Deep Chat - ADHD and trauma with Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas

8th December 2026 | 13:00-14:00 (UK)

Does trauma cause ADHD?

Or is trauma the result of years of undiagnosed ADHD?

And how on earth do we tell the difference when there's a client in front of us?

Gabor Maté says trauma causes ADHD. Most of the ADHD world says it doesn't. Who's right, who's wrong, and does it even matter once someone's sat in your session?

Then let's deep dive into it.

Because the research backs up why this matters. ADHD is around 74% heritable, one of the most heritable conditions in psychiatry. And yet children with ADHD have more adverse childhood experiences than children without, and the more ACEs, the more severe the ADHD. Adults with ADHD are nearly three times more likely to have PTSD, and up to four times more likely compared with people who've had no trauma at all. Which means it's very likely your clients have both. Not one or the other. Both, tangled together, and often nobody has ever pulled them apart.

It shows up as the client who can't tell if they're distracted or dissociating. The one whose "hyperactivity" looks a lot like hypervigilance. The one who's been told it's "just trauma" and sent for therapy that didn't touch the ADHD. The one who's been told it's "just ADHD" and given a planner for something a planner was never going to fix. And the one who grew up being told they were lazy, careless and too much, every single day, and now calls that "just my childhood".

Can you tell the difference between an ADHD brain that's under stimulated and a nervous system that's on high alert? Do you know what's yours to work with, regulation, structure, self compassion, and what belongs to a trauma therapist? What do you do when a client brings you the Maté argument and wants you to pick a side? And when do you say, kindly, "this isn't mine to hold, and here's who can"?

The process to support ourselves and our clients through this is complex, which is why this Deep Chat happens on every single coach training we do. And now you can join this one without being on the training.

What you'll walk away with:

• What the science actually says about trauma and ADHD, in plain English, so you can hold the Maté question without picking a side or panicking

• Where the symptoms overlap and where they don't, hypervigilance or hyperactivity, dissociation or distraction, and why it matters for how you coach

• Why growing up undiagnosed is a trauma of its own, and how to spot it in a client who's never called it that

• Where coaching ends and trauma work begins, what's safely ours, and what isn't

• When to signpost, who to, and how to say it without the client hearing "you're too broken for me"

• Your own nervous system as a coach, because you can't co regulate from a body that's on fire

There is no one better for the job than our very own scientific co lead of the ADHD Informed Coach Training, clinical neuroscientist, and author of ADHD: Brain, Body & Mind, Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas. He reads the research for a living and then translates it into words that a coach can actually use in a session.

🧡 Untangling ADHD & Trauma as an ADHD Coach, with Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas