Remembering Safety: ADHD, Art Therapy and the Nervous System

How creativity helps us find rhythm in the ADHD mind

When I studied with psychologist and psychoanalyst Phil Mollon, author of The Disintegrating Self and The Fractured Self, something clicked. He described ADHD not as a lack of willpower or discipline, but as a deep struggle of self-regulation moments when the brain’s rhythms fall out of sync, and the self feels scattered or even disintegrated. That image stayed with me.

When I sit with clients, friends or colleagues who live with ADHD, I see that push and pull between chaos and coherence, between spark and exhaustion.

Mollon’s work helped me understand the truth in the frontal lobe, that ADHD isn’t simply psychological. It’s neurobiological. When our brains struggle to regulate, our whole sense of self does too. So the question becomes: how do we find our way back into rhythm?

Remembering Safety

Neuroscientist Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory helps explain why this regulation feels so fragile. Our nervous system constantly scans for cues of safety or danger, shifting between three main states:

• Ventral vagal – when we feel connected, calm, creative

• Sympathetic – when we’re anxious, driven, or restless

• Dorsal vagal – when we shut down or lose energy

  
  

Deb Dana, who translates this theory into therapy through her books The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy and Anchored, invites us to become active operators in our nervous systems. She speaks of remembering safety, revisiting moments when we felt at ease, using image, colour, sound, smell, breath, or movement to bring that feeling alive again.

When we truly listen to the story of safety, she says, our bodies can begin to believe in it again. That idea pairs beautifully with art therapy. Because through art, we can remember safety with our hands, we can paint it, sculpt it or hum it into being.

Science Meets The Senses

Art therapy isn’t about talent; it’s about process. When we engage our senses through art, we activate multiple areas of the brain:

• Clay grounds us through touch and weight, engaging the body’s balance and sensory systems.

• Paint invites emotion to move and release.

• Drawing or collage engages planning, sequencing and problem-solving gently strengthening the same executive functions that ADHD can make so tricky.

  
  

Each brushstroke or mark is a small rehearsal of focus and decision-making.

Art therapy creates safe spaces to practise these micro-regulations not through control, but through curiosity.

Recent research by Dina Fried (2025) explored how art-based processes help adults with ADHD transform long-held labels like “lazy” or “scattered” into creative identities of “maker” or “warrior.” Her study highlights how art itself becomes a form of regulation, translating the quick-firing ADHD mind into movement, colour, and rhythm — a language the nervous system can understand.

For people with ADHD, this matters. Because the goal isn’t to be still, it’s to find rhythm. Art offers a way to move with the nervous system rather than against it.

Integration

Mollon helps us understand the disintegrating self that longs for coherence. Dana teaches us to reconnect through body and breath. Fried shows us how creativity can reclaim and reframe identity. Together, they illuminate what happens when the psyche, brain and imagination work in unison.

Try it for yourself:

• Remember safety. Recall a moment when you felt calm or connected.

• Bring it alive. Choose a colour, a sound, or a gesture that holds that memory.

• Stay curious. You don’t have to analyse or perfect it, just let your hands, eyes, or breath stay in rhythm for a few minutes.

  
  

This simple act is enough to begin shifting your state. You’re not “fixing” ADHD; you’re learning to partner with your nervous system through creativity.

Tuning In

Mollon reminds us that the ADHD brain is predisposed to creativity, not disorder, but a different kind of order.

Art therapy offers a way to tune into that rhythm, transforming what feels like chaos into movement, expression and flow. In that space, self-regulation and creativity become the same thing.

About the Author

I’m an art psychotherapist specialising in integrative and creative approaches to mental health, including ADHD and neurodiversity.

If this resonates with you, you’re welcome to explore how art therapy might help you reconnect with your own rhythm, do contact me. References

Dana, D. (2018) The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Dana, D. (2021) Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.

Fried, D. (2025) ‘Art Therapy and ABR: Exploring ADHD Roles in a Neurodivergent Case Study’, Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 0(0), pp. 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2025.2518778

Mollon, P. (2001) The Fractured Self: Psychoanalysis, Identity and Trauma. London: Routledge.

Mollon, P. (2009) The Disintegrating Self: Psychotherapy of Adult ADHD, Autistic Spectrum, and Borderline Personality. London: Karnac.

Porges, S. W. (2011) The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.