Adult assessment
ADHD assessment for adults, in York or online.
Most adults who contact me are not here because something new has gone wrong. They are here because the strategies that carried them this far have stopped working.
In person in York, or online wherever you are
Why adults come to me
The demands go up, and the workarounds stop holding.
Most of the adults I assess have done well. Many are high achievers. They have degrees, careers, businesses and families, and a long history of getting there in the end. What they also have is a set of strategies built quietly over decades: finishing at midnight what everyone else finished at five, rehearsing conversations in advance, over preparing, running on deadline pressure because nothing else quite starts the engine.
Those strategies work until the demands rise past what they can absorb. A promotion. A second child. A parent who now needs looking after. Nothing has broken, but the compensation has run out of room, and what was underneath it becomes visible.
Then comes what people describe as the penny dropping. Often it is a documentary, or a colleague being diagnosed, or their own child being assessed. They look back across their life and recognise that a great deal of it was harder than it needed to be.
What usually follows is indecision. If I have managed this far, could I simply carry on? Or do I want to give myself the option of trying something different? That is not a question I can answer for anybody. It is a decision people arrive at themselves, and there is no hurry in it.
There is a lot to unpick in an adult assessment, and for some people it is an emotional process. It is also, time and again, the thing that makes the difference.
What it can look like
Adult ADHD rarely looks like the version people picture.
By adulthood most of the obvious signs have been masked, trained out or worked around. What is left tends to be quieter, and easy to mistake for a personality trait or a character flaw.
Attention that will not go where you send it
Not an absence of attention. An attention that locks hard onto whatever interests it and slides straight off whatever does not, regardless of how important the task happens to be.
Time that does not behave
Deadlines that seem to arrive without warning. Jobs that take four times longer than planned, or ten minutes when you had set aside a morning. A permanent sense of being slightly behind.
Starting is one problem, finishing is another
Projects begun with real energy and abandoned near the end. A house, a laptop or a calendar full of things that are ninety per cent done.
Restlessness that is mostly internal
Not the child who cannot sit still. An adult who sits still perfectly well while their mind runs continuously, and who finds it difficult to rest without a screen or a task to hand.
Feelings that arrive at full volume
Frustration, criticism and rejection landing harder and faster than seems proportionate, then passing. Often the part people find hardest to put into words.
The tiredness of holding it together
Performing normally in public and having nothing left in private. People describe the effort as invisible to everyone except them.
None of this is a checklist, and none of it diagnoses anything. Plenty of people recognise several of these and do not have ADHD. That is exactly what an assessment is for: establishing what is actually going on, and properly ruling out what it is not.
They tell me they no longer have to live life in hard mode.
What adults say afterwards
Honest answers
What people weigh up before they book.
My family are not convinced
This comes up often. A partner or a parent who has known you a long time may see the successes rather than the effort underneath them, and conclude that nothing can be wrong. That does not settle the question either way.
It is one of the reasons the assessment gathers information from more than one place and does not rest on any single opinion, including mine.
It feels like everybody has ADHD now
ADHD is talked about far more than it used to be, and that has cut both ways. Wider awareness has helped a great many people recognise themselves. It has also left others worried that they are joining a trend rather than describing their own life.
Neither of us can control how the subject gets discussed publicly. What I can do is assess you individually, against the actual diagnostic criteria, with objective data alongside the conversation, so that the conclusion stands on its own.
What if the answer turns out to be no
Then you will know, and you will know why, which is worth considerably more than continuing to wonder.
An assessment that rules ADHD out is not a wasted assessment. It usually clarifies what is going on instead, and gives you somewhere useful to go next.
Is it worth the money
Only you can weigh that up, and you should take your time over it. What I would say is that people very rarely regret understanding themselves properly, whichever way the assessment lands.
It is a good investment to make in yourself whatever the outcome, and it is a decision that has to be yours.
What you are left with
Evidence you can actually use.
We cannot control what other people choose to believe. What we can do is make the conclusion difficult to wave away.
Your assessment is built on considerably more than a conversation. It combines a structured clinical interview against the diagnostic criteria, a full developmental history, information from somebody who has known you a long time, standardised questionnaires covering the conditions that overlap with ADHD, and the QbCheck, which produces objective measurement of attention, impulsivity and activity.
All of that is then written up as a full report: detailed, practical, and in language you can hand to a GP, an employer or a university without it needing translating first. I also write to your GP on your behalf.
For most people that document does two jobs. It gives them a direction to move in. It also, when it matters to them, helps the people around them understand.
Two ways to be assessed
You choose how we meet.
The assessment itself is identical either way. The only difference is whether we sit in the same room.
In person
YorkWe meet face to face
The clinical interview takes place at my consulting room in York. People travel to it from right across Yorkshire.
Nothing further to pay at any stage.
Online
£100 lessWe meet by video
The same assessment and the same clinician, from wherever you are in Yorkshire or beyond. Often easier if you would rather not travel.
Nothing further to pay at any stage.
Everything else is identical: the questionnaires, the QbCheck, the full written report, the feedback meeting and the letter to your GP.
Payment options are available.
In their words
What adults say afterwards.
Alex approached the process with genuine care and professionalism. He took the time to explain everything clearly, and I felt listened to throughout. The understanding and advice I received have made a significant difference in my life.
Adult assessment
I spent ages debating whether to invest in an ADHD assessment, and I am so glad I finally did. Getting clear answers made a huge difference. It felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders, and I wish I had done it sooner.
Adult assessment
From people assessed by Dr Alex Hull.
About me · Dr Alex Hull
Your assessment is carried out by me, from start to finish.
I am a Clinical Psychologist registered with the HCPC, and I have been assessing ADHD since 2014. I trained in the NHS and have completed many hundreds of assessments since, in adults and in children.
Clinical Psychologists can and do diagnose ADHD. Alongside the doctoral training that qualifies me to do so, I hold UKAAN certification in ADHD assessment, which is the specialist standard for this work in the UK.
There is no rota and no handover. The first call, the form, the meeting, the thinking, the report and the feedback are all mine, which is the reason the process holds together rather than becoming a series of appointments with strangers.
Qualifications and registration
No waiting list
Start with a conversation.
A free fifteen minute call with me. There is no pressure and no obligation, and you do not need to have it all worked out before we speak.
Free, fifteen minutes, no obligation
Telephone
07768 787175Where
York, and across Yorkshire.Online throughout the UK.