When ADHD Triggers
Emotional Outbursts:
Scripts for Your Flashpoints
October 19, 2022
Podcast #426
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Copyright © 2022 by ADDitude
Meet today’s expert speaker:
Sharon Saline, Psy.D.
Dr. Sharon Saline is a clinical psychologist and author of the awardwinning book, What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew: Working
Together to Empower Kids for Success in School and Life and The ADHD
Solution Deck. She specializes in working with children, teens, emerging
adults, and families living with ADHD, anxiety, learning disabilities, autism,
twice exceptionality, and mental health issues. Her unique perspective —
as a sibling in an ADHD home, combined with decades of experience as a
clinical psychologist and educator/clinician consultant — assists her in
guiding families and adults towards effective communication and closer
connections. She lectures and facilitates workshops internationally on
topics such as understanding ADHD, executive functioning, anxiety,
motivation, different kinds of learners, and the teen brain. Dr. Saline is a
regular contributor to ADDitudeMag.com and PsychologyToday.com, a
featured expert on MASS Appeal on WWLP-TV, and a part-time lecturer at
the Smith School for Social Work. Her writing has been featured in
numerous online and print publications including MSN, The
Psychotherapy Networker, Smith College Studies in Social Work, Attention
Magazine, ADDitude Magazine, Psych Central and Inquirer.com. Learn
more at www.drsharonsaline.com.
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ADHD Experts Podcast
Episode #426
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We Are All Perfectly, Imperfect Humans
1. We are all doing our best to attend to our fundamental needs.
2. Everybody has their own feelings which are neither bad nor
good. They just are.
3. Conflict happens when we try to attend to our needs and that
disrupts how others are attending to their own needs.
4. People make demands of each other instead of requests, which
sets off reactivity.
5. Shame interrupts self-compassion and blocks clear thinking.
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ADHD and Emotional Outbursts
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•
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Intense frustration with self or other
Unmanageable dysregulation
Lack of self-awareness
Difficulty with recovery
Inconsistent accountability
Episodes of denial and blame
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POLL #1: When do you notice that you are on the
verge of or in the midst of an emotional outburst?
1. When I get a headache, start perspiring, or have a knot
in my stomach
2. When I’ve already started raising my voice at someone
3. When someone is giving me negative feedback
4. When I feel hurt or ashamed about something I did
5. When someone is arguing with me
6. When I am being blamed unfairly
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The ADHD-Anger Connection
• Understand the biology
• Working memory challenges
reduce capacity for emotional
regulation
• Limited verbal and behavioral
impulse control lead to
overwhelm and flooding
• Consider issues of fuel, fatigue,
and environment
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ADHD, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria,
and Emotional Reactivity
•
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Wired to feel things more intensely
Belief that you’ve let other people down or embarrassed yourself
Fear of withdrawal of love, support, or friendship due to mistakes
Hold onto past hurts and/or rejections
Difficulty recovering from criticism or social exclusion
More prone to make negative assumptions about self
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The ADHD Brain Under Stress
(Anger, Fear, Hurt, etc.)
• STAGES of Emotional Intensity: (inspired by Dr. Marcy Caldwell)
• ADHD brains struggle with turning on or turning off
emotional processing and actions, which leads to
flooding.
• Emotions can build under the surface of awareness
until they stand out so much they can’t be ignored.
• Settle the body, settle the mind.
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Improve Self-Regulation with Metacognition
• Build awareness of how your words and actions impact others
• Metacognition helps you choose, monitor, and evaluate your
behavior
• Observe your strengths in connection and develop related
strategies
• Understand your personal need for recovery after an episode and
preferred action
• Ask:
– “How am I doing?”
– “What’s helped me before that I could apply to this
situation?”
– “What is the impact of my words or behaviors on others?”
– “What are their faces or bodies showing me?”
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Thoughtful Preparation Leads to
Positive Outcomes
1.
2.
3.
4.
Identify bodily signals
Name typical responses
Consider preferred responses
Determine what is personal and what is not
Choose soothers to regroup:
a. Breathing techniques
b. Change of location
c. Physical activity
d. Timed activity for distraction (music, art, phone)
e. Look at HALT
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Interventions for Regulating the
Stages of Emotional Intensity
High Alert
• Change
situation
• Help body
slow down
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Activation
• Name your
feelings
• Choose selfsoothers
Disturbance
in the Field
• Identify
negative voice
• Compare
limiting beliefs
to real facts
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Replace Old Habits with Effective Routines
• Habits are patterns of behavior that are repeated until they are
mostly involuntary.
• Habits develop early on to lower stress or meet an emotional need.
• Now/not now ADHD brain often moves towards satisfaction
before thinking.
• Elements of a habit: Trigger, Behavior, and Benefit (reward)
Mindfulness
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Practice
New
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Change Your Relationship to
Intense Feelings
•
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•
•
•
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Change your relationship to intense emotions
Stop blaming someone else for setting you off
Identify the goal: “I want _____; so I’m willing to ______.”
Apply previous coping skills
Talk back to the negative voice in your head
Shift focus from what isn’t working and what the other person did
wrong back to yourself
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Techniques for Managing
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
•
•
•
•
Identify your strengths
Recall and restate personal words of encouragement
QTIP-Quit Taking It Personally
Create a STAR plan that you can actually follow and find
support
• Treat yourself with compassion
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Tools for Reflective Listening
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Create a plan to practice this tool
Agree on total amount of time and individual amounts of time
Start the timer and person one speaks
Person two repeats back what they hear as close to word for word
as possible
When the timer goes off, person two speaks and person one
listens
Repeat for two cycles if desired
At the end of the session, the conversation is over
Ultimately, use this technique during a disagreement to lower the
heat
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Use My 5C’s Approach: The STAR Method
•
•
•
•
➢
➢
Stop: Call a pause in the action
Think: Talk, listen, and brainstorm next right steps
Act: Move into doing those steps
Recover: Let time pass; delay any ‘teaching’
Rely on connecting requests before solution strategies
Expect setbacks without judgment
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POLL #2: Potential obstacles for using
STAR method or reflective listening
1. I will forget to take a pause and keep engaging.
2. I’ll be too dysregulated to participate in the Think
component.
3. I’ll focus too much on blaming the other person.
4. I won’t remember what they said because I’ll be too
distracted by my own thoughts or replies.
5. Nothing has really worked before so why will these help?
6. I can’t offer compassion to anybody, let alone myself, when
I’m upset.
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Conversation Tools That Foster Connection
and Accountability
•
•
•
•
Say ‘I heard’ instead of ‘You said’
Use ‘and’ instead of ‘but’
Don’t kill the messenger; listen to the message
Use feeling words: ‘I feel sad, angry, hurt, frustrated, betrayed,
nervous, excluded, or worried.’
• Avoid critical, blaming phrases, such as, ‘I feel that you blahblah.’
• Use ‘I feel _____ when I see you ________ because I
need/want to _________.’
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Strategies for Dealing with High
Conflict Situations
• Look underneath rude words and hurtful behaviors
• Feeling incapable or guilty may produce aggressive behavior
• Model the respect you expect and offer choices
• Use “Why Am I Talking Now?”— WAIT Now
• Create a system of “Take Back of the Day” — TBD
➢ Remember, low self-esteem, shame, and rage often fuel these
behaviors.
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Tips for Scripts
1. Curious Inquiry – ‘I wonder about…’
2. Active & Reflective Listening – ‘What I heard you say is X.
Did I get that right?’
3. Open vs. Closed Questions – Who, What, When, How,
Where vs. ‘Why?’
4. Narrow the Scope – Focus of collaboration
5. Offer Limited Choices – ‘What about this, this, or that?’
6. Reframe – Change ‘You can’t’ into ‘I’m not sure if’ or ‘That
doesn’t work for me.’
7. Tolerate Discomfort – ‘It’s okay for this to feel strange. It’s
not what we usually do.’
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More Than Saying ‘I’m Sorry’:
Making Meaningful Amends
1. Making an apology often indicates failure—again
2. Shame or resentment can divert genuine apology to a throwaway
3. Talk about what authentic apologies look like in your family or
relationship
4. Create a plan for making Apologies of Action = Making Amends
5. Acknowledge and appreciate the efforts
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Build Confidence to Change
Habits by Nurturing Resilience
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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A growth-oriented mindset counters helplessness and avoidance
See mistakes as learning opportunities instead of failures
Acknowledge vulnerabilities as areas for improvement
Identify supportive people in your life
Practice, reset, and practice some more
Expect to be challenged or frustrated
Focus on one thing that you can change
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Stay connected with me. . .
Sharon Saline, Psy.D.
• www.drsharonsaline.com
• Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and
• Instagram: @DrSharonSaline
Get Your Free Handout:
https://drsharonsaline.com/
downloadables/when-adhdtriggers-emotional-outbursts/
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ADDitude does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The material in this webinar is
provided for educational purposes only. Copyright © 2022 by ADDitude. All rights reserved.
This webinar’s sponsor:
Play Attention: Improve executive function & self-regulation. For over 25 years PLAY
ATTENTION has been helping children and adults thrive and succeed. Tufts University
School of Medicine found Play Attention significantly improved attention, executive
function, academic performance and behavioral control of ADHD students. Your program
will include a Lifetime Membership and a Personal Executive Function Coach to customize
your plan along the way. Home and professional programs available. Call 828-676-2240 or
click here to schedule your free 1:1 consultation! | www.playattention.com
Sponsored by:
ADHD expert webinars
ADDitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection oradditu.de/webinar
webinar content.
Copyright © 2022 by ADDitude
October 19, 2022
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