Other reference points & support

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that may present as lasting attention difficulties, impulsivity, motor or mental restlessness, and impact across multiple settings (school, work, relationships, daily organisation).

As with other ways of functioning, ADHD is not diagnosed from an isolated impression or an online questionnaire. Assessment involves a clinical history, cross-referenced observations and, where appropriate, attentional tools, within a professional framework. Medical diagnosis is the physician's responsibility; the psychologist may contribute to assessment and support.

ADHD may coexist with high potential (HPI), ASD, anxiety, or learning difficulties. These associations make careful differential reading all the more important. See also the HPI (/comprendre/hpi#hpi-tdah) and ASD (/comprendre/tsa) pages.

Sensory processing refers to how a person receives, filters, and responds to sensory stimulation: hearing, sight, touch, smell, taste, but also the sense of movement and internal bodily sensations. Hyper- or hyposensitivities may exist outside of any ASD, even though they are common in autistic people.

In daily life, sensory overload may look like irritability, avoidance, agitation, or an urgent need for solitude. Understanding this dimension avoids moralising (“too sensitive”) and opens up adjustments: headphones, breaks, texture choices, light regulation, anticipating noisy places.

When sensory questioning is associated with particularities in social communication or interests, a broader exploration of the spectrum may be relevant — without automatic conclusions. The “Sensory processing” section of the ASD page (/comprendre/tsa#sensorialite) develops this point within the context of autism.

In daily life, the effort required to adapt to the environment and expected norms can be particularly costly. For some people, this comes with significant fatigability and a “social battery” that can drain quickly, increasing vulnerability when adaptive capacity is exhausted.

Prolonged stress, anxiety, and burnout are among the frequent reasons for consultation. They may be linked to work, studies, family, an unrecognised neurodevelopmental way of functioning, costly social masking, or an accumulation of micro-constraints.

Support is not limited to “managing stress” as an isolated technique. It often involves understanding what overloads the system: excessive demands, lack of recovery, value conflicts, hyperadaptation, perfectionism, a hostile sensory environment.

For some people with ASD or high potential (HPI), burnout occurs after years of invisible adaptation. For others, it unfolds within a couple crisis, intense parenting, or a harmful professional context. Clinical work starts from lived experience, not a prior label.

School difficulties cover very diverse realities: learning, attention, performance anxiety, bullying, school phobia, boredom, disengagement, conflicts with the institution, or special educational needs (including those related to high potential).

The practice may offer support for the child or adolescent, work with parents, and, where relevant, school mediation. The aim is not to “fit” the pupil into a mould, but to understand what is blocking progress and to open realistic adjustments.

A cognitive or attentional assessment may clarify certain situations; it is not systematic. Sometimes the issue is relational or emotional rather than psychometric. Eduscol resources and the framework of the education code provide points of support on the school side; clinical work brings the person's own perspective.

Work may first be metacognitive: understanding how the person thinks, how they learn, and what strategies they use. The aim is to identify difficulties or biases encountered, how they show up in daily life, and solutions already put in place spontaneously. Some strategies may be effective but very costly, leading to significant fatigue, uneven results, or avoidance of certain subjects. This understanding then makes it possible to look for more suitable remediation methods, in learning as in daily life.

Work around rebuilding self-confidence and self-esteem.

• Listening to the pupil and any distress they may be experiencing
• Working with the family on the climate around school
• School mediation when the school–family relationship is strained
• Assessment when a cognitive or attentional question is warranted

Family and couple relationships are at the heart of many requests. Educational conflicts, repeated misunderstandings, parental exhaustion, couple crises, difficulties around an atypical child: so many situations where a third space can help disentangle positions and restore more livable communication.

Couple therapy and family support do not seek to find a culprit. They explore interactions, implicit expectations, wounds, and resources. Understanding the mechanisms, needs, and issues associated with a neurodevelopmental condition, as well as the relational dynamics it may set in motion, without reducing everything to that way of functioning.

Each family member needs to be heard. The child is not “the problem”; the family symptom is often shared, even when distress concentrates on one member.

The transgenerational approach looks at what is transmitted — consciously or not — from one generation to the next: narratives, silences, loyalties, traumas, assigned roles, secrets, relational models. It does not “blame” ancestors; it seeks to understand how a family history informs the present.

In some consultations, patterns repeat: school anxiety from one generation to the next, difficulty separating, the role of the “parentified child”, or silence around a painful experience. Putting words to these threads can loosen identity knots.

This approach connects with individual listening. It is neither a fatality (“it's genetic so pointless”) nor a total explanation. It is one perspective among others, useful when the present seems to carry more than the current situation alone.

Support groups offer a collective space, framed by a professional, where people can share lived experience, hear that of others, and reduce isolation. They do not replace individual follow-up, but can usefully complement it.

Depending on the theme (parenting, high potential, the autism spectrum, stress, etc.), the group makes it possible to discover that certain difficulties are not experienced alone.

The group can also support self-esteem, restore legitimacy to what is lived, and help each person regain greater sovereignty in their choices. It also offers the possibility of sharing victories, discoveries, and new adaptations that have helped certain situations evolve.

Confidentiality, respect, and not being pressured to “share one's story” are essential conditions.

Participation is decided after information on the framework, objectives, and modalities. Everyone remains free to choose their pace of speaking.

Assessments and evaluations offered at the practice aim to better understand a person's cognitive, emotional, sensory, or relational functioning. They inform support; they do not reduce to a label.

Depending on the request, this may involve a psychometric assessment (intellectual functioning), attentional assessment, projective assessment, or a contribution to an ASD diagnostic process — notably via a structured interview such as ADI-R, which can contribute to evaluation without constituting the medical diagnosis on its own.

The choice of assessment is built with the person (and their family where applicable), after a period of listening. An assessment is not always necessary to begin therapeutic support.