ADHD Strategies: From Masking to Healing Shame with Compassion - Nea Clark

This workshop explores the complex interplay between masking and shame in individuals with ADHD and other neurodevelopmental differences. Masking refers to the often unconscious effort to suppress, hide, or adapt one’s authentic traits in order to meet societal norms and expectations. While it can help individuals feel safe or accepted in the short term, masking often comes at the cost of emotional exhaustion, identity confusion, and deep-rooted shame.

Drawing on clinical insights, lived experience, and recent research including the work of Aldridge & Stilman (2024) and Steff Oates (2021) we will explore how clients internalise the message that their true selves are unacceptable or "too much." We will ask powerful reflective questions, such as: How much do you feel you have to hide or change to fit in with the world around you?

Participants will be introduced to a practitioner-developed masking chart to help identify different types of masking and the underlying shame that drives them. We will examine how masking manifests in various life areas, often without the client's full awareness.

The workshop will also focus on ways to support clients through healing. We will explore how to develop and activate the internal nurturing, enabling clients to respond to shame with self-compassion, not self-attack. Practitioners will learn how to offer the attunement and gentle presence clients need to unlearn harmful beliefs and feel safe enough to remove the mask at their own pace, in their own way.

This session encourages professionals to engage more compassionately and deeply with clients’ masked selves, ultimately supporting their journey towards authenticity, emotional resilience, and self-acceptance.

Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event

• Participants will learn to identify the various types of masking in clients with ADHD and other neurodivergent profiles. This includes understanding how masking can be both conscious and unconscious, and how it manifests across different contexts such as work, social life, and family roles. The objective is to help practitioners recognise the emotional and cognitive load that masking creates, so they can respond with greater empathy and insight. Participants will also explore a framework for mapping masking behaviours to uncover what clients may feel compelled to hide, and why.
• We will explore the emotional underpinnings of masking, focusing on shame as a central driver. Through case examples, reflective questions, and theoretical input, they will learn how shame-based beliefs such as “I’m not good enough” or “I must hide to be accepted” develop and become internalised. This objective helps practitioners understand how masking becomes a survival strategy and how it relates to a client’s history of rejection, criticism, or trauma. Recognising shame in clinical dialogue enables practitioners to meet clients with attunement, helping them move from self-blame toward understanding and self-acceptance.
• Participants will gain tools to help clients replace internalised shame with self-compassion, using approaches such as nurturing dialogue, ego-state work (including the Nurturing Parent), and compassionate inquiry. They will learn how to create a therapeutic space where clients feel safe enough to slowly unmask on their terms and reconnect with their authentic selves. The objective is not to remove the mask by force, but to empower clients to notice when and why they are masking, and to choose more freely when to protect themselves and when to express themselves more fully and authentically.

Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?

• This workshop is designed for psychotherapists, counsellors, life coaches, ADHD-diagnosed individuals, mental health professionals, teachers, and educators who work with or support people with ADHD and emotional dysregulation.

How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?

• This workshop will equip practitioners with a deeper, more compassionate understanding of how masking and shame operate in the lives of neurodivergent clients. Rather than focusing solely on behaviours or surface-level symptoms, practitioners will learn to recognise the emotional cost of masking and work more attuned to the client’s internal experience. They will gain tools to identify hidden coping mechanisms and offer appropriate, non-pathologising support. By fostering self-compassion and emotional safety, practitioners will be able to help clients unmask gently and authentically, enhancing trust, therapeutic alliance, and long-term growth in both coaching and therapeutic settings.

Travel Into the ADHD Mindhttps://amzn.eu/d/fkzrZN2

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RECORDING 

This event will be recorded and you can use the ticket function to pre-purchase the recording before the event. This will be useful for colleagues who are not able to attend the event live and also for those who attend the event live and want to watch it again.

ZOOM 

This event will be hosted on the Zoom meeting platform where we will use our cameras and microphones to interact with each other as a group.

SELF-SELECT FEE

The self-select fee is a radical inclusion policy to open learning for all colleagues. The guide price for this event is £20.00, however, we appreciate that income varies greatly in different locations and circumstances. Please contribute what you can to help us maintain inclusive professional training.

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Nea Clark

Nea is an experienced PTSTA psychotherapist, author, supervisor, NLP practitioner, and ADHD coach with a passion for supporting Neurodivergent individuals. She works with trainees across multiple institutes, offering dedicated guidance to help them navigate their professional development. Based in Leeds, United Kingdom, Nea provides a wide range of services, including face-to-face and online supervision, group supervision sessions, and regularly hosts webinars and seminars to share her expertise.

Specialising in Neurodiversity, Nea primarily focuses on working with clients and supervisees with ADHD and Dyslexia. She has built a reputation for her thoughtful, client-centred approach that empowers individuals to embrace their unique strengths while addressing challenges. Her commitment to this field led her to develop a comprehensive therapeutic treatment plan and training program specifically designed for working with ADHD clients.

In September 2024, Nea's innovative book, Travel into the ADHD Mind: How to Work with ADHD Clients, was published. It offers valuable insights and practical tools for therapists and professionals seeking to enhance their support for individuals with ADHD. Nea is dedicated to fostering understanding and advancing effective practices in the field of Neurodiversity, making a meaningful impact on both clients and professionals alike.

Website | www.neaclark.com

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