ADHD Therapy and Assessment Calgary

Cognitive behavioral therapy
The triangle in the middle represents CBT's tenet that all humans' core beliefs can be summed up in three categories: self, others, future.
ICD-10-PCS	GZ58ZZZ
MeSH	D015928
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Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression, PTSD and anxiety disorders.^[1][2][3] Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (such as thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes) and their associated behaviors to improve emotional regulation and develop personal coping strategies that target solving current problems.^[2][4] Though it was originally designed as an approach to treat depression, CBT is often prescribed for the evidence-informed treatment of many mental health and other conditions, including anxiety,^[5][6] substance use disorders, marital problems, ADHD, and eating disorders.^{[7][8][9][10]} CBT includes a number of cognitive or behavioral psychotherapies that treat defined psychopathologies using evidence-based techniques and strategies.^[11][12][13]

CBT is a common form of talk therapy based on the combination of the basic principles from behavioral and cognitive psychology.^[2] It is different from other approaches to psychotherapy, such as the psychoanalytic approach, where the therapist looks for the unconscious meaning behind the behaviors and then formulates a diagnosis. Instead, CBT is a "problem-focused" and "action-oriented" form of therapy, meaning it is used to treat specific problems related to a diagnosed mental disorder. The therapist's role is to assist the client in finding and practicing effective strategies to address the identified goals and to alleviate symptoms of the disorder.^[14] CBT is based on the belief that thought distortions and maladaptive behaviors play a role in the development and maintenance of many psychological disorders and that symptoms and associated distress can be reduced by teaching new information-processing skills and coping mechanisms.^{[3][1][14][15]}

When compared to psychoactive medications, review studies have found CBT alone to be as effective for treating less severe forms of depression,^[16] and borderline personality disorder.^[17] Some research suggests that CBT is most effective when combined with medication for treating mental disorders, such as major depressive disorder.^[18] CBT is recommended as the first line of treatment for the majority of psychological disorders in children and adolescents, including aggression and conduct disorder.^[1][4] Researchers have found that other bona fide therapeutic interventions were equally effective for treating certain conditions in adults.^[19][20] Along with interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), CBT is recommended in treatment guidelines as a psychosocial treatment of choice.^[1][21] Recommended by American Psychiatric Association,^[22] American Psychological Association,^[23] British National Health Service.^[24]

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Other names	Formerly: Attention deficit disorder (ADD), hyperkinetic disorder (HD)[1]
ADHD arises from maldevelopment in brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia and anterior cingulate cortex, which regulate the executive functions necessary for human self-regulation.
Specialty	Psychiatry pediatrics
Symptoms
Usual onset	Prior to age 12
Causes	Genetic (inherited, de novo) and to a lesser extent, environmental factors (exposure to biohazards during pregnancy, traumatic brain injury)
Diagnostic method	Based on impairing symptoms after other possible causes have been ruled out
Differential diagnosis
Treatment
Medication
Frequency	0.8–1.5% (2019, using DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10)[3]

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)^[1] is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and emotional dysregulation that are excessive and pervasive, impairing in multiple contexts, and developmentally inappropriate.^[9] ADHD symptoms arise from executive dysfunction.^[18]

Impairments resulting from deficits in self-regulation such as time management, inhibition, task initiation, and sustained attention^[19] can include poor professional performance, relationship difficulties, and numerous health risks,^[20][21] collectively predisposing to a diminished quality of life^[22] and a reduction in life expectancy.^[23][24] It is associated with other mental disorders as well as non-psychiatric disorders, which can cause additional impairment.^[8] The disorder costs society hundreds of billions of US dollars each year, worldwide.^[25]

While people with ADHD often struggle to initiate work and persist on tasks with delayed consequences, this may not be evident in contexts they find intrinsically interesting and immediately rewarding,^[17][26] a symptom colloquially known as hyperfocus.^[27] This mental state is often hard to disengage from^[28][29] and is related to risks such as for internet addiction.^[30]

ADHD can be difficult to tell apart from other conditions.^[16][22] It represents the extreme lower end of the continuous dimensional trait (bell curve) of executive functioning and self-regulation, which is supported by twin, brain imaging and molecular genetic studies.^[37]

The precise causes of ADHD are unknown in most individual cases.^[38][39] Meta-analyses have shown that the disorder is primarily genetic with a heritability rate of 70-80%,^[40] where risk factors are highly accumulative.^[41] The environmental risks are not related to social or familial factors;^[42][43][44] they exert their effects very early in life, in the prenatal or early postnatal period.^[8] However, in rare cases, ADHD can be caused by a single event including traumatic brain injury,^{[40][45][46][47]} exposure to biohazards during pregnancy,^[8] or a major genetic mutation.^[48] As it is a neurodevelopmental disorder, there is no biologically distinct adult-onset ADHD except for when ADHD occurs after traumatic brain injury.^[8][49]