You are not Broken. You are wired differently.
Take what helps, skip what doesn’t, and remember you don’t have to do this alone.
Save it to your computer. Print it. Write on it. It’s yours.
The Scope-of-Practice Map
Paired worksheet. Therapist vs. Counselor: Who Can Actually Do What for Your ND Brain
Danielle Ralston
MBA · MSW · ADHD-CCSP · PhD(c) · Master ADHD Coach · 50+ Coaching Certifications · AuDHD · Founder of ND Hive
The map, in three sentences
Every helping professional either holds or doesn’t hold five powers: providing therapy, diagnosing, treating the mental health side of ADHD and autism, running formal testing, and prescribing. The word on their website (“therapist,” “counselor,” “coach”) won’t tell you which. The letters after their name will. This worksheet walks you from “eleven tabs open” to one right-row booking.
“Her counselor hadn’t failed her. Her counselor was the right row for the talking, and testing had always lived in a different row.”
Step 1: Name the need before the professional
Which column is on fire right now? Check every need that’s real, then circle the ONE that’s most urgent this month.
- Someone to talk to and work with, week to week (therapy column)
- An answer, on paper, about what my brain is (testing column)
- Documentation for school, work, disability, or court (testing column)
- A medication conversation (prescriber lane)
- Day-to-day follow-through and starting support (coaching and community row)
In your own words: what does the on-fire need look like in your actual week?
Step 2: Read the letters, not the label
List the professionals you’re considering. Next to each, write the letters after their name (LPC, LMHC, LCPC, LCSW, LICSW, LMFT, PhD, PsyD, MD, DO, PMHNP). No letters means no license: they cannot diagnose or treat, whatever the website says.
Step 3: The three questions before you book
Send these to your top candidate before you pay anything. A good clinician answers all three in one email.
- Are you licensed in my state, and what license?
- Can you diagnose, or would you refer me out for that?
- If I need formal testing or documentation, can you do it or connect me to someone who can?
Their answers:
Step 4: The paperwork check
Is a document the end product? If what you ultimately need is accommodations paperwork a school or employer must honor, your first booking is the testing row (psychologist or neuropsychologist), not a talk therapist. Write what the document is for and who has to accept it:
Step 5: The rows you can reach this month
Budget-real options, no shame. Sliding-scale networks, university training clinics, and community mental health centers run cheaper versions of the expensive rows. The daily row (coaching, community, body doubling) is reachable this week. What can you actually reach in the next 30 days?
Your next actions
- Circle one on-fire column in Step 1 and say it out loud to one person.
- Check the letters on every profile still open in your tabs (Step 2).
- Send the three questions to ONE candidate (Step 3).
- If paperwork is the goal, search “psychological testing” plus your county instead of “therapist near me” (Step 4).
- Book one thing from the reachable list, even if it’s the free row (Step 5).
What surfaced for you?
Notice what came up: relief, anger at the wrong doors you already paid for, the urge to do all five rows at once. Write it down. Naming it is part of the work.
© 2026 Ralston Collective Holdings LLC · ND Hive
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