In this short video, I explain how the need for sameness and the hunger for novelty can live in one person, and how we work with both by video.
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Online AuDHD psychotherapy helps adults who are both autistic and ADHD, or who suspect they are, to understand a mind that seems to want opposite things at once. We meet by video, in English, for 1-hour sessions with 50 minutes of therapy, at a time that fits your time zone and from a space where you can regulate.
I help you see how the craving for stimulation and the need for predictability interact, where your energy really goes and what a workable life would look like. This is the AuDHD strand of online neurodiverse psychotherapy, inside my wider online psychotherapy. Closely related pages cover ADHD and autism on their own, and acute online AuDHD psychotherapy is there if things have just fallen apart.
You can set up a free 30-minute call, book a session time, read through my client policy or contact me in writing.
Online AuDHD psychotherapy is for English-speaking adults who recognise themselves in both autism and ADHD and are worn out by the tug of war between the two. You want to understand how your mind works as a whole and live in a way that respects all of it.
A few situations call for a different focus or a quicker start. When a line below describes you more closely, its link will help more.
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These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“If I look back over the last 5 months of practice, the AuDHD clients who struggled most were the ones trying to decide which side of them was real. Is it the part that needs sameness, or the part that hunts for novelty? I think that is the wrong question. Both are you. Underneath, I hear ‘Am I simply too much for people?’ and ‘I need a day with nobody, please do not take it personally.’ Very often one person asks both, and then a third thing: ‘Stay near me, just do not ask me for anything.’ When we stop staging a contest between the two sides, you can start designing a life that feeds one without starving the other.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Asha is 31, grew up in Leicester and works as a museum educator in Vancouver. She was diagnosed with ADHD at 27, and medication helped her focus at work. She still crashes for a whole day after any party, eats the same breakfast every morning and plans holidays in detail, then wants to throw the plan away. Her partner finds her rigid. Her friends call her spontaneous. Last month a colleague asked, gently, whether she had ever thought about autism.
I would begin by mapping a normal week with Asha, side by side, looking for the moments when each part of her gets what it needs and when it does not. In a first video session she would probably see that her contradictions follow a pattern, and that the pattern makes sense.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have tried living as one thing or the other, and neither version of you has ever fitted for long.
There is no right time or required reason to start. If you sense that your mind is fighting itself and the fight is wearing you down, that is enough. You do not need a double diagnosis, a clear account of your traits or a breakdown first. In 22 years of practice I have seen many people whose AuDHD went unrecognised because each side hid the other, and I know when that strain needs attention.
I will help you see what overloads you, what each side needs and what has to change first. The 6 questions below each look at one face of the AuDHD tug of war.
If so, that narrow middle is costing you. A quiet day leaves you restless and flat. A busy day leaves you overloaded and needing to hide. Finding the level of stimulation that lets you function can feel like balancing on a wire, every day.
I would look at the rhythm of your days and where you tip from one state into the other. That shows whether this is a demanding period or a long pattern that needs a different design. If it sounds like you, book a session with me and we can map your week together.
Both are true, because they meet real but different needs. Your autistic side finds safety in predictability and dislikes surprises. Your ADHD side needs novelty and gets restless when every day looks the same. You may build a routine, cling to it, then feel suffocated.
I do not treat either need as the problem. Each protects something important. I help you understand what each side is guarding, so that we can design structure with built-in variety, such as a fixed frame with flexible content.
You may have been told you are a lot: too talkative, too blunt, too changeable. So you watch faces closely, replay conversations and look for signs that someone is tired of you. A delayed reply can start a long spiral of wondering what you did.
Your wish to be accepted as you are is entirely reasonable. I help you calm the alarm that expects rejection, check what you really know and practise asking people directly where you stand. We also look at who in your life likes your intensity.
Yes, and the swing can be sharp. Your ADHD side is drawn to new people, lively plans and spontaneous invitations. Then your autistic side pays the bill in noise, small talk and unpredictability, and you need to vanish for days. Friends may feel confused.
In our sessions I help you slow this cycle down and spot the point where stimulation turns into overload. Then we plan around it, for example by choosing shorter events or building recovery time in advance. I have compassion for both pulls, and I will ask you to tell people what is happening rather than disappearing silently.
When expectations, emotions and sensory input accumulate, you may withdraw completely, stop answering or become flat and factual. Inside it feels like protection, and from outside it can look like you no longer care.
My view is that needing distance to recover is not a failing, and I will not ask you to endure unlimited input. I help you see what the shutdown protects, stay present a little longer where it matters, and say what you need before you vanish.
Masking both sides at once is exhausting. You may have worked hard to seem focused and organised, and also to seem relaxed and sociable. After years of this, it can be hard to know what you actually prefer. That confusion reflects how much effort you made, not a missing self.
I help you separate the adaptations you still want from the ones that cost too much, and find what feels genuinely yours. I will challenge you when you erase parts of yourself, and I will not hand you a ready-made identity. The aim is a clearer sense of who you are as a whole.
If this sounds familiar, request a call to ask your questions, or book a session if you want to start straight away.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
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Understanding why you feel pulled in two directions is a relief, and therapy also has to change how you organise your days, energy and relationships.
Working with me will help you see how your two sides interact, recognise the patterns that keep you swinging between boredom and overload, and change the parts of daily life that can change. Insight without new habits rarely holds.
In 22 years of practice I have found that this work needs a therapist who stays active. I will help structure our sessions, share what I notice and challenge explanations that keep you stuck. The 6 questions below describe what we work towards.
Related reading: Why does ADHD keep pulling us into the same fight? and Why do people like me but not really know me?.
I help you separate the core difficulty from its symptoms. Burnout, abandoned plans and conflict are real, yet they often come from something deeper: an energy budget that ignores half your needs, double masking or a belief that you are simply inconsistent.
I offer you my professional reading of what to address first and challenge stories that blame your character. When you are ready, book a session with me and we can begin to untangle it.
By learning the early signs of each direction. Boredom may show up as restlessness and a sudden urge to start something new. Overload may show up as sharper sounds, irritability and wanting to hide. Seeing either early gives you a choice.
I help you map both sequences and understand what sets them off. Recognising them is not enough. We plan what you will do at each early sign and practise it between sessions, until it works on an ordinary weekday.
Regulation does not mean appearing calm. It means knowing what your system needs right now and giving it that. With AuDHD, the answer may be movement in a quiet place, or a familiar task with music on.
I help you notice activation sooner and find combinations that work for you, which are often surprising. I will ask you to experiment between sessions and report back honestly, because there is no standard recipe for a mind like yours.
Clear communication begins with understanding what you need in this moment. When you want company one day and solitude the next, or a plan and then a change, people may call you confusing, and you may stop explaining altogether.
Together we find simple, honest ways to describe what is going on, such as saying you want contact but no talking. I challenge both silence and the hope that others will guess. We often rehearse real conversations with a partner or friend.
Decisions become clearer once you separate impulse, fear and other people’s views from what you really value. With AuDHD, a new job or move may thrill one side and terrify the other, so you can flip-flop for months.
I help you lay out what each option would ask of both sides of you. You will hear my honest view, and I will name avoidance or impulsiveness when I see it, but the choice is yours.
Change has to reach your everyday life: your work, home, social life and rest. You may need predictable frames with room for novelty, recovery time after stimulation, or work that offers variety without chaos.
We work out together which habits are worth changing and which belong to you. Your curiosity, intensity and need for order are not the problem. The aim is a life designed for how you actually work, with less inner conflict and more deliberate choice.
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You do not need a formal double diagnosis, a neat history or the right words. We begin with what is hard now.
When you begin, I listen carefully, help you name the central difficulty and give our work a clear but flexible direction. You can move, fidget, look away or ask me to slow down or speed up.
AuDHD work is one strand of my online psychotherapy, meaning structured individual sessions that look at your inner life and relationships. If the main strain is with your partner and they are willing, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. A therapy bundle brings savings and a plan that both sides of you can live with: fixed, but not rigid.
In the first session I ask what has brought you now, how a typical week goes, what drains you and what lifts you, and what you hope will change. You can jump between topics, and I will help us find the thread.
Towards the end I give you my early impressions and a proposed focus. You decide whether this way of working suits you. Some people like to try the format before committing, and a free 30-minute call is there for that.
Individual work is right when the focus is your own experience: energy, sensory life, attention, emotion, history and identity. We can explore your relationships in depth without anyone else joining.
Across our sessions I keep hold of both sides of you, give the work a direction and challenge you honestly. If you are not sure whether to focus on AuDHD or your life more widely, online psychotherapy describes my structured individual work as a whole.
Choose couples therapy when the relationship itself has become the main source of strain. If your partner feels confused by your changing needs, if the same fights about plans keep returning, or if trust is wearing thin, joint work usually helps more.
In couples sessions I help you both see the cycle between you and build ways of relating that suit both of you. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing, and online neurodiverse couples therapy focuses on relationships shaped by autism, ADHD or both.
That depends on how much strain you are under, how quickly things slip between sessions and how much energy each session takes. With AuDHD, both long gaps and rigid schedules can be hard.
I usually suggest weekly sessions at a regular time, which gives your autistic side predictability and your ADHD side continuity. I will tell you honestly if we need a different rhythm, or if a planned block of sessions close together would work better.
A bundle makes sense when you know the work will take a while and you would rather not keep rebooking. It gives your planning side a clear structure and spares your ADHD side a recurring task to forget.
A bundle reduces the cost per session and gives you an agreed plan. I will help you decide whether it fits. Read more on therapy discounts and bundles, and look at the cards lower down.
The work is done when you understand how your two sides interact, can catch the swing between boredom and overload earlier, and have a way of living that holds up most weeks. You are still AuDHD, and that is not what we are trying to change.
I review progress openly and have no wish to keep you in therapy longer than it helps. Sessions can become less frequent, pause or end. Returning later with a new question is good sense, not failure.
Wondering whether this is the right starting point? Here is how it compares with its nearest neighbours.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online AuDHD psychotherapy (this page) | You recognise both autism and ADHD, and they pull you in opposite directions. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions |
| Online ADHD psychotherapy | Attention, time and the shame around them are the main issue. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online autism psychotherapy | Masking, sensory load and social exhaustion are the main issue. | Weekly video sessions at a fixed time |
| Acute online AuDHD psychotherapy | Things have just fallen apart, and you need help within days. | Video sessions soon and close together |
Online AuDHD psychotherapy with me is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for adults who are both autistic and ADHD, or think they may be. It helps you understand how the two interact, why you often feel pulled in opposite directions and how to build a life that works for both.
I work with the whole person, not two separate checklists, and I do not diagnose. It is part of my online neurodiverse psychotherapy.
Come when the constant swing between under- and over-stimulation is wearing you out, when one diagnosis has never quite explained you, or when burnout keeps returning. Your own sense that something does not add up is reason enough.
I look at your history, how your energy moves through the week and what you have tried. When the same exhaustion keeps returning despite real effort, it deserves proper attention.
Yes. Psychotherapy can help you understand the logic behind needs that look contradictory and design a life that makes room for them. I cannot say in advance how far things will move, and this is not a quick-fix approach.
In my clinical experience, AuDHD clients often feel relief simply from seeing that their contradictions follow a pattern. From there, I would focus with you on practical changes in routine, rest and relationships.
It may well be. Many people are diagnosed with ADHD first and only later recognise autistic traits. You do not need a second diagnosis to work with me.
I do not assess or diagnose. I work with what you experience. If a formal assessment would help, I will say so, and you can arrange it with a qualified assessor where you live.
Because different parts of you want different things. One part loves stimulation, ideas and company. Another part needs quiet and predictability to recover. Both are legitimate, and neither is a flaw.
I help you notice the moment the balance tips and plan around it, so that contact does not end in collapse. We also find honest ways to tell people what is happening, so that withdrawing does not damage friendships.
Structured but not rigid. I explain roughly how the hour will go, ask about your week and let you wander when you need to, then bring us back. When we finish, you will have my first reading of your pattern and a suggested starting point.
You do not need to prepare or stay still. If notes help, send them beforehand. Pick your first session now, or begin with a free 30-minute call to check the fit.
Plan for a course of sessions over several months. That is usually enough to understand how your two sides interact and begin changing how you live. If burnout or painful experiences are part of the picture, it often takes longer.
Over 22 years of practice I have learned that a defined first stretch with a review at the end keeps the work honest. At that review we choose together whether to continue, slow down or stop.
Usually, yes. You can move, fidget or stand while we talk, and you control the light and sound around you. There is no commute and no waiting room to drain you before we start.
All you need is a private space, headphones, a laptop or tablet and a decent connection. Each slot in the calendar is shown in your own time zone. If you are unsure, ask on a free call.
Sessions are 1-hour online individual psychotherapy appointments that include 50 minutes of therapy. The fee, in US dollars, can be found on my prices page.
For a longer piece of work, a therapy bundle saves you 10 per cent and removes the need to rebook. Look at therapy discounts and bundles for the sizes.
Book your first session, or request a free 30-minute call if you want to talk first. Times show in your own time zone.
If no time works, or things feel acute, write to me. I hold some room for acute cases, usually a time within days, and acute online AuDHD psychotherapy describes that help. Pick a time now, while both sides of you agree.
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I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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