to help you gain more clarity. They will decrease your own self judgment. They'll help you with like self-esteem issues or figure out communication. To help improve relationships.

They will help you with planning and creating schedules and figuring out how to break up tasks that seem too daunting. And of course, with time management and especially with ADHD, we will also work with emotional dysregulation. Basically with a coach, you're kind using a shortcut to help you to get where you want to be so that you can get rid of that irritability, those blocks and habits that maybe are not as efficient for you with the therapist.

It's more like you're looking at pathology. So it's more like you're looking at what's going on. What happened in your past? Like you, you're looking at your present and you're looking back, like what happened in your past to get you to where you are today? And so it's more dealing with like mental illnesses or more like, with anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, stuff like that.

So with a therapist, you have somebody who's licensed. They have a medical code of ethics. So to say with a coach, you don't have to have a specific license of some sort for you to call yourself a coach. So that's where sometimes it gets tricky because, you know, you wonder whether that person can help you or not.

And like, how do you know if they can help you? With this being said, sometimes you just have to talk to different people, different coaches and see if their experiences. Or their abilities align with what you're looking for. You know, sometimes that is more important than them having just a formal diploma or training or whatever, like whatever kind of experience they have that might be useful.

So there's not a regulating body per se, for coaches. Of course there is where I trained is the life coach goal. And then the certified, the international certification school for like the other coaches. But with the ADHD is specifically, there is certain organization that is called ADHD coaches organization.

It's just a list of people who, you know, are professional coaches. But again, nobody can specifically tell you that this person is better than the other based on their diplomas. It's gonna be more of an experience. Who do you relate to? What can they help you with? Right. What is important is that when you are looking for a coach, you have certain questions in mind.

So you might wanna ask the coach like, Hey, what kind of work, you know, have you done with your clients? What kind of results should I expect to do? And you might want to see. If you're looking for a coach, like short term or long term, or are you looking for a coach to help you with a specific task or like a specific problem?

Like maybe you want a coach who's gonna help you close your chart. Like that's the type of coach I am. Or maybe you want a coach who is going to help you clear your clutter? Like that's my course geared towards that. Like I have, Rosemary who is the declutter ADHD coach who will have three sessions with them and then they'll personalize it.

So like you have to ask the coach, like, what are you gonna offer me? Or can you help me with X, Y, Z problem? Like you gotta tell the coach, Hey, I'm working on not being late or I'm working on procrastination or I'm working on completing this thesis. Can you help me walk me through this? And so you might also want to know if that coach has a specific niche or like, do they feel like they can help just kids? Can they help adults? Can they help physicians? Can they help nurses? Can they help professionals, teachers? Like who do they usually work with? Those are questions to ask the coach. The other thing you could ask them is like, do you do private sessions?

Like, is it one on one or is it like a group session? And then like, you can also ask them like, how are we going to meet? Like, are we gonna meet in person, are we gonna do a phone call? Are we gonna get on like Facebook messenger or like zoom? And then you can ask them like how long the sessions are, what is the time investment?

And then of course you want to ask them, like, what kind of experiences have your previous clients gotten? If you already coached people in this area? Like what, what do I expect to get for like example in my group coaching program? My model or my thing is I help physicians. They don't have to have ADHD, but they, you know, if they feel like they have a time blindness or chronic procrastination problem, I help them create systems so that they can enhance their zone of genius.

And so that they can reclaim, you know, 10 plus hours per week of their time. And so my goal is for them to leave work at work so that they're able to use their free time to do whatever they want, whether they wanna start, you know, a side business, whether they wanna be able to pick up their kids every day at school, whether they want to start that book that they've been wanting to do, whether they want to practice medicine in their own terms.

Right. So you. To ask them specifically, what can those clients expect to get? So that, that way, you know, if that coach or that group is your ideal, Another difference between therapy and coaching is the investment with therapists, you can use sometimes like your insurance, like some of your insurance might pay for that again, because it's considered like medical condition that they're treating and it's licensed professionals. With a coach, it is not considered like a medical condition that they're gonna be treating. It's just more of a partnership. For the coach is gonna help you to accomplish X, Y, Z result. Right? With that being said, there's still some similars and differences. So the cost is pretty much about the same as a therapist. Usually some people can do some pro bono sessions and then it varies anywhere from three to $1,500 per month.

It really depends, on what it is. So when you have private, that's more time that it's one on one versus when you have a group. So it just depends. They tend to have you sign an agreement or they give it to you in an outline of what it is that you are agreeing to. Like, are you signing up for a three, six, one year program?

Are you doing group or, private in general, coaches are gonna require the payment upfront for a couple of reasons. One is because they're doing this for you. I know it sounds silly, right. But no, the investment that you make, the decision, when you say I'm all in on myself, when you put money to back it up, it really sends like an internal message to yourself that you are totally worth this investment.

And, and it allows you to commit yourself to the possibility of changing whatever your current situation is, to what you want it to become. So it's in that investment that you now have the probability, the chances just go up dramatically. So it's for you, it's for you to be able to be all in on yourself so that you can have that outcome that you want.

Most of the time, it is a full payment up front, and sometimes they make exceptions. They do monthly payments or something like that. But again, the reason is because usually most people will lose interest by like the first month, like in the. Fifth to sixth session, they'll be onto something else. Or maybe they haven't made the progress as fast as they wanted to.

And they'll think that it's not working and they'll wanna give up, but if they have already paid up front, then it helps them to continue going through the program. Right. And here's the thing, like most of us want that magic pill. Right? just gimme the pill so that you could go away. But it's not gonna happen.

Like with ADHD, you need to be able to allow yourself to use different methods. You know, coaching is a partnership. The coach cannot, cannot. I agree. Cannot, cannot, cannot care more about your outcome than your. Own outcome. What does that mean is that you need to be all in the coach is not gonna run the race for you.

You need to put in the work, but the coach is gonna provide you with tools and techniques to create shortcuts, intellectual, emotional shortcuts, right. So that you're not having to work as hard. You're gonna work smart. And so a lot of us don't want to get off this damn hamster wheel. Right. Because we're so used to going.

And when we say, okay, get off the wheel and you're like, no, I'm like, get off the bike. You're like, no, I can't. This is working. You're like, but if you get off, I have a Ferrari over there that kind of has, you know, GPS and we can get you there faster. Sometimes we need that external accountability to be able to allow others, to see the shortcuts for us, that we haven't been able to see this investment is for you to be all in on you.

And so the faster that you decide that you are worth this, the faster you get to your. And so here's the thing. Coaching is just like going to the doctor in the sense that if you missed appointments or you cancel, you know, within less than 24 hours, like, they'll count that as a session. Because remember that coach on the other side, they had to make arrangement.

They probably got a babysitter or they did whatever it needed to happen so that they could be readily available for. right. So you gotta make sure that you treat this when you're ready. Like we're never gonna feel a hundred percent ready, but you gotta give it the importance that it is because as you invest in yourself, you are your best investment.

The outcome of it is gonna just be like a thousand fold and come on, we all know like how much money have we invested in trying to get our medical degree? I mean, most of us unfortunately walked out with like two to three to $500,000. Right. And we're still paying student loans. Some of us, I guess, were lucky that might have had people who helped us pay for it, but not all of us are in that same boat.

Any investment that we've done, we've done it because we think it's gonna get better. You know, you could ask if your physician, if to write a prescription that says that you need ADHD coaching for your condition, and you could use it after you talk to your tax accountant or whatever, you could use it to write off.

To write it off on your taxes. Right? So that could be something that could be like, you could use it as a business expense, if you're self-employed or if it's helping you manage your work. Right. If you're a physician like working with me, you could use that because you're gonna get continuing medical education.

In my program, you get 20 CME's for my three month program. You could use that as, you know, a financial investment for your career. Right. But it's a lot more than that. I mean, how much would you pay to be able to have your systems that support you and you don't feel like , you don't know what is coming or going, so you can feel like you're not having your brain being pulled in so many directions.

With that being said, like each coach is gonna set up their own thing. Like you get to decide, most people will coach for anywhere from three months to a year and they can decide that they want to do private weekly, classes, usually after three to six months, people will ask to be when they've gathered tools and techniques they'll they might paste them out to like every two weeks or once a month, or they might decide that they want to do group coaching all along.

It doesn't matter. You get to decide what works for you. There is pros and cons on private versus group coaching. With me, I feel group coaching is amazing because it normalizes the situation. Like you'd be surprised how many different specialties are represented in my program. Like I have people that are OB GYN. I have internal medicine. I have psych, I have PS. I have family medicine. I have nocturnist, I have surgeons. I will say that it's probably 90%. Female and 10% male right now in my program. I don't have any bias against men. It's just that, as I was told by one of my clients, who's a male. He told me, you know, it's probably cuz males are having their wife or significant other do a lot of the task males don't tend to feel like they have to do all the things like some females do sometimes.

So I don't know if. Why, but Hey, if you're a male listening to this and you're a physician and want help, please come in. I don't have anything against you guys. Anyways. The point is that you gotta figure out what works for you in a group setting. You get to just hear what other people are saying, and you don't feel like you're always the one on the spot.

Although I tend to, you know, give you that possibility to speak up if you want to or let you pass. And so coaching. I know it can feel kind of, you know, weird, especially if you never come across it. But like I said, it's not the magical remedy. It's just one of many tools that you could use, like to tame your ADHD.

Like you could use exercise, you could. Use journaling, you could use therapy, you could use medicine, right? It could be many of those things, but it is important to realize that coaching is evidence based and, you know, physician leaders can guide other physicians who might have ADHD to seek professional help and support them and reinforce that there's coping strategies that can help with their wellbeing.

And so it, it is important to know. You know, our wellbeing matters and being in the room where everybody is trying to level up and trying to get their work done at work so that they can have more impact at home. Right? Most of us work really hard at work so that we can provide for our family and like, People at work, get to see us at our best.

And then we get home and we're like drained and we're like irritable and bitchy and you know, all the nine yards . And so what if on purpose, you decided that things that were draining you, you don't have to continue to do, and we set up some boundaries so that you can become the person you want to. And if you're already doing all that kudos to you, I'm so glad you're ahead of the game.

And I'm so glad that you are doing this for yourself. So anyways, I just wanted to do a short little talk with you guys today to just talk about how coaching versus therapy is different and how you can use both tools to help you to realize why you've done what you've done and where you're going.

Coaching can be very, very powerful today. During one of our coaching sessions, I had somebody who shared that they felt like they were wasting time because they were on leave and that they didn't like change. And that change was hard. However, I reflected back to that person that I had seen them grow as a person in so many levels.

And do all kinds of things like reclaiming their garage back, stepping into their stone of genius, being willing to say what's on their mind without feeling like they had to be people pleasing. And it's been so powerful to see how courageous that person has been. And when I reflected back. That whatever they were sharing with me were just some of their thoughts and nothing rooted on facts.

They reflected on the fact that they have made a lot of progress. Our human nature just always wants to focus on negative things. and those negative things can unfortunately keep us from continuing to grow. I've been reading this book called the gap in the gain, and it talks about if we keep measuring ourselves against our quote unquote shortcomings, we're never gonna feel like we reach X, Y, and C thing.

And we're always gonna feel like a failure. It was talking about, we should use our goals as a measure to look forward to, but not as like, if we accomplish it, all of a sudden we're worthy and if we didn't accomplish it, we're not worthy. But we should look at as, as where was I when I started this goal?

Like, what was I doing? Like if you're constantly just measuring yourself against yourself, then it's not a competition. It's human nature for us to be looking around and see what. Everybody's doing and wondering if we're doing it right too, or if we're fast enough, slow enough, you know, whatever. But what if you just compared yourself to yourself, like how you were, you know, one month ago, how you were one year ago, what was important to you five years ago?

Like, that's so important because when you start to look at. Then all of a sudden you start living in the gain instead of the gap. So the gap is where you feel like you're not incompetent because you didn't reach X, Y, and Z. And you always feel like shortcomings versus the gain is where you feel like, oh my God, I'm making growth.

I'm in progress. Like compared to a month ago, I've done all this. I've learned all this. And so it, it allows you to be more joyful and spontaneous and more kind to yourself. And so if you applied the same things to your relationships, like if you look at your kids and you're like, wow, look at the girls they've had in the last three months, instead of looking at like, oh my God, this is your shortcomings.

You can easily see why some of our self-esteem issues stem from there. It's like, you know, if you had ADHD and you didn't know you had ADHD, you can see how much you wanted to accomplish certain tasks, but you just could not accomplish them because you didn't know how it's like you being, you know, you're being blind.

And you don't have glasses and we're asking you to just look harder, but how can you look harder? Or it's like asking you to write, you know, with, with a right hand when you're lefthanded, right? Like you can't instead. What if I came and I gave you the left handed desk and the lefthanded pen. And what if I gave you the glasses?

Like all of a sudden, you're not judging yourself for your shortcomings, but what if we celebrate you for how you got here without even knowing that you had ADHD, you kept going because you wanted X, Y, and Z. And we all know there's nothing a person with ADHD cannot be made to do anything just because it has to be aligned with us with our values so that it could be me.

Because we call ourselves chronic procrastinators, but we know we can spend time whenever we want to. Anyways, that's what I got for this week. I just started my group coaching session, my new cohort, this June 20th. So a few days ago. So if you guys are interested in being on the wait list for the future ones in October, Reach out.

I do have monthly free webinars and you're welcome to come and check out all the stuff so that we all can start living and practicing medicine in our own terms

As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.

Link to my website to register as waitlist for Oct 2022 Cohort:

Transformation Physician Group Coaching

Email: overachievewithadhd@gmail.com