Embracing A.D.D.
Embracing A.D.D.
A Healing Perspective
Lynn Weiss, PhD
TAYLOR TRADE PUBLISHING
Lanham Boulder New York London
Published by Taylor Trade Publishing
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Copyright 2015 by Lynn Weiss
All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weiss, Lynn.
Embracing A.D.D. : a healing perspective / Lynn Weiss Ph.D.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-58979-837-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-58979-838-0 (electronic) 1. Attention-deficit disorder in adultsPopular works. 2. Attention-deficit disorder in adultsTreatmentPopular works. 3. Self-care, Health. I. Title.
RC394.A85W446 2015
616.85'89dc23
2015006760
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Preface
I m a social scientist and field researcher whose strongest skill is my ability to use observation to learn, in contrast to learning about things taught by others. First I sense things, and only later follow what I suspect with questioning, further observation, and historical review.
Experiencing how and why something functions the way it does is more useful to me than learning what something is called or memorizing how something works. I want to know the effects of the environment and my involvement in what I am studying before I accept the results of anyone elses study.
In this book, Im going to tell you many stories of people who are endowed with a brain construction labeled Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). (For purposes of this book, well call them both ADD.) Youll be mentored, not just by me, but by the people who share their experiences in the telling of their stories. Finally, you will be provided with a paradigm for experiencing ADD that is different from the medically identified definition with which many of you may be familiarone that embraces the value of diversity within each of us.
My perspective has come from firsthand observations rather than from textbooks or experts or from anyone with a predominantly Linear brainstyle. Though I know the more popular belief about ADDas is identified within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , published by the American Psychiatric AssociationI have increasingly shifted away from the medical model in which it is framed.
I am by no means the first to consider a nonmedical approach. Others who laid the groundwork for looking at ADD from a different perspective than the medical model include James J. Chriss, associate professor of sociology at Cleveland State University, who wrote in 1937: The cure (for ADD) preceded the ailment. Before the disorder was named, drug treatment had been developed to subdue childrens unruly behavior. ( Social Control: An Introduction , Cambridge, CB 1HR UK, and Malden MA 02148, USA: Polity Press, 2013.)
Thomas Szasz reiterated in his book Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America in 2001 (Westport, CT: Praeger), Mental diseases are invented and then given a name, for example attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Jerome C. Wakefield, 2002, considered ADD to be a normal response to the constrictions of normal childhood activity in Values and the Validity of Diagnostic Criteria: Disvalued versus Disordered Conditions of Childhood and Adolescence, pp. 14864, in Descriptions and Prescriptions: Values, Mental Disorders, and the DSMs , ed. J. Z. Sadler. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
One might wonder why there is such a discrepancy between the beliefs held by different professionals working with ADD. Ive come to understand that frequently people experience situations and outcomes in dissimilar ways, coming away with differing conclusions that reflect their experience and the way in which their own perceptual system is constructed.I also know that the social structures and cultural settings in which each of us lives will affect our perceptions. So, too, will our personalities, brainstyles, and life experiences from childhood on impact what we experience.
There is little doubt in my mind that I see the perspective I do because of my brainstyle, which, by the way is very ADD, Analogue, and Nonlinear. What I choose to do in this book is to give you a perspective to consider, one some of you will find rewarding and freeing. Other readers may be uncomfortable with the direction Ive taken. Perhaps there will be readers who discount my perspective altogether.
Remember how you view any suggestions. If what you read resonates with your thinking and feeling, It feels right for me, then embrace it. If it does not feel comfortable or right for you, then set it aside as you shift toward a perspective with which you are comfortable.
I know that my perspective stems from an intense desire to see the best in people, to honor what each of us has rather than judge or dishonor what we dont have. I am not the better because I can view another as lesser. I experience our differences as simply different. I believe that there is a place for every one of us in the big scheme of things.
As you read through this book, I want you to notice how you feel about what you read. Is it enlightening? Does it engender hope? Does the information give you something that you can make use of? Can you identify with what you are reading for yourself or someone you care about? What I ask you to do is make up your own mind about whether my perspective of ADD resonates for you or not.
I am about to bring you a perspective of ADD that belies the title given to this particular style of brain construction. I bring you a way of looking at yourself and your wonderful brainstyle not as a pathological phenomenon requiring repair, but as a valid, though different, way of thinking, behaving, and expressing all that you are.
From my professional observations and intimate involvement with ADD adults for the past twenty-five years, I have pursued a path I didnt expect to find, much less follow. I did not start out with a hypothesis or expectations of what I would discover.
I was initially introduced to the subject in the late 1970s when I was consulting in educational settings, preschool through primary grades. From time to time, children were being identified with ADD. At the time, this was not my specialty, so I primarily observed their behavior and found them to be active, yes, but not extraordinarily out-of-control. They were too young to stand out that much from their kinesthetic learning peers and too young to diagnose with certainty. By early 1980, I began to be exposed to ADD in teens and adults. The result was my massive involvement with ADD in adults from that time on.
Embracing ADD is the result of forty years of self-study, teaching, training, and consulting in the fields of learning differences, counseling, and psychotherapy. I conducted multiple interviews in which I was able to observe and dialogue with the many people who sought assistance with something they didnt understand. I started a program for individuals who thought they recognized ADD attributes in their thinking and behavior and chose to develop support groups from the very beginning of the adult movement.
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