Do I need a diagnosis before I start coaching?

The short answer

No. You can start coaching without having a diagnosis and without seeking one.

Specialising in ADHD, autism and neurodiversity shapes how I understand and work — not who is allowed to come.

Why this question comes up so often

In healthcare the order is usually: assess first, then treat. Many people transfer that to coaching and wait — sometimes for months, because assessment appointments are scarce.

During that wait, the thing that does most harm often happens: everyday life stays hard, self-blame grows, and the support that would be available now does not arrive.

Coaching follows a different logic. It works on what you experience, not on a category you fall into.

What a diagnosis contributes

It is not worthless — quite the opposite. It can do three things:

Provide an explanation. For many people this is the largest effect. Knowing there is a name and a reason often corrects years of self-blame.

Open access. Some support is formally tied to a diagnosis, depending on the country, the system and the situation. Where that is the case, there is no way around an assessment.

Allow specific input. Where a diagnosis exists, I can bring in specific knowledge: why starting is hard, why sensory input can tip, why routines sometimes work against the person.

What a diagnosis does not do

It does not say what to do. Two people with the same diagnosis often need entirely different things. A diagnosis answers “why is this hard?”, not “what do I do now?”

It changes nothing on its own. Many people describe a gap after the diagnosis: the explanation is there, everyday life is the same. That is exactly where coaching starts.

It is not a condition for deserving support. That sentence sounds obvious and for many people it is not.

If you do not have a diagnosis

Then we work from what you actually experience: where it snags, in which situations, under what conditions, and what helps.

I will not tell you whether you have ADHD or autism. I cannot and may not. I do not diagnose and I do not assess.

If it emerges during the work that an assessment would be useful — because you want an explanation, or because you need support that is tied to one — I say so. Whether you go that way is your decision.

If you are waiting for an assessment

That is a good time for coaching, not a bad one.

It makes the waiting period usable, it takes some of the pressure off the appointment, and it changes nothing about the outcome — coaching does not pre-empt an assessment and does not influence it.

For parents

If you are reading this for your child: the same applies — no diagnosis is needed. And equally, coaching does not replace an assessment if you want one.

What is often overlooked: the way into coaching does not depend on a diagnosis. Whether an assessment would help can be talked through in the introductory call, without anything having to be settled first.

The next step

In the free introductory call we work out what this is about and whether coaching fits. You do not have to prove anything or bring anything.