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.

On the westernmost shores of Canada, on Vancouver Island, one sees scruffy and twisted little conifers, stunted relatives of the magnificent fir trees that dominate the landscape just a short distance inland. We would be wrong to see these hearty little survivors as having some sort of plant disease; they have developed to the maximum that the relatively harsh conditions of climate and soil allow. If we wish to understand why they differ so dramatically from their inland relatives, we need to know under what conditions majestically tall, stout and ramrod-straight fir trees are able to thrive. It is the same with human beings. We do not have to look for diseases to explain why some people are not able to experience the full flowering of their potential. We have only to inquire what conditions sustain unfettered human development and what conditions hinder it.

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These medications work, too. They increase patients’ focus and calm them down. So it looks like pharmacological interventions are ironing out a biological kink. The ADD brain, the thinking goes, is miswired – and psychostimulants compensate for this genetic deficit. PDF / EPUB File Name: Scattered_Minds__The_Origins_and_Healing_o_-_Gabor_Mate.pdf, Scattered_Minds__The_Origins_and_Healing_o_-_Gabor_Mate.epub My only real point of contention is the author's assertion that tuning out and dissociation are the same thing. Sure, they can coexist at different levels at the same time, but in my experience they definitely are not the same thing. While Dr. Mate does give some credence to the genetics of ADD, he pretty much leaves the implications of this behind as he goes into a long description of failed or inadequate parental attachments being the primary reason for ADD symptomatology (as if the parents of ADD kids didn't feel guilty enough about passing on a genetic inheritance they most likely didn't know they had). Even if this was not the doctor's intent, it is so pervasive in this book that one cannot help but feel that if a child or an adult exhibits ADD symptoms, that there is "someone" to blame, not just for the genetic inheritance but for bad parenting."

I know, I know. You're reconsidering your opinion of my mental abilities and private beliefs. Before you make a final decision, let me share a few experiences. Explains that in ADD, circuits in the brain whose job is emotional self-regulation and attention control fail to develop in infancy – and why 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. I don’t think Maté goes so far as to argue that ADHD is definitively caused by “poor socialization or parenting,” as you put it. Perhaps I accidentally misrepresented his position in that regard. He doesn’t deny the potential role of biology/genetics here. Instead, I think he’s suggesting that socialization and parenting (primarily attachment dynamics) are major factors that can ameliorate and/or exacerbate ADHD when it presents in young people and adults. And since these are psychosocial factors over which we have more control compared to biology/genetics, I think that’s why he’s so focused on them. They’re not the only factors that matter, but when it comes to treatment they might be our strongest leverage points, especially for individuals and families who are not interested in using psychotropic medications. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1944, he is a survivor of the Nazi genocide. His maternal grandparents were killed in Auschwitz when he was five months old, his aunt disappeared during the war, and his father endured forced labour at the hands of the Nazis.

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The book also covers the specific behaviours we would see in children, the markers of low self-esteem that arise (and how to handle those), the issue of ‘counterwill’ and how to support teens who are showing that, the impact of implicit memory (and why the attachment issue is so important), how to self-parent yourself if you have ADHD and addictions (which have been found to be higher in those with ADHD). 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. However the book is positioned as a source of truth and insight into ADHD generally and he uses his role as a medical professional to provide authority to what he’s written. Never at rest the mind of the ADHD adult flits about like some deranged bird that can light here or there for a while but is perched no-where long enough to make a home.”

I realize this review was written quite some time ago. I’d have to disagree about a number of the conclusions mentioned here. While he is a doctor, he is not an expert in ADHD. The consensus among peer-reviewed sources is that ADHD is not caused by poor socialization or parenting. Most recently, he has written about his experiences working with addicts in In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. The parent not judging the child to pointing out faults, mistakes, shortcomings as shame will cut off the child. Let’s start with horses, though. An infant horse can run on the first day of its life. Like other young mammals, it is capable of extraordinary feats of neuro-physiological coordination at birth. The brain of a human infant, by contrast, has to develop for two years before the child can walk. Evolution selected for larger brains in humans compared to other mammals. We can’t get into why here, so let’s just note that human brains quadrupled in size since our species last shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees a million years ago. The upshot: our brains are premature at birth. They have to be. If they weren’t, our heads would be too large to pass through the birth canal. If we weren’t born at nine months, we wouldn’t be born at all.

So Maté's book interested me. His thesis: genetics and childhood attachment both play a part in ADHD. 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. 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. 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. Gabor Maté is a revered physician who specializes in neurology, psychiatry and psychology – and himself has ADD. With wisdom gained through years of medical practice and research, Scattered Minds is a must-read for parents – and for anyone interested how experiences in infancy shape the biology and psychology of the human brain.