As a child psychiatrist, I’m often asked to see children who are excessively distractible, impulsive, and restless, who have difficulty focussing and who may have academic problems. Their parents are often at their wits end saying he (and it’s usually a boy) doesn’t listen or do what is asked. It is my practice to do a comprehensive assessment and get parents to read one of a number of books on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It has not been uncommon to have the fathers come back and tell me that the books are describing them and it’s been a relief to know they are not stupid or bad. The odd one will shamefacedly tell me that they took their child’s stimulant medication and that it made a huge difference being able to start and finish a project without getting side tracked.
Studies suggest that about 5–8% of a random sample of the population of children have this combination of symptoms. In the old days, we thought it was a childhood disorder and that people out grew this way of being. Now we know adults can have it too and can benefit from comprehensive assessment and treatment.
I chose to review this book to get a better feel for the parents of the children I was seeing. I liked their first book Driven to Distraction because of the emphasis on strategies and that medication was not prescribed as the first and only intervention. The plus is the emphasis on the positive parameters; that all is not doom and gloom and, as the authors state, “ADD is not a mental disorder but is a collection of traits and delineates a way of being in the world.” The negative resembles the condition in that I found the book a bit impulsive and espousing diagnostic tests and treatments not generally available or proven as effective.
I liked the organization. The first chapter is a ‘skinny’ for people who don’t read books all the way through. They then go on to describe what it is like to have ADHD and as well, people who are highly effective with ADHD (in fact, like the authors). After stories, they move on to diagnosis and then treatment. In the treatment section they cover areas that I’ve not seen written about anywhere, such as going to college, ADHD in families, sex and ADHD, choosing a mate and living with someone with ADHD. The chapters on medications provide a good review of the different medications, pros and cons. They conclude with tips on getting “well enough organized” and what good treatment must include.’
I would recommend this book to patients, their families and clinicians with the proviso that there is a full discussion of diagnosis and how one lives with “this way of being” to get the most out of life. They recommend comprehensive assessment, then multi modal treatment with no quick fixes and emphasize that human relationships are the core of treatment. The appendix also lists other books on the subject along with support and education resources.