High‑functioning.
Exhausted.
Stuck in patterns you can't logic your way out of.
IFS therapy for neurodivergent adults — ADHD, AuDHD, autistic traits — who are externally competent but privately running on empty and stuck in cycles of burnout, shame, anxiety, and procrastination.
The neurology was never the problem. The shame built around it was.
You look fine on the outside.
The people I work with are usually doing well by most measures—productive, competent, often high-achieving. What they can't figure out is why certain things stay broken: the same stuck points, the same patterns, the same conversations they've been having with themselves for years.
Most of my clients are high-masking neurodivergent—ADHD, AuDHD, autistic traits. That matters because the standard advice hasn't worked for them. Not because they haven't tried. Because it wasn't built for how their brain actually operates. The same nervous system behind the stuck points is also behind the pattern recognition, the hyperfocus that produces in four hours what takes others a week, and the creative connections that don't follow anyone else's logic — when the conditions are right.
A lot of my clients are men dealing with Nice Guy Syndrome — No More Mr. Nice Guy patterns: conflict avoidance, covert contracts, resentment, approval-seeking, and difficulty asking directly for what they want.
Many work in tech — engineers, PMs, founders, senior ICs. High-output environments that reward masking and rarely create space for what's happening underneath.
If any of this lands, you're in the right place.
See How It WorksMany of my clients come in saying they've read all the books, done the journaling, know exactly what they should be doing — and it's still not working.
What brings people here
These aren't diagnoses or guarantees of outcome. They're the kinds of patterns and experiences that tend to bring people in.
ADHD & Neurodivergent Patterns
- Procrastination and difficulty starting tasks
- Time blindness and chronic lateness
- Follow-through gaps — knowing what to do but not doing it
- Emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitivity
- Burnout from masking or overcompensating
- Building routines that actually stick
Nice Guy / NMMNG Patterns
- Conflict avoidance and passive communication
- Covert contracts ("I'll do this, so they'll do that")
- Approval-seeking and fear of rejection
- Resentment that builds without direct expression
- Difficulty asking for what you need
- Building genuine self-respect and assertiveness
Addiction Issues
- Alcohol or substance use as a primary coping strategy
- Compulsive overworking — can't stop even when you want to
- Compulsive scrolling and screen use
- Pornography and sexual compulsivity
- The shame cycle that follows and fuels the next episode
- Wanting to stop while a part of you won't
Autism & AuDHD Patterns
- Sensory overload and environmental sensitivity
- Social communication differences and masking exhaustion
- Autistic burnout from sustained masking or overextension
- Intense interests that were pathologized rather than supported
- Inflexible-flexible thinking and difficulty with unexpected change
- Late-identified autism: navigating identity and self-understanding
Relational & Emotional Patterns
- People-pleasing and difficulty with boundaries
- Codependency and losing yourself in relationships
- Shame and self-criticism that loops
- Difficulty with emotional intimacy
- Relationship patterns that keep repeating
- Building emotional literacy and directness
Burnout & Stuckness
- Chronic overwhelm that doesn't respond to rest
- Overthinking and analysis paralysis
- Avoidance cycles that are hard to break
- Shame about productivity or performance
- Feeling like something is wrong with you
- Moving from insight to actual, measurable change
The productivity problem isn't what you think it is.
You know what you should be doing. That's almost never the problem.
The ADHD nervous system doesn't activate through importance, responsibility, or effort of will. It activates through interest, novelty, challenge, and urgency — a completely different architecture than the one you were given and told to use. When those conditions are present, you can work with an intensity that genuinely confuses the people around you. When they're not, nothing moves. Same person, both states real, no explanation that satisfies.
Most of my clients have spent years blaming themselves for the gap between knowing and doing. The gap isn't laziness or a character flaw. It's a performance-deficit mismatch — the nervous system not generating output at the moment it's required, despite having the full capacity. What accumulated around that gap — the shame, the self-punishment, the part convinced you're broken in some way that isn't going to change — is often the actual clinical issue. That's what's treatable. The gap itself isn't something you fix; it's something you build an environment for.
Who this isn't for
This isn't a good fit if you're looking for someone to tell you what to do, give you a list of coping skills, or confirm that the problem is everyone else. It's also not the right fit if you want a therapist who will stay neutral on everything. I have a point of view. I'll share it.
If you want someone who will sit with the uncomfortable parts — the ones you've been managing around for years — and actually help you change the pattern, not just understand it, then keep reading.
A note on scope
There are some things I don't treat, and I'd rather tell you up front than waste your time.
I don't treat active psychotic disorders or eating disorders as primary presenting issues — if those come up, I'll refer you to someone with the right specialty or ask that we add an expert to your team. At this time I'm not taking new clients with active suicidal ideation or recurrent self-harm. I don't provide court-mandated treatment, legal assessments, or court testimony. I don't write Emotional Support Animal letters.
If you're not sure whether your situation fits, reach out — that's what the consultation call is for.
IFS Therapist. Neurodivergent-affirming.
Level 1 trained through the IFS Institute. IFS and neurodivergent-affirming care share a common assumption: your patterns developed for real reasons, and the goal is understanding and reducing the conditions that maintain them — not forcing change through willpower or shame. Executive function scaffolding and relational work sit on top of that foundation. Tools in service of Self-led agency, not corrections imposed from outside.
Standard IFS wasn't developed with a neurodivergent nervous system in view. Applied without that in mind, it works partially — and misses the parts architecture in ways that are predictable once you know what to look for. Standard neurodivergent-affirming work gets the external picture right: the diagnosis, the environmental mismatch, the accommodations that were never offered. What it doesn't account for is the internal system that formed in response to years of that mismatch — the managers holding everything together, the exiles carrying what the world concluded about you. Most of my clients have tried one or both. Neither addressed what they were actually dealing with. The work here lives in the gap between the two.
Most of the people I work with can describe their patterns with real precision. They know what they do, they know why it's a problem, and they've tried to change it. The issue isn't insight. It's that insight alone doesn't move the parts underneath.
IFS handles the inner work—shame, self-criticism, the protective strategies that developed for good reasons and outlasted their usefulness. Executive function scaffolding handles the outer work: what actually changes between sessions, and what structure makes it hold.
One thing worth naming about what Self-led expression actually looks like in ND systems: it usually moves toward more visible ND, not less. As the masking parts gain trust and start to stand down, clients often become more recognizably themselves — more direct, more idiosyncratic, less calibrated to what the room expects. That's the direction. Not symptom management. Not better performance of neurotypical competence.
IFS & Parts Work
Get underneath the patterns instead of just managing them. Procrastination, people-pleasing, shutdown — these aren't character flaws. They're protective strategies that made sense once. We work with them, not against them. The goal is unblending: enough space from these parts that you can actually choose your response instead of being run by it.
Executive Function Scaffolding
Build the conditions that actually engage your nervous system — external structure designed around interest, novelty, challenge, and urgency, not importance and deadlines. This isn't about forcing neurotypical performance. It's about building the scaffolding that makes Self-led follow-through possible.
Men's Therapy & NMMNG Integration
For neurodivergent men, Nice Guy patterns often have a specific origin: decades of masking, chronic approval-seeking as a survival strategy, and the particular exhaustion of performing competence while suppressing authentic need. IFS reaches the parts actually running those patterns — the ones behavioral advice alone can't touch.
I'm not approaching this from the outside.
I'm a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Washington State. I've been working with neurodivergent adults since 2018, have ADHD and autistic traits myself, and have completed IFS Level 1 Training through the IFS Institute. I'm one of a small number of therapists certified directly through Dr. Robert Glover's NMMNG training program.
Need executive function support, not therapy?
Matt also runs High Signal Coaching — a global coaching practice for neurodivergent founders, tech professionals, and executives. No geographic restriction, no clinical relationship, focused entirely on systems and execution.
Visit High Signal Coaching →What people ask before reaching out
Internal Family Systems (IFS) works with the different "parts" of you—the part that shuts down, procrastinates, or people-pleases—with curiosity instead of self-criticism. For ADHD and neurodivergent adults, it addresses the shame underneath the patterns, not just the patterns themselves. Behavioral change without that inner work rarely sticks.
Yes — this is a telehealth-only practice. Sessions are conducted via Zoom, and you must be physically located in Washington State at the time of each session. You'll receive a video link after scheduling.
Yes. I'm currently in-network with Aetna and Cigna. Note: my Cigna contract ends June 30, 2026 and my Aetna contract ends July 15, 2026. Beginning July 16, 2026, I will be fully private pay / out-of-network with all insurers. For clients with other insurers, superbills are provided after each session for out-of-network reimbursement. HSA and FSA cards are accepted in most cases.
Sessions go beyond tips and tools. The work starts from the inside: IFS parts work to address the shame, self-criticism, and protective strategies underneath the patterns. Executive function scaffolding provides the outer layer — structure built around how your nervous system actually activates, not how it should. The goal is change that actually holds, because the inner system is moving with it rather than against it.
No. Many of my clients are self-identified or late-identified. A formal diagnosis can be useful for some purposes, but it's not a prerequisite for therapy. If the patterns resonate — the executive function struggles, the masking, the burnout cycle — that's enough to start.
Therapy goes deeper. Coaching works at the level of strategy and behavior — what you do differently between sessions. Therapy works at the level of the parts underneath: the shame, the protective strategies, the patterns that don't respond to better systems alone. I also run High Signal Coaching for clients who need executive function support without the clinical frame. Some people do both.
Book a free 20-minute pre-consultation online. You'll pick a time and receive confirmation with video-link details. A real conversation about what's going on and whether this approach is the right fit. No paperwork, no commitment.
Book a Free Pre-ConsultationYou already know something needs to change.
No intake forms. No commitment.
Just a 20-minute conversation to see if this is the right fit for your needs.