Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

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He emigrated to Canada with his family in 1957. After graduating with a B.A. from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and a few years as a high school English and literature teacher, he returned to school to pursue his childhood dream of being a physician. I especially enjoyed how explored the link between shame and ADD, his exploration of the phenomenology of childhood ("children swim the unconscious of their parents"), and his exploration of attention itself- he gets downright Wattsian at certain points. This is high praise. This means that the lion’s share of cognitive development occurs after birth. The human infant’s brain makes millions of new connections every second in her first years of life. This development is physically striking. By the age of three, an infant’s body is less than 20 percent of its adult size, but her brain is 80 percent of its adult size. The point, though, is that this development takes place in this world, among other things and other people. Book Genre: Adhd, Health, Mental Health, Neurodiversity, Nonfiction, Parenting, Personal Development, Psychology, Science, Self Help

This book enlightens parents, teenagers, teachers, and adults with and without ADHD. Dr. Gabor Maté shares heart-wrenching stories from his childhood and medical practice while painting a vivid picture of his adult life with ADHD. Above all, this book offers tools and hope along with a deeper understanding of the controversial diagnosis of ADHD. PDF / EPUB File Name: Scattered_Minds__The_Origins_and_Healing_o_-_Gabor_Mate.pdf, Scattered_Minds__The_Origins_and_Healing_o_-_Gabor_Mate.epub Unless their parents (or primarycaregiverss) ask the child to spend time together when the child is not whining and pleading for time with the parent, children chalk up time spent together as something they received because they finally begged and pleaded enough. Although Maté doesn’t explicitly go this far, I believe his work has consequential implications for politics, economics, and social justice. When it comes to harm reduction and symptom control, much of Maté’s advice boils down to something like: “First, parents need to be loving, respectful, mutually supportive, and emotionally mature with each other and other adults. Second, they’ve got to spend time with their kids and devote a lot of conscious attention to them, striving always to model compassionate curiosity and patience.” Adults with ADD, of course, also benefit from these behaviors. None of this is achieved by an act of will, and it is possible one will not succeed completely. That is not important. What is important is to engage in the process, difficult as that is. Healing is not an event, not a single act. It occurs by a process; it is in the process itself. (320)Working as a psychologist with high performers I regularly see clients with ADHD. Sometimes diagnosed but also, as wait times for adult diagnosis can be very long or very expensive, suspected. I find even if someone just suspects they may have it then it can be helpful to work as if they do – helping to put in place external scaffolding, support or strategies that make life feel smoother and easier to navigate. Now, what you're all wondering, do I agree with him? I think that he needs more studies, more stats, etc. I also think, based on my experiences above, that his observations are intriguing. Also, it is good to remember that he never claims that healing attachment issues will completely heal ADHD. It won't, he says. But proper treatment and, sometimes therapy, will help heal the poor relational pathways that will make living with it much more joyful. At this point, we can return to ADD. Focus, attention, and impulse control are also part of a complex neurological circuit located in the prefrontal cortex. No one is born with, say, fully developed impulse control, so this circuit must develop after birth. But can we identify environmental inputs which affect its development, too?

ADD exists. I have it. It doesn't require medication but can sometimes benefit from it when skilfully applied. Its definitely a diagnosis that is being abused, like many in the DSM. Another feature worth mentioning is Maté’s advocacy for the ongoing cultivation of self-understanding, self-care, and self-acceptance. As a person with many friends and family members who struggle with ADD every day, I found Maté’s focus on this topic encouraging, and see no reason why it’s not applicable to people in general. Everyone’s weird, after all, and the goal should be to comprehend, welcome, and grow that weirdness into something vibrant and beautiful: What we mean here is an automatic “tuning out.” The mind is absent when its attention is required to complete tasks or process instructions. Inattentiveness takes many forms. A person with ADD might ask someone a question and zone out as they begin answering it. They might look up from a book and suddenly realize they can’t recall a single word they’ve read. Or they might enter a room and discover that they have no idea what they wanted to do in it. Two parents that I know of, one extremely abusive, but neither with any sign of ADHD, who have 3 children with horrible ADHD and the other with major depression issues. Purposely inviting the child to spend time with one or both parents regularly can calm some of the child’s fears and lessen some separation anxiety most children have.

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In some ways it is a shame that this was his first book, because the subject matter is shrouded in controversy and desperately needs mainstream clarification from someone like Gabor. But at the time of writing I don't think he has quite has his writing perfected, and honestly the mystery shrouding ADHD is still not lifted today. I think it is greatly complicated by very real concerns that pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in promoting the diagnosis of a disease which is exceptionally well-treated by medication. Medication that is performance-enhancing for nearly everyone, so noone is going to take it and say "It didn't help." Nonethless ADHD is real, and stimulants really do help drastically in offsetting the associated disability. But I think more attention needed to be paid by this book to the difference in effect that stimulant medication has between those affected by ADHD and those not. Gabor only briefly mentions that the effect of medication on ADHD sufferers is paradoxical, calming them down in some way rather than giving them energy. Anecdotally I can say that this I think this is correct. But the book did not present strong evidence for that, and is a particular aspect that is sorely missing and much needed as a rebuttal to the well-founded pharmaceutical conflict-of-interest criticism. As I told a friend, I believe ADHD will one day be banished and we'll learn, we all have different brains - which is a good thing. We won't work so hard to force everyone to conform - that's my hope for the future. Living with ADHD is what I describe to people as "beautifully abstract and creative." I grew up in a home with two solid parents who supported my creative brain and encouraged me to explore the world, through my eyes -not the eyes of society or that of the school system. I have learned over the years how to organize and adhere to a time schedule; I still lose my keys on a regular basis, but seriously, who doesn't. I have strong childhood memories and my family didn't move every year. As I said, I wasn't nor were my parents written into this book. Nor were many others who I know, who lived and grew up similar to me and have ADHD. The book was published in 1999 and it feels dated. Mate calls it ADD whereas today it has been classified into a number of different types but most generally talked about as ADHD. I’ve changed it in this review so it makes more sense in 2022. I also found the science behind the genetic and biological elements of the impairment more compelling than the evidence he gave on it having such a strong environment aspect. The environmental aspect (basically that difficult family dynamics will trigger a predisposed ADHD likelihood) felt far more anecdotal. And if we want to understand how and why that happens, we have to look at the interaction of biological and environmental factors. In other words, we have to look at the development of children within families and societies.

If you’re a teacher or parent of an ADHD child and don’t have time to read a whole book, READ my article on Scattered Minds to get the most pertinent information! Link below. https://theadhdminimalist.com/what-every-teacher-should-know-about-the-adhd-child/ So Maté's book interested me. His thesis: genetics and childhood attachment both play a part in ADHD.From there he speaks about how there is no place for blame - which I agree with 100% - and all he is stating, is what he has noticed in his practice and research. One representative point for me, and I feel terrible for mentioning this, occurs when the author takes a long personal detour to talk about an early childhood lived in the shadow of the end stages of the Hungarian Holocaust. His suggestion is that this personal and family trauma led to his ADHD. The idea is an interesting one but is unsupported by any Holocaust-survivor research whatsoever (at least he doesn’t bother to mention any) or any research related to the relationship between trauma and ADHD more generally.