[HN Gopher] Show HN: Shimmer - ADHD coaching for adults, now on web
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Show HN: Shimmer - ADHD coaching for adults, now on web
Hi, I'm Chris, one of the co-founders of Shimmer. Last October,
following my ADHD diagnosis, I launched Shimmer
(https://shimmer.care), one-to-one ADHD Coaching for adults. Our HN
launch was here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33468611. A
quick recap before I dive into our new launch: Shimmer is an ADHD
coaching service for adults. We took apart the traditionally
expensive, inaccessible ADHD coaching offering ($300-600+/session)
and redesigned it from first principles. You get matched with one
of our expert ADHD coaches, meet weekly over video, and get
supported throughout the week via text and with learning tools.
This solution is special to me personally (and our community)
because it doesn't just give you "knowledge" or offer another
"tool"--our coaches help you set realistic goals, take personalized
steps towards it, and keep you accountable. Today we're excited to
launch our most-request feature: Web. Over the past 9 months, we
learned (and iterated) a lot with our members and coaches. A few
key challenges pointed to the need for a web version: (1) ADHD
"object permanence" challenges (e.g. out of sight out of mind), we
needed to be multi-platform so when you finish a task or goal or
encounter a challenge, regardless of if you're near your laptop or
phone, you can check it off & ping your coach right away, (2)
members used reflection modules (e.g. after each task, you're
prompted to reflect on what worked and didn't work, and it informs
your coach) more thoroughly than we originally anticipated, and web
allows for deeper reflection and typing, (3) overarching coaching
goals were often forgotten during the day-to-day, and the web makes
it easier to use visual cues to keep goals top of mind for
motivation, (4) many of our members struggle with phone addiction
and driving members to the mobile app ended them up in Tiktok/IG,
whereas the web app offers a focused environment to get in their
"coaching zone". Our new web app was designed alongside over 1,200
members, 22 coaches, countless hours of testing and iterating.
We're excited (but nervous!) to unveil this new version. If you
have ADHD (or think you do), we'd love for you to check out our
platform and give us critical feedback (or positive
reinforcement!). It's a super streamlined and ADHD-friendly signup
process and in honor of our web launch and back to school/work, the
first month is 30% off. Our pricing: $115/mo. for Essentials plan
(15-min weekly sessions), $230/mo. for Standard plan (30-min weekly
sessions), $345/mo. for Immersive plan (45-min weekly sessions);
all plans additional 30% off first month, HSA/FSA-eligible. We
know these prices are expensive for many people with ADHD and we're
committed to bringing costs down over time. It's more affordable
than what many people are paying for coaches, but the fact that
we're relying on humans, and not going the "we can automate all
this with AI" route, puts a floor on how low the costs can drop.
That said, here are some actions we're taking to drive down costs
for those who need it: (1) we offer needs-based scholarships and
aim to have 5% of members on them at any time, (2) we often run
fully sponsored scholarships with our partners--over 40 full ride
scholarships and 100 group coaching spots have been disbursed
alongside Asian Mental Health Project, government of Canada, and
more, and (3) we have aligned our coaching model alongside Health &
Wellness Coaching, which is expected to be reimbursed in 2024. If
you have ideas or expertise here, please reach out to me directly
at chris@shimmer.care. On behalf of our small but mighty &
passionate Shimmer team, I'm excited for the Hacker News community
to share your thoughts, feedback, and ideas. If you feel
comfortable, I'd also love to hear your personal ADHD story and
what has worked / hasn't worked for you. Co-founders Christal &
Vikram
Author : christalwang
Score : 121 points
Date : 2023-08-24 17:49 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.shimmer.care)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.shimmer.care)
| kbennatti wrote:
| Love this!
| christalwang wrote:
| Thank you so much!
| [deleted]
| joshmn wrote:
| Hi Christal and Vikram --
|
| I'm working on something in the same space but for autism and
| social skills. I'd love to hear more about how you went through
| the process for HSA/FSA eligibility.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| I assume this is basically their main "secret sauce". I
| wouldn't count on it being shared.
| Unfrozen0688 wrote:
| I feel like I may have it, but I am so down in a hole I just want
| others to do the boring shit like cooking and cleaning and
| billing for me and I can just work & play. I have tried for years
| alredy. Is there a solution for that?
| sureglymop wrote:
| I think you shouldn't even try to self diagnose and get a
| professional assessment instead. To give my personal anecdote,
| to me it sounds more like depression. I have ADHD (diagnosed at
| a very young age) and the thing is I very very much want to do
| the boring stuff. However the procrastination and forgetfulness
| is almost unavoidable and much worse is how hard it is to
| focus. Couldn't read a page of a book if the window is open and
| I heard the slightest bird chirp. Need absolute silence and
| order to be able to focus on the task at hand.
| xormapmap wrote:
| > I just want others to do the boring shit like cooking and
| cleaning and billing for me and I can just work & play.
|
| Congratulations, you are just like every other human on the
| planet. We really need to stop passing off regular human traits
| as medical disorders.
| christalwang wrote:
| It sounds like you're maybe looking for a virtual assistant of
| some sort? I recently heard of a company Athena (more geared
| towards founders) and "The Doers" (more geared towards women
| business owners, I always get their ads on IG) but I think you
| can find a VA in many places. Not an expert in this space
| though!
| mentalpiracy wrote:
| ??
|
| I don't believe a virtual assistant can cook, nor clean, nor
| anything else physical.
| christalwang wrote:
| Oh, duh. Yes. My bad. I guess an assistant of some sort? Or
| task swapping with someone else? My roommate cooks and I
| clean, so at least it's only 1 out of 2 things I don't like
| to do that's covered.
| ilc wrote:
| There is. (Assuming USA Tech Salary, and willingness to use
| money to fix problems.)
|
| 1. Clean up your place JUST enough to get some cleaning people
| in. (Yes, you can hire people to clean the apartment. Even if
| you are SITTING IN IT.)
|
| 2. Cooking: Find a meal service you like, and order. Honestly
| there's many good ones, we've been using Top Chef.
|
| 3. Get all your bills on auto-pay against your credit card.
| This will also make sure you are never late on your bills.
|
| Money is merely potential energy. If you need to convert it
| into real energy... do it.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Ideally, do just what you said and have another person to do
| those things. My wife has ADHD and I take care of all financial
| stuff and most of the cleaning (we also have a maid but she
| only comes weekly). We each cook for ourselves, but she largely
| does pre-made meals and takeout, whereas I actually cook all of
| my food from scratch.
|
| That maybe sounds asymmetric and unfair, but though I'm healthy
| now, I've been in situations in the past where I couldn't even
| dress myself and she took care of me. It's a lifetime
| partnership. Workload doesn't need to be perfectly symmetric at
| all times. Besides, when I lived alone before getting married,
| I also paid all the bills and did all the cooking and cleaning
| myself, so it's not like this added work.
| munro wrote:
| idk much about this, maybe it's really great, but i get a lot of
| instagram ads from a lot of no-name companies preying on people
| with ADHD, and their tendency to forget. they all follow a
| similar cringe tiktok formula "I have ADHD, after using XYZ, i've
| become so organized and productive!". their aim is to hit the
| user with a high subscription cost after a short trial.
|
| one of the scummier ads i've been shown is for "happyo", after
| digging in, it's just a collection of some lame ass planner apps.
| it costs $3 for the first week, but then jumps up to $67.99 for
| the next 3 months. to me, what they're doing is predatory.
|
| my 2 cents is just go through some telehealth platform and find a
| therapist who specializes in ADHD that is covered by your
| insurance. if your copay is $25 for an HOUR session.... then 1
| visit a week is only $100/mo. and if you want to go "immersive",
| schedule 3 visits a week lol
| tapland wrote:
| The landing page has way too much text. I don't see how the
| average person with ADHD would get through it to the service
| offered
| alfanick wrote:
| "All of our Shimmer ADHD Coaches are licensed or certified mental
| health professionals or have extensive experience with ADHD &
| undergo our Shimmer Coach Training program developed alongside
| our clinical advisors Dr. Amin Azzam (MD, MA), Dr. Anil Chacko
| (PhD), and our Head ADHD Coaching Psychologist Xenia Angevin."
|
| What is "undergo our Shimmer Coach Training program developed
| alongside our clinical advisors Dr. Amin Azzam (MD, MA), Dr. Anil
| Chacko (PhD), and our Head ADHD Coaching Psychologist Xenia
| Angevi"?
|
| Are they doctors or not? Psychologists or not? AI or not? There
| is so much mumbo jumbo and scams and pseudo medicine in
| psychology related issues, that this sentence simply reads as
| "yeah trust us, some of us are doctors, people who are doing the
| work, are not".
|
| Also amount of usage of word "coaching" is abusive. Are coaches
| respectable? Do they have credentials? Why coaches and not
| psychologist or psychotherapist?
| christalwang wrote:
| Appreciate this question, it's one we've gotten a lot and quite
| frankly I agree we haven't nailed the best way to articulate
| it. To answer a few of your questions... - We don't use
| psychologists or psychotherapists as the front-line helper
| because there is a severe shortage of them and our main goal is
| accessibility. There is a provider shortage (psychologists,
| psychiatrists, therapists, etc.) in the US and most places in
| the world - Depending on someone's severity, helpers can
| include parents/teachers, peer support specialists, mentors,
| coaches, therapists, psychiatrists, the list goes on (I tried
| to broadly categorize from least to most intensive); our
| service does not aim to support the most severe. Anyone who
| screens with high degree of Mh impairment is not suggested to
| use Shimmer (and we have screening in the onboarding process) -
| Frankly, depending who you ask, you'll get a different answer
| for "are coaches respectable". Coaching is a modality that is
| "up and coming" because of (1) the need for more providers and
| subclinical support services, and (2) the credentialing /
| reimbursement models are evolving... see next point: - We align
| our model most closely to Health & Wellness Coaching, which is
| estimated to be reimbursed by next year:
| https://www.wellcoachesschool.com/post/medicare-moves-advanc...
|
| Overall though, we use PhDs/psychiatrists/master-level coaches
| to supervise, create protocols, trainings, etc. and use coaches
| to deliver. (Not AI). Our coaches are either credentialed by
| ICF (International Coaching Federation) like BetterUp or Ginger
| or Lyra's coaches, NB-HWC (National Board - Health & Wellness
| Coaching), or have masters-level psych degree and go through
| our training.
|
| Happy to expand on any of the above!
| Apreche wrote:
| You say you haven't found a way to articulate it. You should
| articulate it exactly the way you do in this comment.
|
| You are not providing licensed medical services. Just come
| out and say it, since it's true. Yes, saying that will cause
| people to distrust you, and well it should. You are right
| about there being a shortage, but there is no substitute for
| a real doctor.
|
| That said, being upfront about it instead of trying to beat
| around the bush or make excuses doesn't help you. It only
| serves to make you even more untrustworthy. Your attempts to
| obscure the fact that you aren't providing real medical
| service only suggests that you know in your heart that what
| you are providing is not the same. If you believed your
| "coaches" were good enough, you wouldn't have to do anything
| at all to hide the fact that they were not real doctors. You
| could just come out and say it.
| christalwang wrote:
| Shimmer is NOT clinical and we do NOT provide licensed
| medical services. We are most definitely not trying to
| substitute a real doctor. Full stop. We hope that is clear
| in all of our communications and website, and do NOT try to
| obscure that.
|
| However, we do a lot of work to work with the right experts
| (which include clinicians, psychiatrists, etc.) to ensure
| what we do it safe, follows best practice, is science-
| backed, and is effective. And we definitely want to
| highlight this work that has been done and the importance
| of it.
|
| We will update the language to better reflect this
| immediately.
| ranting-moth wrote:
| > Shimmer is NOT clinical and we do NOT provide licensed
| medical services
|
| In which case I personally find the phrase "All of our
| Shimmer ADHD Coaches are licensed or certified mental
| health professionals" to be quite deceptive.
| christalwang wrote:
| Thank you for pinpointing this. I re-read many times, and
| I agree with you. I've just re-written the whole section
| with our Lead Coaching Psychologist, Xenia.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| Your website has photos of the doctors for the "care
| team" and coaches buried under a link. Come on, just be
| uprfront with people.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| p1necone wrote:
| This is like the cheap wine with the "gold medal at so
| and so wine awards" sticker when so and so wine awards is
| just some thing the maker of the wine made up.
| bitwrangler wrote:
| please elaborate on _which_ licenses and certifications
| they have. Can I confirm those credentials, how will I
| know if they are industry recognized and respected
| instead of your own in-house certification.
| christalwang wrote:
| This was an excerpt of a longer message; we did not claim
| all our coaches are licensed or certified mental health
| professionals.
|
| Original wording: All of our Shimmer ADHD Coaches are
| licensed or certified mental health professionals* or
| have extensive experience with ADHD & undergo our Shimmer
| Coach Training program
| vsreed wrote:
| Just updated the language in our FAQ for this!
| p1necone wrote:
| > quite frankly I agree we haven't nailed the best way to
| articulate it.
|
| You've certainly nailed the best way to articulate "we
| haven't worked out how to best phrase our bullshit to fly
| under the radar" though.
| christalwang wrote:
| We've just changed our language with the support of our
| care team and the folks in this thread! Super open to more
| suggestions if it can better represent what we're doing
| (ADHD Coaching)
| p1necone wrote:
| Cut the PR speak. You were literally advertising that
| your coaches were qualified medical professionals when
| they weren't. That isn't a little writing oopsie that you
| can fix and then carry on with your day, that's fraud.
| christalwang wrote:
| We weren't advertising anything that isn't true. We do
| have qualified mental health professionals on our
| coaching team (many of them are), but we changed the
| language so it didn't seem like they were providing
| medical services at all. The threads here helped us
| understand how it was coming off (not in terms of true or
| not, but in terms of how it read/implied) so we switched
| the ordering. Happy to expand more or change anything
| that isn't true or is deceptive!
| p1necone wrote:
| > we changed the language so it didn't seem like they
| were providing medical services at all
|
| You _are_ providing medical services, trying to claim you
| aren 't is absurd. Changing the wording to claim you
| aren't to avoid legal liability is exactly the kind of
| deception people are calling you out on.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Hey maybe take it down a bit? It's not absurd that they
| aren't providing medical services. Right now it feels
| like you just want to shit on them as much as possible
| and your responses quickly shifted from "feedback" to
| "fuck you".
| zeroq wrote:
| Looks like the same bait and switch Dr. K (Healthy Gamer) did.
| Put a real MD on the poster, and once they sign up hook your
| customers with people with 3 weeks of "professional training".
| syncbehind wrote:
| Just recently found about his youtube channel and have found
| his content to be quite beneficial. Did not know that he'd
| done this. Can I read about this anywhere? There seems to be
| a lot of folks who are critical about him.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I don't know about the details, but even simply from
| watching HealthyGamerGG videos (which are quite good), the
| way he pushes his group counseling service(?) using
| essentially volunteers(??) who are licensed through him
| does seem suspect. Guess enshittification applies even to
| internet individuals.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| I mentioned this in the main comment but I believe if you
| try to sign up they make it clear it's not professional
| mental health service.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| That's fair. I'm not accusing him of pretending it's
| professional. More like it seems dubious of him trying to
| push his side hustle in his regular programming. It's
| like he's presenting a paid service as the natural
| progression from his free advice. And as if his trained
| coaches are a proxy for himself.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| I think calling Dr. K a bait and switch is a bit unfair. They
| make it very explicit before signing up that it's not medical
| care and that it's just a coach and not a mental health
| professional.
|
| Unless they changed the onboarding process, it's made obvious
| to the user what it is.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| But honestly, that can be a win. A good process (with a
| person you resonate with) can go further than a medical
| degree. Personal opinion, based on lots of experience.
| christalwang wrote:
| Thanks for this comment--you've nailed it. The service
| we're providing in it's very nature is not medical and
| instead encompasses support functions like accountability,
| celebration of the member, helping the member feel "seen
| and heard", etc. Many of our members have not got that from
| their doctors, nor do they expect it given the doctors
| role. We advocate for layering the services you need
| together (e.g. I have a doctor, psychiatrist, coach, right
| now.) and our coaches work hard to communicate the role of
| a coach and the boundaries.
| christalwang wrote:
| We definitely are not trying to pass as a medical service.
| However, we do our due diligence to make sure we have medical
| staff on board to advise us on our protocols, services, train
| our staff, supervise our staff, and to stand in if there is
| any escalation needed. We hope it's clear Dr. Anil himself is
| not coaching and very happy to make things more clear by
| adding his title to the front of the card.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| It's absurd to claim that you're not trying to pass as a
| medical service when you're offering coaching for a
| neurological condition.
|
| You can argue medical vs healthcare or whatever semantics
| you want but if it quacks like a duck it's a duck.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| Is my golf coach a physical therapist or a physical
| movement coach? He's been helping me improve my swing
| around an injury I had dirt biking.
| fredrikholm wrote:
| If your golf coach is helping you with your golf swing,
| I'd say that he's a golf coach.
| aaaaaaa9000 wrote:
| My grandma once helped me with my math homework, was she
| a mathematician?
|
| You might get lucky with your golf coach. There are
| people that went to medical school for that though. Your
| choice.
| mike_d wrote:
| > We definitely are not trying to pass as a medical
| service.
|
| > HSA/FSA-eligible.
|
| Try harder?
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| healthcare and medicine aren't synonymous
|
| psychologists, mental health therapists, physical
| therapists, occupational therapists, pharmacists, and so
| on, do not practice medicine - but the services they
| provide can be paid for with HSA and FSA money
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_health_professions
| mike_d wrote:
| Technicalities don't matter, explicitly calling it out
| creates a false connection in readers brains. Like how
| some snake oil treatments say "FDA cleared" because they
| know consumers don't know what it means.
| munk-a wrote:
| I don't think that's a particularly fair point - HSA/FSA
| eligibility is a billing related question. There are
| plenty of counseling services that aren't run by formally
| accredited folks that can achieve HSA/FSA eligibility.
| The billing arrangement isn't particularly relevant - I
| do agree that it'd be good to be more forward about the
| fact that you'll be talking to someone without formal
| accreditation.
| christalwang wrote:
| Thank you for this comment, we've changed the language to
| reflect this last point on formal medical accreditation,
| and clarified that even if they do have medical
| credentials, in Shimmer's capacity they will be
| practicing ADHD coaching
| [deleted]
| rendx wrote:
| What is your team's take on the theory of ADHD as a "survival
| strategy" of childhood/parent trauma, and healing it by working
| through the trauma instead of merely managing its symptoms?
| kstrauser wrote:
| I'm not on that team, but: that doesn't meet my experience in
| the slightest. My parents are great, and I didn't have any
| significant childhood trauma. In retrospect, my symptoms went
| back to when I was a wee little lad, well before I had to deal
| with any of life's curveballs.
| rendx wrote:
| Well, that theory says that typically memories of traumatic
| events are repressed and show up only in form of symptoms
| like ADHD. Your "claim" that you had a non-traumatic
| childhood (and your parents did neither?) does not invalidate
| that theory.
|
| It's interesting how I was downvoted. I am just curious, I am
| not saying one or the other is "true". I have no idea, I am
| not a professional. However, I do think it is a relevant
| question to ask and discussion to have.
|
| I am just looking into this as someone who only in his 40s
| discovered that he had significant childhood trauma that he
| was not in any way aware of, and my mother too which is
| something we never talked about, and that my symptoms and my
| "suffering" has finally almost disappeared now that I'm doing
| proper trauma therapy. I would have claimed I had "great
| parents" and "no childhood trauma" in the same way as you,
| and rejected that theory, if you had asked me a few years
| ago.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Maybe there's just overlap between CPTSD symptoms and ADHD,
| not that they're literally the same thing.
| rendx wrote:
| Both PTSD and ADHD (and any other mental "disorder") are
| _defined as_ a list of symptoms, and do not imply
| different root causes.
|
| see e.g. "The hidden links between mental disorders"
| https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00922-8 available on
| sci-hub
|
| "Since the 1950s, psychiatrists have used an exhaustive
| volume called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
| Mental Disorders, currently in its fifth edition. It
| lists all the recognized disorders, from autism and
| obsessive-compulsive disorder to depression, anxiety and
| schizophrenia. Each is defined by symptoms. The inherent
| assumption is that each disorder is distinct, and arises
| for different reasons. However, even before the DSM-5 was
| published in 2013, many researchers argued that this
| approach was flawed. "Any clinician could have told you
| that patients had not read the DSM and didn't conform to
| the DSM," says Hyman, who helped to draft the manual's
| fifth edition. Few patients fit into each neat set of
| criteria. Instead, people often have a mix of symptoms
| from different disorders. Even if someone has a fairly
| clear diagnosis of depression, they often have symptoms
| of another disorder such as anxiety. "If you have one
| disorder, you're much more likely to have another," says
| Ted Satterthwaite, a neuropsychiatrist at the University
| of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
|
| This implies that the way clinicians have partitioned
| mental disorders is wrong. Psychiatrists have tried to
| solve this by splitting disorders into ever-finer
| subtypes. "If you look at the way the DSM has evolved
| over time, the book gets thicker and thicker," says
| Satterthwaite. But the problem persists -- the subtypes
| are still a poor reflection of the clusters of symptoms
| that many patients have. As a result, the world's largest
| funder of mental-health science, the US National
| Institute of Mental Health, changed the way it funded
| research. [...]"
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| The way the theory is phrased makes it unscientific and the
| HN community in general tends to be especially critical
| when that occurs.
|
| I also want to add that the scientific-ness of it or not
| doesn't invalidate it as an explanatory device in your
| personal journey - they are on orthogonal axes.
| rendx wrote:
| I merely asked a question about the team's position on
| it.
|
| To pick a random study of many:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29086104/
|
| "Children with ADHD were more likely than controls to
| have ever experienced a traumatic event (27 vs 16%; OR:
| 1.99; 95% CI 1.21, 3.27). This difference remained
| significant in the adjusted model (OR: 1.76, 95% CI 1.03,
| 3.01) accounting for child factors (age and gender) and
| family socio-demographic factors (parent age, parent high
| school completion and single parent status). Among those
| with ADHD, trauma-exposed children had higher parent-
| reported ADHD severity and more externalizing problems
| than non-exposed children, however, this effect
| attenuated in adjusted model. Children with ADHD were
| more likely to have experienced a traumatic event than
| controls. The high prevalence of trauma exposure in our
| sample suggests that clinicians should evaluate for
| trauma histories in children presenting with ADHD. "
|
| Or another: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27816036/
|
| "Childhood Trauma Exposure is common in Substance Use
| Disorder patients and associated with adult ADHD but not
| with the persistence of childhood ADHD into adulthood.
| These findings suggest that the increased rate of adult
| ADHD in SUD patients with CTE is not the consequence of a
| negative effect of CTE on the persistence of childhood
| ADHD into adulthood, but a direct expression of the high
| rate of childhood ADHD in SUD patients with CTE."
|
| Or this one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19337826/
|
| "Controlling for demographic variables, comorbid
| disorders, and ADHD severity, we noted significant
| associations between lifetime depression and
| environmental adversities, including victimization
| trauma, parent-child conflict, and behaviorally-
| independent negative life events. "
| jahewson wrote:
| If only 27% of ADHD sufferers have experienced childhood
| trauma then we can be certain that such trauma is not its
| cause.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think this is a much better expression of your point as
| it makes clear that there is a correlation within a
| subset of people who have ADHD - rather than implying
| that all people with ADHD were exposed to trauma as
| children. Everything brain related is extremely
| complicated and there are quite a few comorbidities that
| have already been identified (the ASD-ADHD link for
| instance) and it's quite possible there is a link for
| some people between their developmental environment and
| neurological processing. That overlap isn't all-inclusive
| though - a fair number of people with ADHD grew up in
| wonderfully supportive environments.
|
| Brain stuff - it just ain't simple.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| This supports a theory that childhood trauma may be one
| reason of many ADHD might eventually manifest, not a
| theory that it's _the_ reason ADHD ever manifests. Even
| here, it 's saying 27% of the diagnosed peope had
| identifiable trauma in their past. That seems to hint
| there are many other possible causes and ways to treat.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Yes, thank you for the sources.
|
| When I'm hearing now is "ADHD has a correlation with
| traumatic events." What I was hearing before was "If you
| don't think your ADHD is a result of trauma, you need to
| dig deeper."
|
| It goes to show you that what's being written isn't
| always how folks interpret it.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think a larger factor is that there are plenty of us
| folks with ADHD that didn't have traumatic childhood
| experiences and have had therapy in the past (with no
| impact on our ADHD tendancies).
|
| If the comment was intended to say that some people may
| have ADHD like symptoms due to childhood trauma and that
| might be resolved by working that out it was quite poorly
| worded - to me at least it read as coding all ADHD as
| treatable by therapy and environmentally caused and that
| is simply untrue for me. There may be a certain amount of
| defensiveness in our community in particular because for
| a long time ADHD was written off as behavioral issue
| causing laziness rather than being treated as a true
| neurologically divergent condition. I was diagnosed about
| twenty two years ago and I've seen a lot of FUD around my
| condition and the ineffectiveness of ritalin and other
| stimulants - they very well may have been mis-prescribed
| in the 90s but for a decent chunk of us it has been
| highly impactful.
| christalwang wrote:
| It really depends on the person. It's the case for some folks
| but definitely not all (not myself) and in that case, it's
| important to address the root cause. Our team actually
| advocates for mixed treatment when relevant (while
| acknowledging the provider shortage, differences in
| means/access to quality healthcare) - this usually includes
| working with psychiatric, clinical, counseling and
| psychotherapy practitioners (and/or coaches). These treatment
| protocols may include medication, therapy, and more. Doesn't
| need to be done all at once, but drawing on these tools as
| needed.
| lukko wrote:
| I always wonder how this can be offered to patients when it seems
| like it should be classed as a medical device / service and
| regulated. It's intended for use in a named medical disorder and
| the guidance is very clear [1] (UK guidelines).
|
| It is presented as having an evidence base with trained
| clinicians, but then the T+Cs state: 'Coaches are not trained or
| licensed medical professionals and are not qualified to diagnose,
| treat or manage any healthcare conditions, including behavioural
| health conditions.'
|
| It makes me really sad to see so many companies like this - the
| services are always hugely expensive and target vulnerable
| people.
|
| [1]
| https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
| aaaaaaa9000 wrote:
| That was my initial question as well. What are their
| qualifications for calling themselves ADHD coaches?
|
| I'm bombarded with ads from ADHD apps since my diagnosis and I
| have tried many. None, none at all, have helped me. It's
| praying on the weak.
| christalwang wrote:
| The most common certifications for ADHD coaches are from ICF
| and NB-HWC, although those generic coaching certifications
| are not just for ADHD. There are targeted training schools /
| credentials from organizations like iACT as well that are
| focused on ADHD Coaching. Many of our coaches are trained at
| iACT but some also have PhDs/masters in ADHD-related fields
| in addition to generic coaching.
|
| I'm sorry nothing has worked for you so far--I had similar
| experiences when I was diagnosed. If you're willing to, I'd
| love to do a free consultation with you to see if we (or any
| other program our coaches know of) can help!
| chris@shimmer.care
| lukko wrote:
| Exactly. Also, what is the intervention if the coaches cannot
| provide any advice or guidance[1] or manage the condition. I
| really think services like this should be regulated - I'm not
| sure why ADHD seems like a soft diagnosis and always slips
| through the net.
|
| [1] (a) you acknowledge and understand that Coaches are not
| trained or licensed as medical professionals, and you agree
| to not request that Coaches provide you with any medical or
| healthcare advice or guidance, and (b) you agree to not rely
| upon any information provided to you by Coaches, content
| received through the Services or other Members when making
| important lifestyle, health, financial or relationship
| decisions.
| christalwang wrote:
| We also would like this to be covered through reimbursement,
| however we're not there yet (with ADHD Coaching) and right now
| it's primarily out of pocket. The team at Well Coaches and
| other organizations (including ICF, ACO) are working hard to
| progress the modality.
|
| In terms of cost, we do try our best to keep costs as
| affordable as possible and have a needs-based financial aid
| program. We also do a lot of scholarship sponsorships whenever
| we can with our community partners. We hope to do more in the
| future (and some are coming in October!)
| gtvwill wrote:
| Erf that pricing is cooked. Straight into the basket of
| unobtanium along with the 3000 bucks for adult diagnosis. Cheers
| but no thanks.
|
| Man I'm glad I don't live in the US. Healthcare for a profit is
| gross. Go get some government funding and release your service
| for more accessible prices.
| christalwang wrote:
| We're currently applying, thank you!
| alex_lav wrote:
| > Our pricing: $115/mo. for Essentials plan (15-min weekly
| sessions), $230/mo. for Standard plan (30-min weekly sessions),
| $345/mo. for Immersive plan (45-min weekly sessions); all plans
| additional 30% off first month, HSA/FSA-eligible.
|
| Please please put a link to this information on the main site.
| Anything I'm half interested in using I do a cmd+F "Pricing" and
| if there aren't results I usually bail.
|
| Also when I hit "Find my coach" and am redirected to the quiz, I
| just get a blank screen.
|
| This service looks great, and I intend on using it.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "Please please put a link to this information on the main site.
| Anything I'm half interested in using I do a cmd+F "Pricing"
| and if there aren't results I usually bail."
|
| That's a pretty specific thing to measure folks on
| alex_lav wrote:
| Obvious and transparent pricing is a requirement for services
| I sign up for, and the fastest check for services that align
| with that requirement is cmd+F. As a consumer I'm obviously
| entitled to measure services however I'd like.
| christalwang wrote:
| Updated! Now you can cmd+F and find it. Thanks for this
| suggestion.
| nomel wrote:
| I have the same opinion. Someone trying to sell has a full
| understanding that you need to know the price. It's The
| fundamental of the transaction. The only reason someone hides
| a price is that they have something to hide, or they want to
| do a hard sell. I'm not interested either of those intimately
| related things, especially the tribulations that would
| follow.
|
| It's great to see they freely added the price. I suspect
| they're not guilted of anything above.
| vsreed wrote:
| The other co-founder and cto here, we just made the updates to
| the site so it should reference "pricing" in the subscription
| plans section! Really appreciate the suggestion here.
|
| Also for the blank screen, I wasn't able to reproduce either
| but the quiz is an embedded Typeform. There may be a
| plugin/extension enabled on your browser that could be blocking
| it. What browser are you using and are you able to try viewing
| it on incognito?
| christalwang wrote:
| Oh, this is a good idea re: "pricing"; right now it's on the
| homepage under the section "Flexible plans built for every
| brain". Thank you for this--will be adding today.
|
| Hm, I'm not able to replicate the blank screen. For now you can
| bypass this section by going to app.shimmer.care and creating
| an account directly, but let me check in with my co-founder on
| the blank screen issue.
|
| And awesome, glad you resonated! Let me know if I can help with
| finding the right coach! chris@shimmer.care
| alex_lav wrote:
| > Oh, this is a good idea re: "pricing"; right now it's on
| the homepage under the section "Flexible plans built for
| every brain". Thank you for this--will be adding today.
|
| I appreciate you accommodating my request. Normally the cmd+F
| route gets me to a "Pricing" link at the bottom near things
| like "Careers" and whatnot, which is totally fine.
|
| > Hm, I'm not able to replicate the blank screen. For now you
| can bypass this section by going to app.shimmer.care and
| creating an account directly, but let me check in with my co-
| founder on the blank screen issue.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/zvQ72hT
|
| Happens every time.
|
| Again I appreciate the update + response. Best of luck with
| your service.
| hartator wrote:
| Funny this is one of the most distracting blog posts I've read in
| a bit.
|
| Emojis everywhere, boxes, Intercom, sign up to the newsletter,
| animations, confusing wordings, multiple colors for the text. I
| doubt the author has a grasping of ADHD.
| christalwang wrote:
| Appreciate the feedback! I'm the author here
| (Christal)...unfortunately I definitely have ADHD!
|
| Many of our members and team need the emojis for the visual
| relation but I definitely see your point. I will tone down the
| emojis and make the newsletter show up only at the end of the
| article. I'll also send this to a content editor for the
| confusing wordings, etc.! If there are any specific examples,
| don't hesitate to let me know.
| jamiepenney wrote:
| Not sure if you've already done it, but I find the current
| state of it just fine - I wouldn't say it's overboard. Not to
| put extra work on you, but I wonder if it's worth creating a
| both a highly visual and low-noise version of your blog
| posts, considering ADHD tends to be co-morbid with stuff like
| ASD. Just a thought.
| christalwang wrote:
| I made a few small changes to current, but not everything.
| And yes, I like that example of low-/high-noise. We're
| going to look into this in the coming weeks as we revamp
| our website.
| dsp_person wrote:
| I thought the emojis and animations and stuff were great.
| Good job.
| christalwang wrote:
| My savior! Thank you!
| munk-a wrote:
| As a person with ADHD myself I'm definitely on the same
| wavelength with finding emojis distracting but a friend of
| mine finds them extremely engaging. I suspect that the emoji
| appeal is more whether you were raised in a setting with them
| embedded into speech or appended at the end of speech. That's
| all to say that I don't think the OP was really accurate when
| they said emojis distracted people with ADHD - it distracts
| some of us - and engages other[1].
|
| I would also personally appreciate a more neutral
| professional tone to writing but it's important to get a
| wider understanding of your audience before over tuning your
| presentation.
|
| 1. (And if you really want to engage me put hyphens
| everywhere - I do mean everywhere... but that's just me.)
| christalwang wrote:
| Thanks for this perspective. I generally try to make it at
| least not distracting for most people, even though I know
| no 1 style will work for everyone.
|
| Yes, I hear your point on neutral tone as well, I'm a bit
| dramatic at times.
|
| I am the same with brackets. I use brackets so often-I type
| them then delete them (or at least reduce them to a
| "normal" amount) before hitting send, usually.
| dsp_person wrote:
| Maybe you should have a big switch at the top for
| "Stimulus mode" and "Distraction-free reader". And maybe
| another one that shoots fireworks.
| christalwang wrote:
| I laughed out loud at the end. That's a good idea.
| https://www.understood.org/ actually has a good example
| of this (reduce-motion mode)
|
| We'll look into this for sure--I'd love a confetti mode.
| hinkley wrote:
| I know a pair of BFFs who both have ADD. Watching them try to
| have _one_ conversation is quite eye opening. And a bit
| exhausting. I 'm thinking back to every conversation I've ever
| had with a polymath or a person with ADD and asking myself,
| "man, is this what everyone else experienced listening to me?"
| No wonder the conversations always devolved to 1:1.
|
| People with ADD understand why they shouldn't distract others,
| but theory and practice are poles apart, even by academic
| standards. Seeing tangents in text is a good indication they
| have an accurate diagnosis.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| Ironically my friend married someone with ADHD, they visited
| us, and me and her took a walk, that ended up being 4 hours
| because it was so effortless for us to just jump topic to
| topic and talk about 10 different things in detail at the
| same time. We didn't have to re-focus or focus our energy to
| keep pace with normal people's way of speaking.
|
| It was the wildest and easiest conversation I've ever had in
| my life.
| benatkin wrote:
| I didn't look at the article until now. Gah that's terrible. I
| think we found a new low, folks!
| nkohari wrote:
| This is an incredibly rude way to give feedback.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| This is sort of the thing. Everyone I meet with ADHD has some
| similarities, an a lot of nuanced differences and lots of their
| own little tricks and methods for dealing with it. Many of them
| have therapists they believe have had a positive effect on
| them. Many have medications that they believe have a positive
| effect. That may or may not be true depending. Whatever seems
| to be working is whatever they're evangelizing and while I'm
| glad that mental health is becoming more accepted and
| discussed, I wish treatments/rituals/coachings/medications were
| left up to the patient and whomever they chose for professional
| care
|
| Therapy helped for me until it didn't and then medication did
| and still does. That's just me. My nephew struggles with
| medications. It's so easy just to get an initial reaction with
| mental health issues, and then want to evangelize whatever
| stimulated that reaction, but this stuff is nuanced. There's
| all kinds of variables commonly shared and some not so common.
|
| Anyway, be cautious of telling people what they grasp with
| personal health issues, they likely just don't grasp your
| particular flavor. But with regard to this website, I'd be
| cautious in general.
|
| It reeks of excited evangelizing done by someone who's way of
| interacting with the world is business and computers.
| dsp_person wrote:
| > I doubt the author has a grasping of ADHD
|
| Do you? It can be hurtful to tell someone they "aren't ADHD
| enough".
|
| First line of the article:
|
| > I was diagnosed last year & wasn't able to find an
| affordable, quality ADHD coach
|
| ADHD people might like the animations, emojis, and colors, and
| might not read a long boring plaintext article linearly from
| start to finish. Everyone has different preferences though...
|
| Personally I didn't find anything confusing or distracting
| about the article, and I felt like I could jump between random
| sections that look interesting (where the colors, emojis, and
| animations draw me in to different topics).
| hartator wrote:
| > It can be hurtful to tell someone they "aren't ADHD
| enough".
|
| The author can have ADHD, but not have a grasping of how to
| solve this. One doesn't preclude the other.
|
| Keep in mind they are the ones trying to sell a ADHD
| solution. Cutting off on visual and auditory distractions is
| very 101. It doesn't inspire lot of trust if they don't grasp
| that. Even if they all have ADHD for real.
| dsp_person wrote:
| Cutting off visual and audio distractions is very 101 for
| what goal though? We aren't doing homework or taxes. In one
| situation it may be "distraction", in another it may be
| "stimuli" and enjoyable. ADHD people like to stim. In this
| situation I think the visual stimuli were good.
| ethanwillis wrote:
| Speak for yourself. I have ADHD and I don't appreciate
| it.
| [deleted]
| Blahah wrote:
| I absolutely adore this. Gonna message you Christal and Vikram,
| but what a lovely, thoughtful, difficult, energetic show HN.
|
| Having spent years battling through medical services and
| alternatives, and doing self work, and being in community to
| handle this, it's such a breath of fresh air to see it being done
| well and in celebration of what ADHD can be.
| stephpeng wrote:
| I've been diagnosed since I was a kid and I will say this is
| interesting. I'm glad it's not just another AI tool claiming it
| can "solve ADHD" (especially the chat bots I see popping up,
| which I've tried and they aren't good). I've never considered
| coaching seriously in the past... but can you share more about
| what sort of folks coaching works for and what sorts it doesn't?
| And what sort of outcomes or stories you've seen?
| christalwang wrote:
| Coaching works best for those who are ready for forward
| movement: unlike most types of therapy, coaching is goal-
| oriented / solution-oriented and requires the member to be in a
| good enough space to want to look into the future & put in the
| work. Often members use therapy / medication in tandem with
| coaching.
|
| Coaching works least effectively for those with severe
| comorbidities like depression/anxiety/bi-polar that are not
| concurrently being treated or at least do not significantly
| impair their day-to-day functions.
|
| We have really extensive testimonials on our homepage (you can
| load more as well) but a few of my favorites are: (1) a 45-50
| y/o man who got promoted after thinkng he would not ever get
| promoted again--now he is director level and manages dozens of
| reports and has a renewed sense of confidence in himself; (2)
| and 24-34 grad student who was able to find her dream job post-
| MBA after burning herself out at almost every other job she's
| had before and never feeling like she "fit"; her Shimmer coach
| helped her look at jobs that fit her unique ADHD, find ways to
| approach the job hunting process in a way that fit her brain,
| and then eventually secure that job.
| esharte wrote:
| "Coaching works best for those who are ready for forward
| movement"
|
| Meaning "if our product doesn't work, it's really your fault"
| deciduously wrote:
| Come on, that's unfair. It's one thing to be sceptical
| about this particular product, but the assertion that
| outside of a clinical, targetted environment, people need
| to want to receive the help they're getting to benefit is
| not controversial. If you obstinately refuse to read any
| courseware or attend any lectures, do you turn around and
| blame the school when you fail to learn anything from a
| class?
| thebeardisred wrote:
| The on-boarding workflow felt sycophantic and pandering. When you
| ask me to express my vulnerabilities and respond with statements
| like:
|
| > You're in the right place! 41% of Shimmer members rated 5 for
| the impact ADHD has on their lives, just like you. Shimmer is the
| newest way to work with your ADHD: You'll build skills and
| implement systems that are catered to YOUR life.
|
| or
|
| > Thank you for sharing. Shimmer members work on similar
| challenges and 86% have improved within 3 months.
|
| it evokes an image in my mind of a guy holding open a trench coat
| saying "I got what you need."
|
| At the same time, as someone who has spent a lot of time
| developing insight into the spectrum of disorders around
| emotional and internal regulation trying to understand my own
| life and mind, the workflow _was_ helpful. It showed me that I 'm
| not the target audience for your product. That's OK though,
| different strokes for different folks.
|
| Best of luck and I hope you're able to support people and do good
| in the world. :+1:
| ablyveiled wrote:
| From Ray Peat, Mind and Tissue:
|
| >The famous Russian neuro-psychologist, A.R. Luria, has described
| the behavior of dogs when this tissue is damaged or removed:
| ...destruction of the frontal lobes leads, not so much to a
| disturbance of memory as to a disturbance of the ability to
| inhibit orienting reflexes to distracting stimuli: ...such an
| animal cannot perform tasks involving delayed responses under
| ordinary conditions, but can do so provided that irrelevant,
| distracting stimuli are removed (if the animal is kept in total
| darkness, if tranquilizers are administered, and so on). The role
| of the prefrontal cortex in the synthesis of systems of stimuli
| and the creation of a plan of action is manifested not only in
| relation to currently acting stimuli, but also in the formation
| of active behavior directed towards the future.2 Various theories
| of what causes hyperactivity, e.g., low blood sugar, weak
| radiation from fluorescent lights and TV, 3 or food additives,4
| and the observation that drugs which stimulate the sympathetic or
| adrenergic nerves (ephedrine or caffeine, for example) will
| relieve the symptoms, are all consistent with the idea that not
| enough energy is being supplied to permit this tissue to function
| properly. Low blood sugar will starve the nerves; food additives
| or any low-level poison can serve as a stressor of nerve tissue,
| leading to increased energy requirements;
|
| If you continually treat ADHD as a "mental" problem which ought
| to be "coached" away instead of a brain energetics disorder, you
| will lose hours and hours of your life, likely for little
| benefit.
| krapht wrote:
| https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ray_Peat
|
| I think there's some important things to say about neuroscience
| and ADHD, but I don't think Ray Peat is the authority you want
| to quote about this subject.
| redblacktree wrote:
| Where does this come from? I'd like to read more of the quoted
| text.
|
| Also, can we take the next step? If we do now treat ADHD as a
| brain energetics disorder, how do we treat it? Are drugs like
| Adderall or Ritalin sufficient based on this view?
| ablyveiled wrote:
| >Where does this come from?
|
| The book "Mind and Tissue" by Ray Peat, available on LibGen
| (and amazon, for $200 used).
|
| >Are drugs like Adderall or Ritalin sufficient based on this
| view?
|
| From the text,
|
| > the observation that drugs which stimulate the sympathetic
| or adrenergic nerves (ephedrine or caffeine, for example)
| will relieve the symptoms,
|
| So yes, stimulant drugs can treat ADHD insofar as they cause
| a greater supply of energy to be delivered the frontal lobes.
| Needless to say that stimulants wear you out over time
| though. A more sustainable solution is to optimize for
| brain/body bioenergetics generally. You can read more on his
| website, raypeat.com.
|
| I'm not a shill, the man is dead, I just think this
| information is far too important not to share vigorously.
| It's how I resolved my lifelong depression nearly
| effortlessly.
|
| The somewhat higher rate of mental illness among higher-IQ
| people (according to some studies), to me, also points to an
| insufficiency of brain energy as the principal cause. A more
| energy-hungry brain will fail more readily under an even
| slightly faulty energy supply.
| christalwang wrote:
| Appreciate this; curious your perspective on best-in-class
| solutions (aside from stimulant drugs) for insufficient
| brain energy? I'm always looking for holistic solution
| sets.
|
| Also some of our members (for various reasons) can't or
| won't take medication (which is a whole other conversation)
| so any behavioral or natural solutions I love to be aware
| of.
| ablyveiled wrote:
| In the interest of brevity, here's a good summary video
| of Peat's nutritional ideas:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb2F8xLQMvw
| christalwang wrote:
| Wow, 3-min video. Exactly what I needed, thank you. Super
| interesting, I'm going to look into his work more.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Surely coaching could help develop better coping mechanisms for
| various issues that arise from living with a brain energetics
| disorder?
|
| (To be clear: I'm not recommending Shimmer; the fact that they
| mention positive psychology is a red-flag for me).
| christalwang wrote:
| Can you expand more on your perspective on positive
| psychology?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Much of what I have encountered in Positive Psychology
| (with a capital "P"; i.e. the relatively young field) falls
| into two categories:
|
| 1. Incorporating things from previous research that are
| relatively uncontentious (e.g. flow
|
| 2. Tainted by academic fraud (e.g. Critical Positivity
| Ratio)
|
| Given that you can have #1 without defining a new field of
| psychology, I associate the field of Positive Psychology
| with #2.
| christalwang wrote:
| Thank you for explaining more. Positive Psychology as a
| field is very wide, with different schools of thought
| within it; the most important aspect to us being that we
| focus on the Strength-Based vs. Disability Model of
| Neurodiversity. The school of thought we are part of is
| equally applicable to other allied fields which help
| those with ADHD achieve a better quality of life -
| psychiatry, clinical and psychotherapeutic services.
| christalwang wrote:
| In essence, practicing positive psychology, to us, means
| that we focus on the positive attributes and strengths of
| an individual - not on their pathology as in
| "traditional" approaches. It also means that we focus on
| helping our members achieve higher levels of well-being
| and personal growth as oppose to focusing solely on the
| symptoms relief.
|
| Our key approach has been providing a mix of
| psychoeducational coaching interventions to enhance
| positive attributes in combination with other help our
| members can obtain - and not on short-term prescribed
| psychotherapies or medication as a sole mode of
| intervention.
| ablyveiled wrote:
| I think it's just poor value for money and time. One should
| focus instead on ways of eliminating the brain energetics
| disorder to obtain true freedom.
|
| It's like being sober versus being attached at the hip to
| Narcotics Anonymous. Sure, it helps people, but it's much
| better, if possible, to not even need it.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I have some powerful coping mechanisms. I can manage my ADHD on
| my own. But earlier this year, I finally got around to working
| with a doc who prescribed me meds. It's amazing how much extra
| mental energy I have now that I'm not expending so much of it
| on those coping mechanisms.
|
| It's great to learn how to get by without meds. That's
| important, and the meds aren't a magic wand that will
| miraculously make you happy and productive without any
| lifestyle changes. But oh, wow, what a difference those meds
| can make!
| k__ wrote:
| This.
|
| I got meds with 37.
|
| Did a degree in CS and was successfully self-employed for
| years until that.
|
| Everything worked out okay-ish, but meds are a game changer.
| It really felt like I was playing "life" on hard mode until
| then.
| munk-a wrote:
| I'm happy you found a good balance for yourself - I've been
| medicated since I was about 14 and I've definitely noticed
| a difference whenever I've been forced onto a break. I
| think one thing that puzzles people observing us from the
| outside is that we're talking about stimulants and from the
| outside it looks like the meds are filling us full of
| energy to complete a task - but most[1] people with ADHD
| actually "come down" when on stimulants and rather than the
| medication boosting my energy level upwards, for me
| personally at least, it makes the constant distractions
| less important and vital allowing me to concentrate my
| energy on a single task.
|
| Brains are complicated stuff so everyone is going to find a
| different ideal treatment path - some people can manage
| with exercise alone and have a strict morning regiment,
| some people find medication to be the perfect pills -
| others use a mix of both. Trying to train yourself to not
| be ADHD and maintain completely through self-discipline is
| indeed hard mode.
|
| 1. There are some people that respond terribly to normal
| ADHD meds and they were part of the reason that ADHD used
| to be divided into the ADHD and ADD labels with the older
| version of ADHD labeled persons usually responding poorly
| to standard medications like methylphenidate.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Can I ask which meds did you get?
| christalwang wrote:
| Resonate.
| ilc wrote:
| You were. I'll give you how much of a handicap it may have
| been.
|
| I was 50th percentile on the CAT in 2nd grade, unmedicated.
|
| I was 90th percentile on the CAT in 3rd grade, medicated.
|
| Figure out how much catch up and passing I did in 1 year...
| 1 year.
|
| I've gone on to have a nice successful career and life. But
| without meds and help... No way.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| What kind of things does the meds help for, and what kind of
| meds?
|
| A good friend almost certainly has ADHD (I say that as
| someone on the spectrum) which impacts their daily life in a
| negative way, and I'm just curious if meds could help.
|
| Of course would need to get a diagnosis first but they
| haven't pursued that yet, and I'm wondering if this could
| serve as motivation.
| xormapmap wrote:
| > It's amazing how much extra mental energy I have now that
| I'm on amphetamines
|
| You don't say.
| christalwang wrote:
| 100%
| trehalose wrote:
| Is this the same Ray Peat that claimed Mexican Coca-Cola could
| cure almost any medical
| emergency?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE-PEJ9Uu50
| ablyveiled wrote:
| The same.
| christalwang wrote:
| Thank you for this comment and the text. I'm also curious about
| where this text comes from, I'd love to read the rest of it.
|
| And yes, I agree. ADHD is not a "mental" problem, and cannot be
| "coached" away. ADHD Coaching is one part of a greater pie
| (e.g. I personally use both medication and ADHD coaching, and a
| mix of productivity tools). What ADHD Coaching uniquely offers,
| is to work with what you have, create systems around you and
| your life, and to get support from someone who gets it.
|
| However, as you mentioned, it doesn't "solve" ADHD or "coach it
| away", that is not the purpose for sure!
|
| I can personally (and our members too) attest to the fact that
| there definitely are benefits, perhaps not for every single
| person and every single coach out there. For me, I've become
| more productive as I work to manage my energy, align my days
| with my circadian rhythm, I've learned new techniques around
| time blocking, my coach has kept me accountable to things that
| are hard for me to pull through on, and my general quality of
| life has improved. Could I have gotten this a different way, on
| my own? Sure, most definitely. Tons of alternatives including
| self learning and experimentation! That route was just
| personally very hard for me.
| dsgupta wrote:
| I have seen a lot of coaches and websites everywhere, leading to
| the question How does your ADHD Coaching differ from those who
| offer individually?
| christalwang wrote:
| Yes! There are tons online, many great quality ones too. For
| us, we offer robust and reliable service with coaches who we
| have vetted, are supervised, and are accessing professional
| development opportunities on regular basis. In addition, our
| coaching philocosophy and practice has solid foundations in
| evidence-based practices. Individual providers of ADHD coaching
| may not have these checks and balances in place, unfortunately.
| We also have an app that supports growth and accountability
| throughout the week, which can be a challenge for individual
| coaches who use email/google docs, etc. And lastly, quite
| practically we can offer at a lower rate per face-minute
| because we handle all the "back-end" tasks for them (e.g.
| advertising, tech, customer service, billing, etc.). Especially
| for coaches who have ADHD themselves, us handling all the
| "other stuff" can be a gamechanger. Happy to jam offline on
| specific coaches or your specific situation! chris@shimmer.care
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I see a hundred of these companies that apparently "specialize in
| ADHD". I see them all in the same light unfortunately of
| profiteering in various ways around the incompetent medical
| system the US has.
|
| Is this a better price than a licensed therapist? Yes
|
| Is this a more practical solution than what you might get? Yes
|
| But it just feels ethically wrong to promote your services to
| people who are "undiagnosed" or "think they have" ADHD. This is
| exactly what social media is doing today in the sense of trying
| to convince you have something because you happen to engage in
| said content.
|
| I mean just look at the eligibility:
|
| - Adults 18+
|
| - No formal diagnosis required
|
| - Smartphone with internet access
|
| - No suicidal ideation with plan and/or intent
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/29/well/mind/tiktok-mental-i...
| com2kid wrote:
| > Is this a better price than a licensed therapist? Yes
|
| Good luck finding a licensed therapist who has bookings or
| availability. In Seattle I have had almost 0 luck over multiple
| years, and I have talked to many other people who have had the
| exact same amount of luck. The very few therapists around here
| who do specialize in ADHD either specialize in children, or
| they are so booked up they don't even bother with a wait list.
|
| Mind you this is for cash payments, if you want insurance to
| cover care you are completely out of luck no matter how good
| your insurance is.
| christalwang wrote:
| Thank you for this. Many of our members have the exact
| experience you're talking about here. Many therapists go as
| far as saying they specialize with ADHD when they in fact
| don't. For those who do specialize in ADHD, it's far and few
| between--with waitlists out the door. Additionally, therapy
| is addressing different but sometimes overlapping space we
| are--we are forward-looking, action-oriented coaching (e.g.
| reaching goals and how you set up your life for it) and we
| don't do therapy (more backwards looking, unpacking, talking,
| etc.)
| xp84 wrote:
| Yup, it's a clear giant flashing sign that the market is
| fully broken that we (with our employers) are all paying
| ~$25,000+ per adult for health insurance, and cannot find
| mental health providers who are interested in taking said
| insurance.
|
| * Big shortage of providers
|
| * Providers see taking insurance is like pulling teeth
| because they never want to pay and why should they because
| they can get a full appointment book from cash patients
| alone, due to the shortage.
|
| So things like therapy become completely out of reach unless
| you're very wealthy, or if you've gotten to the point that
| you are desperate to go into ruinous debt, trading one
| problem for another one.
| christalwang wrote:
| Thanks for your comment and perspective. Our services, as
| mentioned, are not medical services for ADHD. It is forward-
| looking, goal-oriented coaching with a specialty in ADHD and
| executive functioning. The entire modality is represented by
| organizations like ACO https://www.adhdcoaches.org/ and
| recommended by top ADHD experts and doctors alike -
| specifically as a non-clinical, non-medical addition to support
| people with ADHD. We welcome anyone who wants to come and be
| coached on ADHD-related skills & goals. For example, if you
| want to work on your executive functions but you don't have an
| ADHD diagnosis, you're completely welcome here! This is also
| because certain cultures (or an array of different
| circumstances could put someone in this position) prevent folks
| from getting a timely diagnosis and/or they don't want to tell
| their parents, etc. But in this case they can still get
| coaching with less of the stigma.
| coldblues wrote:
| The most effective online service that truly does help is
| Focusmate. Quite cheap and has a very simple premise.
| christalwang wrote:
| We love Focusmate!!
| pedalpete wrote:
| I'm curious if you looked at neurofeedback/neurostimulation as an
| alternative to therapy based intervention when looking at your
| offering.
|
| I don't have ADHD, but met the founders of https://neurode.com 2
| days ago, and I'm in the neurotech space.
|
| I'm surprised to see coaching based solutions continue to exist
| in a space where more direct interventions exist.
|
| Can you give some of your thinking on this?
| [deleted]
| ayakang31415 wrote:
| To the founder if you're still here, do you guys have some sort
| of studies or patient records that show that your business helped
| people with ADHD? How do you guys convince the customers that you
| guys are worth paying for except PR commentaries?
| christalwang wrote:
| Hi yes, I am still here. (1) We currently only have self
| reported symptom reduction (83% state symptom reduction within
| 6 weeks) that we've been using as a proxy so far, but we know
| we need more. (2) We are actually in the process of designing a
| more formal pilot with our Clinical Advisor Dr. Anil Chacko. We
| will launch this in the next 2 months, which we're very excited
| by. We're just tying up the loose ends in terms of setting up
| the logistical infrastructure for data collection, etc., and
| making sure the process is designed to not be overly burdensome
| for people with ADHD.
| ayakang31415 wrote:
| So you only have one claim (83% state symptom reduction
| within 6 weeks, whatever that means) at this point and that
| claim seems very weakly supported as it is not rigorous and
| no customer can verify. As a non-traditional medical startups
| I understand you guys want to get ahead fast and quick, but
| to me I am not sure if ADHD patients want to gamble a few
| hundred bucks to save money in the hopes that it MIGHT work
| for them.
| christalwang wrote:
| Definitely, and we hear you. We're excited for our upcoming
| pilot with more rigorous study. Also, as mentioned in a
| different thread, we're definitely not a medical service
| nor replacement for medical service. If members are looking
| to "save money" from an alternative, the alternative this
| person would be comparing us to would be another ADHD
| coaching service (likely an individual or small group of
| coaches)--in this case, that service likely will not have
| pilot data at scale either.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Ok (1) is paper thin. Self-reported can be anything.
|
| (2) makes me laugh because these things don't take 2 fucking
| months. An initial protocol for a study, maybe. In reality
| such studies take years and years - I've done it with
| surgical skill development training program validation.
|
| My advice would be to conform your thing to an existing body
| of knowledge and build your arguments on that - that's what
| we did. Congrats on the language in your answers though. Why
| don't you tell us a bit more about tying up those "loose
| ends" and "infrastructure for data collection etc."
| christalwang wrote:
| Agree that we want to bolster (1). Also we are not trying
| to prove we are medically improving symptoms, as that is
| not our service. We are helping members with ADHD reach
| future-oriented goals, and take ADHD-adapted approaches to
| coaching. So having them go through onerous testing etc.,
| when we aren't a medical service, especially if it would
| suggest to others that we are, wouldn't make sense.
|
| (2) I'm not saying that it takes 2 months. I'm saying we
| will begin enroling folks into the pilot in 2 months. We
| have been planning for a while now. Also, we are not trying
| to plan a randomized control trial nor prove medical
| outcomes, so our pilots are different.
|
| Thank you for your advice! Would love to learn more about
| what you're building!
|
| Re: "loose ends": we're currently conferring with adhd
| experts in academia and medicine to choose the right
| outcome metrics to study, make sure they have the right
| (recent) peer reviewed literature, incorporate them into
| our processes/tech such that the UI/UX is friendly for
| folks with ADHD, etc. The outcome metric(s) are the most
| challenging part right now because we want it to be aligned
| with existing body of knowledge (as you mentioned), yet
| reflect what we're working on (most aligned with Health &
| Wellness Coaching and Acceptance Commitment Training)--e.g.
| we're not looking for simply measuring symptoms, more so
| impairment and life quality. And for "data collection",
| we're also working with our clinical advisor on the minimum
| amount of data (and what variables) we'll need to ask from
| our members for the study. Happy to elaborate on any of the
| above and our process, where we're at, etc., offline!
| chris@shimmer.care
| fortran77 wrote:
| It's a dessert topping and a floor wax!
| sureglymop wrote:
| > We're beyond thrilled to announce the public launch of our #1
| requested feature: Web Access.
|
| Umm, am I missing something? It reads like "web access" is your
| unique selling point? Weird...
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