Ramona Sharma | Scattered Souls Counselling & Coaching

Hi, I’m Ramona. Thanks for stopping by! 

I’m a social worker, trauma counsellor and ADHD/academic coach. 

I’m also a Third Culture Kid (TCK) who grew up in a diplomatic family and lived in 12 countries. I speak English, Hindi, Spanish, Sinhala, and Portuguese.

WHO I WORK WITH

I provide individual and family counselling, as well as ADHD and educational coaching, in person in Vancouver, BC, Canada and virtually across Canada.

I work with kids/youth, adults, and families with ADHD, learning differences (e.g., NVLD, autism, dyslexia), single-incident and complex trauma, migration experiences (e.g., refugees, immigrants, international students), and complex cultural identities (e.g., mixed-race, immigrant, diasporic, and Third Culture (TCK/TCA) backgrounds).  

I have a decade of experience working with child, youth, and multicultural populations.

MY CLIENTS

People I work with spent years being labelled “lazy,” “too much,” “stupid”, or “weird” before their neurodivergence was recognized. Unlike mainstream opinions, the deepest harm comes not from ADHD itself, but from years of shame and pressure to fit rigid expectations. Trauma itself looks different with ADHD, often involving chronic overwhelm, burnout, rejection sensitivity, emotional intensity, and years of internalized criticism. Too often, support focuses only on “managing symptoms” or medication rather than on the whole person and their strengths, identity, relationships, and experiences.

Many mixed-race, migrant, & multicultural ADHD people also carry unique forms of grief and fragmentation. This can look like code-switching so often you don’t even know what’s “real,” racism from your own communities, hiding parts of yourself to survive Western norms, or pressure to become “successful enough” to justify family sacrifices. For many ADHD people of color, there’s a “double whammy” where both their brains and their cultural ways of relating to time, productivity, emotion, family, or community are judged against rigid Western expectations around what’s “normal”. 

MY APPROACH

As a mixed-race, adult-diagnosed ADHD’er and first gen immigrant, I know what it’s like to move between identities, expectations, and worlds while feeling alone but “too much.” I don’t see ADHD traits, cultural practices, or emotional intensity as “symptoms” to “manage”, but as meaningful ways of thinking and experiencing the world. 

My goal is to help kids, adults, and families understand themselves beyond shame, labels, and rigid expectations, and actually realize they deserve care that sees all the parts of them as worthy and interesting.

Aside from Lifespan, I am trained in EMDR, EFIT/EFFT, and Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), with additional training/certification in CBT, Narrative Therapy, DBT Skills Training, play therapy, executive functioning support, the Orton-Gillingham approach, the ADHD Inside Out coaching framework, critical disability frameworks, and two-eyed seeing.

My work is also informed by the ADHD and psychosocial research I conduct through the University of British Columbia, particularly on ADHD temporal (time) experiences and perceptions, and cannabis use among young adults with ADHD.

Topics I can help you, your child, and/or your family with include:
-Single-incident and complex trauma
-Shame, guilt, perfectionism, and chronic self-criticism
-Time perception, dissociation, and life interruptions/transitions
-Identity-related concerns and masking
-Emotional responses and regulation (e.g., anxiety, low mood, anger, impulsivity)
-Executive functioning and motivation
-Academic/workplace difficulties and burnout
-Parenting, family, and relational stress
-Therapeutic, recreational, and problematic cannabis use
-Chronic pain, illness, and injury
-Medication-related injury and trauma
-Dyslexia and reading difficulties

Trauma and chronic misunderstanding do not just affect emotions; they can deeply impact learning, motivation, confidence, time management, school, work, and daily functioning. Therefore, sessions can include both therapy (e.g., trauma processing, emotional regulation, identity work, relationship patterns) and coaching/support (e.g., executive functioning, reading support for dyslexia, study strategies, job search support, routines, and time management skill development).

In our first session, we’ll take a high-level look at all the parts of your (or your child’s/family’s) life and create a roadmap for understanding what’s going on, where to start, and how to build a life that actually works for you.

If any of the above sounds of interest in any way, please feel most welcome to go ahead and book a free 20-min video or phone consultation on my Jane page (link below). At the very least, I can promise you a worthwhile conversation.

HELPFUL LINKS

For more information about me and my practice, please visit:

1. Jane (booking, availability, and session information): https://scatteredsouls.janeapp.com

2. Psychology Today (insurance and extended health information): https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/therapists/ramona-himayini-sharma-vancouver-bc/1739522

3. My website: https://www.scatteredsouls.ca

4. Google Scholar (research): https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S6pfghkAAAAJ&hl=en