Phoenix added over 200,000 new residents in the last few years alone, and ADHD coaching infrastructure has not kept pace. The Valley of the Sun stretches across a massive footprint that blends into Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, and Glendale with no real boundaries between them. A coach who lists their practice as serving "the Phoenix area" could be based anywhere across that sprawl, and you might not find out exactly where until you're already committed.

If you moved here from somewhere else, you're in the majority. Phoenix is a transplant city. People relocate from the Midwest, from California, from the East Coast, and they leave behind the referral networks and word-of-mouth recommendations that help you find good care. Asking coworkers or friends for an ADHD coach recommendation when half of them arrived in the last two years produces a lot of blank stares.

Then there's the heat. From May through September, stepping outside for anything non-essential requires genuine motivation. Driving 40 minutes across the Valley in 115-degree weather for a coaching appointment adds a layer of friction that makes consistency feel like a stretch goal in itself. And consistency is the whole point of coaching.

The growing tech sector has brought younger professionals into the metro who are more open to ADHD support, but the supply side hasn't caught up with demand. Searching online returns a mix of life coaches, therapists who dabble in coaching, and a handful of ADHD specialists scattered across the Valley with no obvious way to tell them apart.

This guide covers what to look for in an ADHD coach, which credentials carry real weight, how to evaluate coaching methodology, and how to navigate a search in a city that's growing faster than its support systems.

What is the difference between ADHD coaching, therapy, and psychiatry

These three types of support get tangled together in most people's minds, and that confusion is worth sorting out before you start looking for a coach. Phoenix has a growing healthcare infrastructure with new clinics and practices opening regularly, but coaching as a distinct profession is newer here than therapy or psychiatry, and less familiar to most people.

ADHD coaching is a collaborative, action-focused partnership. You work with your coach to build systems, habits, and strategies that help you accomplish your goals. The focus is on the present and future. What do you want to get done? What keeps getting in the way? Your coach helps you develop personalized approaches for managing time, staying organized, following through on plans, and prioritizing when everything feels equally urgent. The work is built around how your brain actually operates rather than forcing neurotypical (the term for non-ADHD) patterns onto your day.

Therapy addresses the emotional and psychological dimensions. A therapist helps you process difficult experiences, work through anxiety or depression (which frequently show up alongside ADHD), and understand emotional patterns that shape your behavior. Therapy is particularly valuable for unpacking the impact of years spent undiagnosed or misunderstood. But therapy on its own doesn't always give you the concrete, tactical tools for managing executive dysfunction in your daily routine. Executive dysfunction is the difficulty with planning, starting, and completing tasks that is central to the ADHD experience.

Psychiatry handles the medical side. A psychiatrist can formally diagnose ADHD, prescribe medication, and monitor how treatment is working over time. If you're considering medication or need a clinical evaluation, psychiatry is where that begins.

These three aren't competing choices. Many adults with ADHD use a combination of all three. You might work with a psychiatrist for medication, a therapist for emotional processing, and a coach for the practical day-to-day systems that keep work, relationships, and personal goals on track. In Arizona, therapy and psychiatry may be partially covered by insurance depending on your plan. Coaching typically falls outside insurance coverage, though there are ways to manage that cost, covered later in this guide.

The core difference with coaching is that it's forward-facing and practical. You're building systems for your actual life, not analyzing the past.

What credentials should an ADHD coach actually have

This part of the search is where things get uncomfortable, because there's no regulation protecting the title "ADHD coach." Arizona, like every other state, does not require a license to practice coaching. No board exam. No state oversight. Someone can launch a website this afternoon, call themselves an ADHD coach, and start accepting clients at $250 a session. In a fast-growing market like Phoenix, where demand for ADHD support is rising alongside the population, the lack of regulation creates real risk for consumers.

So how do you separate qualified coaches from everyone else?

PAAC certification (Professional Association of ADHD Coaches) is one of the most meaningful credentials in this space. Coaches certified through PAAC have completed ADHD-specific training programs with rigorous standards, including supervised coaching hours and demonstrated skill in addressing ADHD-related challenges. This is not a weekend certification. It represents a substantial commitment to specialized education.

ICF credentials (International Coaching Federation) are the gold standard for the broader coaching profession. An ICF-credentialed coach has completed significant training hours, logged a required number of coaching hours with real clients, and passed a formal evaluation. ICF credentials on their own don't guarantee ADHD expertise, but when paired with ADHD-specific training, they indicate a serious, committed practitioner.

What about lived experience? Having ADHD can make someone a more intuitive, empathetic coach. But personal experience without formal training and a structured methodology doesn't qualify someone to coach others. The strongest coaches combine genuine understanding of the ADHD experience with evidence-based frameworks and professional accountability.

Red flags to watch for:

• No specific training or credentials listed anywhere on their website

• The only stated qualification is personal experience with ADHD

• Promises of specific outcomes like "eliminate your procrastination"

• No mention of supervision, continuing education, or a defined coaching methodology

• Sessions that sound like casual conversation with no underlying structure

Questions worth asking any coach you're considering:

• What ADHD-specific training have you completed, and which program was it through?

• Do you hold certification through PAAC, ICF, or another recognized organization?

• Are you involved in regular supervision or peer consultation?

• What methodology or framework guides your coaching sessions?

• How do you track and measure client progress?

• What does a typical engagement look like, and what kind of support exists between sessions?

A qualified coach will be glad you asked these questions. They've invested real time and money into their education, and they understand why verification matters. If someone gets evasive or defensive when you bring up credentials, that reaction itself is useful information.

Why does virtual coaching make so much sense in the Phoenix metro

The Valley's geography makes the case for virtual coaching more clearly than almost any other metro in the country. Phoenix proper covers over 500 square miles, and the broader metro area is even larger. Your home might be in Gilbert, your office in Scottsdale, and the coach you're interested in could be based in Glendale. That's potentially an hour of driving each direction for a single appointment.

Layer on the extreme summer heat, and the calculus shifts further. When it's 115 degrees outside from June through September, the motivation required just to get in your car and drive across the Valley is significant. For someone already working on building better habits and routines with ADHD, that additional friction can be the difference between making it to a session and canceling. Canceled sessions break momentum, and momentum is everything in coaching.

Virtual coaching removes the geography problem entirely. You can meet with your coach from your home in Chandler, your office in Tempe, or a coffee shop in Mesa. Sessions fit into your existing schedule without transit time eating up your afternoon. A 30-minute coaching session over your lunch break or after your kids go to bed is a fundamentally different commitment than blocking two hours for a round-trip drive and a 45-minute appointment.

Beyond convenience, virtual coaching opens up access to specialization. When you limit your search to coaches physically located in the Phoenix metro, you're choosing from whoever happens to practice nearby. When location doesn't matter, you can match based on what actually makes coaching effective: expertise in your specific challenges, a coaching style that fits your personality, familiarity with your industry, and experience with your life stage. A coach based in another state who specializes in ADHD for software engineers might serve you better than a local generalist who also does relationship coaching and career consulting.

Switching coaches is also less disruptive when geography is out of the equation. If a coaching relationship isn't producing results after a reasonable period, you try someone new without launching a fresh geographic search.

What does quality ADHD coaching methodology actually look like

Methodology is where the real difference between effective coaching and expensive conversation becomes clear. Two coaches can have similar credentials and similar pricing, but one uses a rigorous evidence-based approach while the other improvises each session based on whatever you bring up that week.

Evidence-based frameworks form the foundation of quality coaching. One well-supported approach is the COM-B model, which identifies Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation as the three factors driving Behavior change. Instead of generic advice like "just use a planner" or "try setting alarms," a coach using this framework helps you figure out whether a challenge is rooted in skill (you don't know how), environment (your setup works against you), or drive (the motivation isn't connecting). The intervention changes depending on which barrier is actually at play. Implementation intentions are another research-backed tool. These are specific if/then plans that help close the gap between intending to do something and actually doing it. Rather than a vague goal like "I'll be more organized," an implementation intention sounds like "When I sit down at my desk Monday morning, I'll spend the first ten minutes writing my three priorities for the day before opening email."

Arizona State University has contributed to research on attention, behavior, and executive function, and coaches familiar with current science tend to draw on findings from institutions like ASU and others studying how ADHD affects adults in professional settings.

Structured sessions versus open-ended conversation is a critical distinction. Structured coaching means sessions follow a framework, your coach comes prepared, goals are tracked over time, and each session connects to the last. You're building something cumulative, not starting from scratch every week.

Between-session support matters enormously for people with ADHD. A weekly coaching call is valuable, but ADHD doesn't take six days off between appointments. Quality coaching includes some form of ongoing connection, whether that's check-in messages, app-based tools, or community access. That continuity is what makes new strategies stick instead of fading by midweek.

Executive dysfunction-specific approaches are essential. Generic coaching techniques tend to assume a baseline level of executive function that people with ADHD don't reliably have. A methodology designed for ADHD accounts for challenges with working memory (holding information in mind while using it), time blindness (difficulty sensing how much time has passed or estimating how long tasks take), task initiation struggles, and the emotional weight of executive dysfunction. It builds systems around these realities.

Community and peer support adds something that isolated one-on-one coaching cannot replicate. Connecting with other adults navigating similar challenges creates shared accountability, a sense of normalcy, and practical learning. Hearing someone in a comparable situation describe a strategy that actually worked for them carries weight that a coach's recommendation alone might not.

Coach supervision and ongoing training is something most people never consider asking about. Coaches who practice in isolation with no oversight can develop blind spots or drift into outdated techniques over time. Regular supervision means a qualified professional is reviewing their work, offering feedback, and maintaining quality standards.

The difficulty is that none of this is visible from the outside. Two coaching websites can look nearly identical while representing vastly different levels of rigor behind the scenes.

How much does ADHD coaching cost in the Phoenix area

Cost is a significant factor, and it deserves a straightforward look.

Nationally, individual ADHD coaching sessions typically range from $150 to $300 per session. Ongoing monthly coaching arrangements fall between $300 and $600 per month depending on session frequency, length, and coach experience. In the Phoenix metro, prices tend to sit in the moderate range compared to coastal cities. Arizona's overall cost of living is lower than California, New York, or the Pacific Northwest, and that's reflected in some coaching rates, though experienced, credentialed coaches still charge toward the higher end of national averages.

The temptation is to find the cheapest option available. Budgets are real constraints, and nobody should ignore that. But the least expensive coaches tend to be the newest and least credentialed, with less structured approaches. That correlation exists because coaches who've invested thousands in ADHD-specific training, ICF certification, and ongoing supervision have higher overhead and deeper expertise.

Insurance generally does not cover ADHD coaching. This is true across Arizona and most other states. Coaching is distinct from therapy and isn't classified as a medical service by insurance companies.

FSA and HSA funds may be applicable. If your employer offers a Flexible Spending Account or Health Savings Account, ADHD coaching may qualify as an eligible expense. Paying with pre-tax dollars effectively reduces your real cost by 20 to 30 percent depending on your tax bracket. It's worth checking with your plan administrator.

When evaluating cost, consider what the alternative looks like. Missed career opportunities because you can't consistently deliver. Relationships under strain from forgotten commitments and inconsistent follow-through. The accumulating mental weight of feeling like you're performing below your capability. Effective coaching that helps you show up consistently in the areas that matter most pays for itself many times over.

How do you find and vet ADHD coaches in Phoenix

The actual search process in Phoenix comes with its own set of challenges. The coaching landscape hasn't caught up with the city's growth, and the tools available for finding qualified coaches are limited.

Where to start your search:

The PAAC directory (Professional Association of ADHD Coaches) is the most targeted resource. Every coach listed has met specific ADHD training standards. The ICF directory casts a wider net and is useful for independently verifying coaching credentials. CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) does not currently have a dedicated Phoenix or Arizona chapter, which removes one of the more common referral pathways that exists in other cities. Virtual CHADD meetings hosted by chapters in other states are accessible and can be a source of community and recommendations, but they lack the local specificity of an in-person group.

The absence of a local CHADD chapter is worth noting because in many cities, CHADD groups function as informal referral networks. Members share experiences with local providers, compare notes on coaching quality, and surface recommendations organically. Without that in Phoenix, you're more reliant on directory searches and individual research.

The vetting process:

Once you have a shortlist, the real work starts. You'll need to review each coach's website carefully, verify credentials independently rather than trusting self-reported information, schedule consultation calls, and evaluate fit. Most coaches offer a free or low-cost introductory conversation. Use that time to ask the credential and methodology questions outlined earlier in this guide.

During a consultation, pay attention to:

• Whether they ask about your specific situation or move straight to pitching their program

• How clearly they explain their methodology when asked

• Whether they mention supervision, peer consultation, or continuing education

• How comfortable and natural the conversation feels

• Whether pricing, session structure, and expectations are transparent from the start

When the first match doesn't work:

This is the part that rarely gets discussed. You might invest significant time in researching, vetting, and committing to a coach, only to realize after a few sessions that the fit isn't right. Then you're back at the beginning. New search, new consultation calls, new financial outlay to try again. In a metro where options are already limited and geographically scattered, restarting that process is particularly draining. For someone dealing with the exact executive function challenges that coaching is supposed to address, the irony of needing strong executive function just to find a coach is not lost on any of us.

Why did we build Shimmer

Every frustration described in this guide is precisely why Shimmer exists. We built it because we've been through the same exhausting search process and knew there had to be a better model.

The vetting is done before you ever show up. Shimmer's coaches go through a selection process with a 4% acceptance rate. Every coach holds ADHD-specific credentials, whether that's PAAC certification or equivalent specialized training. And they don't get hired and left on their own. Shimmer coaches receive ongoing supervision and continuing education, so their skills stay current and their quality stays high. The methodology is consistent across the platform, grounded in behavioral science frameworks built specifically for how ADHD brains work.

Matching is built into the system. Instead of spending weeks digging through directories and scheduling consultation calls, Shimmer matches you with a coach based on your specific needs, goals, and preferences. If the match isn't right, you switch to a different coach with no awkward conversation, no financial penalty, and no restarting from scratch. You just match with someone new and pick up where you left off. That's a fundamental shift from the traditional model where trying a different coach means going back to square one.

The methodology extends well beyond a weekly call. Shimmer's approach is rooted in science-backed frameworks for behavior change and executive function support. Sessions are structured, goal-oriented, and connected from one to the next. But the support also continues between sessions. Shimmer includes community access where you connect with other members navigating similar challenges. That combination of expert one-on-one coaching and active peer community creates a level of accountability and support that a single weekly session on its own cannot match.

The financial risk is minimal. Shimmer offers a 30-day money-back guarantee with transparent, straightforward pricing. You know exactly what you're getting and what it costs before you commit to anything. Compare that to the traditional approach where you might spend $300 on a single introductory session with a coach from a Google search, then realize after two more sessions that their style doesn't align with how your brain operates.

Virtual-first means the entire Valley is covered equally. Whether you're in Scottsdale, Glendale, Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, or central Phoenix, the experience is the same. No driving across the metro in the July heat. No limiting yourself to coaches who happen to practice within a reasonable radius. Consistent, expert support from wherever you are.

Shimmer's coaches work with adults across every industry and background represented in the Phoenix metro. Tech professionals managing rapid-growth startup environments. Healthcare workers juggling complex schedules and high-stakes detail work. Finance professionals trying to stay on top of documentation-heavy workflows. Entrepreneurs building businesses while their own ADHD goes unaddressed. Remote workers struggling with structure when the boundary between work and home disappears. The matching process accounts for these differences so you work with someone who genuinely understands your specific context.

As a transplant city where many residents lack established local networks for referrals, Phoenix is exactly the kind of place where a platform like Shimmer fills a critical gap. You don't need to know someone who knows someone. You don't need to have lived here for a decade to access quality ADHD support. You just need to sign up.

How do you take the first step toward ADHD coaching

Making the decision to start coaching can feel like a big move, and that's completely reasonable. If you've been reading about ADHD coaching for weeks or months without committing, that experience is incredibly common among us. The decision paralysis around getting help for the very thing that causes decision paralysis is one of the more frustrating loops in the ADHD experience.

Getting started with Shimmer is straightforward. You sign up, get matched with a coach, and have your first session. That initial conversation is about your coach getting to know you, your goals, your challenges, and what you've already tried. You don't need a perfect list of priorities or a detailed history prepared in advance. Your coach is trained to guide that conversation and help you figure out where to focus first.

The early sessions build a foundation. You and your coach will identify what matters most to you right now and begin developing strategies designed around how your brain actually works. Expect it to feel exploratory at the start. You're testing approaches, seeing what sticks, and building a relationship with someone who is genuinely in your corner.

Set realistic expectations. Coaching is not an overnight fix. Your first session won't resolve every executive function challenge you face. What it will give you is a structured starting point, a coach who understands ADHD deeply, and a framework for making steady progress over time. Most members begin noticing meaningful shifts within the first few weeks as new habits and systems start to take hold.

If you're ready to stop researching and start working with a vetted, expert ADHD coach who actually understands how your brain works, Shimmer is a good place to begin.