Rachel Leigh Wills
LPC, CCTP1
I’m a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CTTP1), as well as a Certified ADHD Services Provider (ADHD-CCSP) in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
I currently focus on working with clients who need support for experiences of ADHD. I personally know the challenge of finding a therapist who specializes in working with adults who have ADHD or who are otherwise neurodiverse. Also like me, many adults with ADHD have experienced trauma. Years of being misunderstood and mislabeled (spacey, lazy, reckless, disorganized, ad infinitum) can leave us traumatized.
My lack of understanding of my ADHD, combined with my shame surrounding it, led me to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana to excess. It was a means of self-medicating and quieting the fear that whispered, ‘you’ll never be ‘successful.’
Luckily for me, I found sobriety and the support of empathetic and adept mental health providers who knew that I would go from feeling like an eternal BAD DOG to a BONAFIDE mental health professional. Since then, I’ve learned how to pause when agitated so that I had time to respond to situations versus react to them out of impulse and fear.
Past Experience
MA in Vocational Rehabilitation, 2013, University of the District of Columbia (UDC)
Vocational Rehabilitation Services for People with Disabilities as part of the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) at Washington, DC’s larger Core Service Agencies (CSA’s). CSA provides the city’s most at-risk individuals with wrap-around services such as housing, case management, transportation, medication and mental health management services.
Clinical licensure in mental health counseling skills specializing in working with individuals who (like me) had their fair share of struggles with addiction and co-occurring disorders
Independent contractor for small private practices, as an addictions specialist at Kolmac Integrated Behavioral Health Centers (DC and Silver Spring, MD)
Founded my own practice – ADDvantage Counseling, LLC
Training in trauma treatment and certification as a Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP1).
Certification in EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) through EMDRIA, an internationally approved EMDR Therapy provider.
My ADHD Story
Like many others, I experienced radical transition as a result of the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic.
I suddenly found myself working from home with my pets instead of colleagues and supervisors (which I loved).
What I didn’t love and didn’t do well with, was the unexpected shift from clinician to clinician and administrator. As someone who has ADHD, I struggled to keep up with my workload. I began double-booking myself for clinical intakes, entering clinical data in one computer storage system but not another, and forgetting to schedule urine tests for my clients enrolled in their Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). I also found myself exhausted at the end of my day because I had no reserve of emotional or executive functioning. This didn’t make for a happy or healthy marriage.
I needed a self-imposed change!
I decided to focus on private practice and to primarily work with clients who needed support for their own ADHD.
I personally knew the challenge of finding a therapist who specializes in working with adults who have ADHD or who are otherwise neurodiverse. Also like me, many adults with ADHD have experienced trauma. Years of being misunderstood and mislabeled (spacey, lazy, reckless, disorganized, ad infinitum) can leave us traumatized.
I’ve learned that not all trauma is chronic and complex like my experience of it. Some traumas are acute and time specific, such as sexual assault, unexpected loss of a loved one, divorce, or an accident.
"I finally feel that I have enough systems and habits in place in my life that I’m ready to step away from our sessions. I’m grateful for your help these past few years (years!). Thank you for navigating me through my diagnosis and figuring out what it all means, and for being a sympathetic ear throughout."
- Kelly, 3 Year Client