Attention what?

[jackofallgeeks]

I don't think I believe that ADHD exists. I don't know anything, mind, I'm hardly a qualified professional and I've only done the barest amount of reading on the subject. But what I have found makes me think it's another case of self-overmedication that our society is so fond of. The 'symptoms' don't seem to be anything more than a lack of self-control or discipline, which most kids have naturally and will retain unless self-control and discipline are instilled in them by adults. That being the case, it wouldn't surprise me if more kids lacked necessary self-control because many parents can not or will not discipline their children, and 'finding' a new disease lets us medicate our children into a docile, managable state.

That's the theory i'm working on at the moment? any of you out there want to help do some of the foot work and point me toward articles et cetera that might support or contradict such a theory?

Comments

respectfully submitted

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

Um, the problem I have with this is your methodology. You have to ask an awful lot of questions about your terminology and premises. before you can make a judgement like this with any confidence.

For example, when you say something like, "the symptoms don't seem to be anything more than a lack of self-control and discipline," you are making a whole horde of philosophical commitments about what things like "self-control" and "discipline" are and where they come from. You have to be on guard against leaping to conclusions based on your own worldview, and making assumptions based on things it's not occurred to you to question.

(BTW, I'm not trying to say you haven't thought of this already, or that you're doing a bad job. I think those blind spots are inevitable, and everybody from the man on the street to the most educated expert has them. No amount of mere knowledge will protect from them, because this is about how one connects the things one knows.)

Anyhow, the first and foremost objection that I'd raise is that by saying "ADHD doesn't exist, it's just a lack of self-control and discipline," you're already drawing a conclusion without even having looked at any medical facts. You're assuming that there is a meaningful distinction between a neurochemical status and a character defect. There might be a good case to be made for that, but my advice is you've gotta start from proving that and work your way forwards.

My take on it is that the distinction isn't all that strong. "Willpower" and "discipline" are just primitive, societally constructed forms of cognitive therapy. When you are "disciplined," you are conditioning your brain to act in certain ways. Why would this necessarily disprove that there is an underlying neurochemical condition that produces hyperactive behavior in the first place? Or is that not what you mean by "the disorder doesn't really exist?"

I think every question you're asking is legitimate. All I can say is you've opened up one hell of an interesting can of worms here. I hope my response makes some sense, tentative and incomplete as it is, and I'd love to talk this out with you a lot more. I could go on for pages and pages about this. :)