Dr. Duval has extensive experience working with people who struggle with executive functioning and attention, whether formally diagnosed as ADHD or experienced more broadly. She combines diagnosis, practical strategy, and psychiatric referral when warranted with a deeper psychodynamic understanding of the shame and self-image these difficulties often carry.

More than a diagnosis and a set of strategies

Diagnosing attention challenges and formulating treatment recommendations depends on the history. When the struggle is new — in a young person, or following a medical condition — the focus is on acceptance, understanding, and concrete ways of coping, including cognitive-behavioral strategies and, where appropriate, a referral for medication. When the difficulty is long-standing, the work is different: looking honestly at what strategies have actually been working, what can be strengthened, and what can be newly built in.

The shame underneath the symptoms

People who arrive with years of attention difficulties usually arrive with something else, too: the accumulated weight of having been unfairly seen as lazy, disorganized, or simply not caring enough.

That shame is its own subject in the therapy. Naming it, understanding where it came from, and loosening its grip are often crucial because strategies rarely take hold while a person still believes, at bottom, that they are the problem.

From "deficit" to a different kind of mind

One of the most freeing shifts in this work is a change in self-understanding. People are often greatly relieved — and genuinely uplifted — to stop seeing themselves as flawed by a deficit, and to recognize instead how often they are gifted: able to think creatively and to focus intensely on dimensions of life that others rarely notice.

Progress in this work looks less like simply managing symptoms and more like understanding the patterns underneath them so that follow-through, relationships, work, and self-image can finally reflect a truer picture of who you are.