About Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW

ADHD therapist for women, neurodivergent-affirming clinician, writer, and educator

I’m Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW. I have been a therapist for more than 30 years and specialize in working with adult women with ADHD.

I did not begin my career planning to specialize in ADHD. I got here by noticing how often girls and women were misunderstood.

Again and again, I saw bright, capable girls struggling with attention, overwhelm, emotional intensity, organization, or relationships while being described in ways that missed what was actually happening. Many were diagnosed with anxiety, depression, or behavior problems. ADHD was often not considered.

That stayed with me. Over time, ADHD in women became a central part of my clinical work.

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How My Work With ADHD Women Developed

Early in my career, I worked with girls affected by trauma in the juvenile justice system and later helped develop school-based mental health programs in underserved communities in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Across settings, I kept seeing girls and women whose difficulties did not fit the narrow ADHD picture many clinicians had been taught to recognize.

Some were inattentive rather than visibly hyperactive. Some were anxious, perfectionistic, emotionally intense, or exhausted from trying to keep up. Some appeared highly capable because they had learned to compensate through overpreparing, checking, people pleasing, or pushing themselves well beyond their capacity.

Those patterns made me question the assumptions I had been trained with and pay closer attention to how ADHD actually shows up in women’s lives.

My personal experience with neurodivergence in my own life and family has also shaped how I understand this work. It has reinforced for me that functioning from the outside does not always tell us what something costs a person internally.

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What I Have Learned After More Than 30 Years as a Therapist

People make more sense when we understand the context around their difficulties.

With ADHD women, that context may include years of being corrected, misunderstood, dismissed, overextended, or expected to function in ways that required much more effort than anyone realized.

A woman may look organized because she checks everything repeatedly. She may look calm because she has learned to hide overwhelm. She may be meeting expectations while using so much energy to do it that there is little left for the rest of her life.

That is why I pay attention not only to whether something gets done, but to what it takes to get it done.

I also try to stay curious rather than certain. ADHD research, especially research focused on women across the lifespan, is still developing. Good clinical work requires taking the evidence seriously while also listening carefully to the person in front of us.

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My Neurodivergent-Affirming Approach

My work is neurodivergent-affirming. I do not begin with the assumption that every difficulty should be solved by helping someone behave or function more like a neurotypical person.

We look at the whole picture: your brain, your body, your environment, your history, your relationships, the demands on you, the support available to you, and the strategies you have already developed to get through daily life.

Sometimes a skill needs to be strengthened. Sometimes you need more structure or clearer information. Sometimes an accommodation, different expectation, different environment, or more recovery time would reduce the difficulty.

My work is organized around five areas: self-awareness, self-compassion, self-accommodation, self-advocacy, and self-care.

Together, these areas help us understand what is happening more accurately and build support around the person you actually are.

Learn more about ADHD therapy services →

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Clinical Background and Professional Work

I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 30 years of clinical experience.

My work has included trauma, anxiety, OCD, depression, emotional regulation, neurodivergence, school-based mental health, juvenile justice, child advocacy, and support for women with ADHD.

ADHD in women has been a central focus of my clinical work for more than a decade.

I am a member of APSARD, CHADD, ADDA, and the ADHD Coaches Organization. I also teach and write about ADHD, neurodivergence, and mental health.

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Writing and Education

Writing is another part of my work. I write about ADHD in women, neurodivergent-affirming therapy, parenting neurodivergent children, emotional regulation, and what current research can and cannot tell us.

I am especially interested in translating research into language that is useful in real life and questioning clinical assumptions that do not fit what neurodivergent people are describing.

My publications include Flourish, The Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapist, and ADHD Kids Affirmed.

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Who I Work With

I am based in Charlotte, North Carolina and licensed to work with adult women throughout North Carolina and South Carolina. All therapy sessions take place through secure telehealth.

Many of the women I work with are navigating late diagnosis, burnout, anxiety, emotional regulation, masking, perfectionism, relationships, work stress, or the process of understanding themselves differently after years of trying to meet expectations that did not fit.

You can learn more about individual and group therapy on my Services page.

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