WORKSHOP 1

SKILLS TRAINING FOR ADULT ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER

The 12 week skills training programme will take place on a weekly basis.

Program Goals

The goal of this program is to assist an adult diagnosed with ADD/ADHD in self-regulation to prioritize, integrate and regulate the executive cognitive functions (which are intact) for the task at hand.  Dr Thomas Brown (2005:11-12) refers to Martha Denckla’s metaphor in his book Attention Deficit Disorder. The unfocused mind in children and adults:

“Imagine a cook who sets out to cook a certain dish, who has a well-equipped kitchen, including shelves stocked with all the necessary ingredients, and who can even read the recipe in the cookbook. Now imagine, however, that this individual does not take from the shelves all the ingredients relevant to the recipe, does not turn on the oven in a timely fashion so as to have it at the proper heat when called for in the recipe, and has not defrosted the central ingredient. This individual can be observed dashing to the shelves, searching for the spice next mentioned in the recipe, hurrying to defrost the meat and heat the oven out of sequence. Despite possession of all equipment, ingredients and recipe, this motivated but disheveled cook is unlikely to get dinner on the table at the appointed hour”.

Many adults with ADHD experience problems in managing their time and organizing, prioritizing, and planning important day-to-day activities. These problems can have far-reaching ramifications, potentially affecting their personal relationships, their careers, their financial security, and their overall physical and mental health.

Mary V. Solanto, PhD, is among the experts who have identified specific behavioral and cognitive interventions that can help. Solanto directs the ADHD Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where she and her colleagues have developed a twelve-week group treatment model. Dr Solanto’s programme is used in Dr Karin van Niekerk’s practice,  in conjunction with research conducted by Dr Joel L Young, and published in the work entitled ADHD grown up. A guide to adolescent and adult ADHD,  as well as utilising information from ADD-Friendly ways to organize your life, written by Drs Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau, together with the information published in Mastering your adult ADHD which was written by Drs Steen Safren, Susan Sprich, Carol Perlman and Michael Otto ().

The program incorporates a series of behavioral and cognitive strategies that directly target common trouble spots that impact the lives of adults with ADHD. Interventions address the weaknesses associated with executive functions, such as time management, organization, planning, and prioritizing. In the 12-week program, the feelings of demoralization, anxiety, and depression are also addressed, as these are so often present in adults who struggle with ADHD.

Session-by-Session Overview:

Session 1: Making Peace with the Diagnosis and Committing to Growth. Participants identify their personal goals for the group, the emotions that can impede progress, and inner resources and strengths they can call upon to help facilitate change.

Session 2: Overcoming Emotional Obstacles & Building self-Confidence. Participants learn to identify “automatic thoughts” that represent “cognitive distortions”—a negative and devaluing form of self-talk that can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression—then learn how to challenge and replace these cognitive distortions with a more realistic array of positive and adaptive thoughts.

Session 3: Time Management: Time Awareness and Scheduling. Group members learn the importance of having constant access to timepieces (watches, clocks), how to become more accurate in estimating time, how to select a planner that will work best, and how to effectively use a planner to create to-do lists and schedules.

Session 4: Time Management: Making Tasks Manageable and Rewarding Yourself. Participants learn how to break large and boring tasks into smaller more manageable chunks, and how to use personal rewards in ways that make unpleasant tasks more enjoyable.

Session 5:Time Management: Prioritizing and To-Do Lists. Group members learn how to separate important tasks from less important ones, how to create to-do lists that take into account high-priority responsibilities, and how to ensure that enough time is set aside to complete daily tasks, especially the more important and urgent ones.

Session 6: Time Management: Activation and Motivation. Group members learn strategies for getting started on tasks and ways to stay motivated so that tasks are completed. In the process, they also learn ways to avoid distractions, both sensory and social.

Session 7: Getting Organized: Setting up an Organizational System. Participants learn to use organizational strategies that allow for important things to be easily identifiable and readily accessible.

Session 8: Getting Organized: Implementing an Organizational System. Group members continue to work on their organizational system, focusing on organizing physical spaces at home or at the office, incorporating previously learned self-management strategies into the process.

Session 9: Getting Organized: Maintaining an Organizational System. Participants learn systems and strategies for filing things away, putting things in places where they belong, creating more organized workspaces, and dealing with mail and email.

Session 10: Plan a Project—And Get It Done! Using the time management, organizational, planning, self-motivational and other strategies learned in previous sessions, participants plan a project and the steps required to get it done.

Session 11: Project Planning: Implementation. Participants continue to focus on the project they identified in last week’s session, and review strategies learned in earlier sessions to make sure these strategies are being successfully applied.

Session 12: Looking to the Future. Group members self-evaluate their progress, identify needs for future growth, and discuss options for addressing these needs. Participants also receive a written summary of key strategies learned during the course of the program.

WORKSHOP 2

SKILLS TRAINING FOR ENDURING HAPPINESS

This workshop is a day course that empowers the individual to find and maintain inner happiness.

Program Goals:

• To identify own subconscious needs.
• To understand influence of genes vs. past experiences.
• To learn  to change the unconscious agenda of the past.
• To learn to take conscious control for experiences in the present.
• To understand differences between pleasures and enduring happiness.
• To plan own life filled with enduring happiness.

WORKSHOP 3

SKILLS TRAINING FOR WEIGHT LOSS AND MANAGEMENT

This workshop will explain and teach valuable, sustainable methods to commence on a weight-loss and management journey. The focus of the workshop will be on the following factors:

• Sources of our problems with body image.
• Understanding the difference between self-esteem and self-worth.
• Determining unconscious thought patterns.
• Identifying and changing destructive automatic thought patterns.
• Learning how to debate irrational beliefs about eating.
• Understanding the difference between hunger and craving.
• Memorising seven rules for mindful eating.
• Creating a reward system.