ADHD and neurodivergence coaching for adults | Naomi Withers

Naomi Withers Neurodivergence coaching

Coaching for ADHD and autistic adults. Not assessment or diagnosis.

It is two o'clock. You have not started the thing you have dreaded since nine.

You are capable. People tell you so, often just before asking why something is late. The gap between what you can do and what you can reliably do on demand is the part nobody sees, and most of your energy goes on hiding it.

Coaching is not about trying harder. You have tried harder for years. It is about building the structure outside your head that other people appear to carry inside theirs.

Book a call See what it covers

The short version

Coaching for ADHD and autistic adults. All sessions are online.
You do not need a diagnosis.
I do not assess, diagnose or treat. That is not what this is.
Prices start at [£225] for one session. All prices are on this page.
The first call is free and lasts 20 minutes. You do not have to prepare anything.

If that is enough to go on, book a call. If you want the detail, it is all below.

If any of this is familiar

You can do the hard version of your job but not the admin that proves you did it.

You have been called careless by people who have no idea how much effort it took.

Mild criticism can affect the rest of your week.

You were diagnosed, or recognised yourself, and then nothing changed except the vocabulary.

You have bought every planner and abandoned every planner.

You are exhausted from behaving like someone you are not, all day, every day.

None of this is a character problem. It is what happens when the way your attention and energy actually work meets a world built on the assumption that everyone's works the same way.

What the coaching covers

Built around how you actually work, not how you have been told you should.

Structure that holds without willpower

Getting the things you are carrying out of your head and into something external, so that a bad week costs you a day rather than a month. Systems that survive you forgetting about them, because you will.

Emotional regulation and rejection sensitivity

What to do when a short email takes your whole afternoon. Recognising the spike, shortening the recovery, and deciding what to do once it has passed rather than during it.

Masking, energy and what it is costing

Looking honestly at what you spend the day performing, where that is worth doing, and where it costs more than you get back. Then deciding what you want to stop doing.

Work, and asking for what you need

Working out what genuinely helps you function, and how you would describe it to a manager in plain terms. You decide what to ask for and whether to ask at all. I help you get clear on it first.

What this is not

I would rather be clear about this before you spend anything, because a lot of people arrive looking for one of the things below.

Not assessment or diagnosis

I do not assess or diagnose ADHD, autism or anything else, and I will not give you an opinion on whether you have them. Assessment goes through your GP or a private clinic.

Not therapy or clinical treatment

Coaching works forwards, on what you are doing next. If what you are carrying needs therapeutic work, that is a different professional and I will say so.

Not medication advice

Anything to do with medication belongs with your prescriber. I will not comment on whether to start, stop or change it.

Not a productivity system

You have tried those. The aim is not to make you a tidier version of someone else. It is to stop you spending your life compensating for the way you are built.

Who you would be working with

Naomi Withers. Twenty nine years working with people and the systems around them, across local government, education, social services and small businesses.

My background is unusual for a coach, and it is the reason this work looks the way it does. Psychology tells me what is happening underneath. HR and process improvement tell me how organisations actually behave, and why the advice to simply ask for adjustments is rarely as simple as it sounds.

Alongside the professional background, I am the parent of five children with diverse needs, including ADHD, autism and cognitive delay, and I home educate. That is not a qualification. It is the reason I will not be surprised by anything you tell me.

Qualifications and background

Accredited with the British Psychological Society
CIPD Level 7, the chartered level in HR
Lean Six Sigma trained in process improvement
Developmental Practitioner
NLP Practitioner, currently in training
Trust Governor, Aston Community Education Trust
Creator of AmbiSense® and the S.E.N.S.E.™ framework
Director, The HRologist Ltd

BPS accreditation is a psychology qualification. It does not make me a clinician, and I do not assess, diagnose or treat.

What happens when you book

You book the free 20 minute call. There is nothing to prepare and nothing to fill in beforehand.
On that call we work out whether this is the right thing for you. If it is not, I will say so and tell you what might be.
If you want to go ahead, I send a short agreement and an invoice. Payment comes before the first session.
We book the sessions. You get a reminder before each one.
After every session I send a written summary, so that nothing depends on you remembering what we said.

How sessions run

Online, 60 or 90 minutes
Camera off is always fine and you never need to explain why
You can send things in writing beforehand if talking is harder that day
Breaks whenever you want one
Rescheduling is normal and is not penalised
A written summary after every session

Fixed fees

Agreed before anything starts. No packages you have to grow into and no open-ended hourly billing.

Single session

[£225]

Ninety minutes on the one thing that is costing you most, with a written plan afterwards so you are not relying on remembering it.

The most common choice

Six session programme

[£1,100]

Six sessions over about three months. Long enough to build something, and then to find out whether it still works during a bad fortnight. That second part is where most of the value is.

Ongoing

[£395 per month]

For when the structure exists and the job is keeping it alive through whatever the year does. Two sessions a month, minimum three months.

Payment before work begins, choose the payment method which suits you, pay in full, split payments. The HRologist Ltd is not VAT registered. Sessions are online.

What does ADHD coaching actually do?

It builds external structure for the things an ADHD brain will not reliably hold internally, and it works on the emotional side that most advice ignores. It is practical, forward facing and specific to you.

In practice that means getting commitments out of your head and somewhere trustworthy, designing routines that do not collapse the first week you feel awful, and shortening the recovery time after the moments that currently cost you days.

What it does not do is make you neurotypical. The aim is to stop you spending most of your capacity compensating, so that there is some left for the rest of your life.

Can a coach diagnose ADHD or autism?

No. Diagnosis is a clinical assessment, and no coach can do it, whatever their background. Anyone offering you a diagnosis as part of coaching is doing something they should not.

I have a psychology background and I still will not give you an opinion on whether you have either. Assessment goes through your GP or a private clinic. Coaching sits alongside that, and you do not have to wait for it.

Do you need a diagnosis to have ADHD coaching?

No. Coaching works on how you function, not on a label, so a diagnosis is not a requirement and nobody will ask you to prove anything.

Many people start while waiting for an assessment, or after deciding not to pursue one. Waiting lists are long, and the difficulties continue while you wait.

What is the difference between ADHD coaching and therapy?

Therapy generally works on what has happened and how you are carrying it. Coaching works on what you are doing next and how to make that more possible. They are complementary, and plenty of people have both.

If what is in the way is grief, trauma or something that needs clinical care, coaching is not the right tool and I will tell you so rather than taking your money for six sessions.

Questions people ask first

I am self-diagnosed. Is that a problem?

Not here. You know more about how your own attention works than any form does. We work with what is actually happening, not with paperwork.

Can you help me get workplace adjustments?

I can help you work out what genuinely helps you and how to describe it clearly. What you request, and whether you disclose anything at all, is your decision. For questions about your rights or an employer who refuses, you need an adviser or your union, and I will say so.

What if I cancel or forget a session?

You will not be the first. Reminders are built in, and the rescheduling policy is written to be realistic rather than punitive. A coach who penalises ADHD traits is not much use to anyone with ADHD.

Is this only for people in work?

No. Plenty of what this covers has nothing to do with employment: household systems, finances you have been avoiding opening, and the difference between a bad week and a lost month.

Are sessions online or in person?

Online. It keeps the cost down, removes the travel, and means a session still happens on the days when leaving the house is the hardest part.

You have been told to try harder by people who never had to.

Most of your capacity currently goes on compensating. The point of this work is to give some of it back.

Book a call

Or email naomi.withers@thehrologist.co.uk. A couple of lines is plenty.