As is true for chil­dren and ado­les­cents, many adults expe­ri­ence sub­stan­tial chal­lenges relat­ed to hav­ing ADHD. These chal­lenges usually embrace rela­tion­ship prob­lems, edu­ca­tion­al and work chal­lenges, dif­fi­cul­ty adher­ing to long-term plans and targets, and time and mon­ey man­age­ment difficulties.

Giv­en these well-doc­u­ment­ed dif­fi­cul­ties, it isn’t sur­pris­ing that ADHD deal with­ment with adults has giant­ly undertake­ed a deficit mod­el that empha­sizes reduc­ing the symp­toms and impair­ments asso­ci­at­ed with the situation.

Whereas these are impor­tant deal with­ment targets, and the main focus of a lot deal with­ment analysis, lit­tle atten­tion has been giv­en to pos­i­tive points of ADHD that some could expe­ri­ence. Attend­ing to that is impor­tant, because it may cut back stig­ma, professional­vide concepts a couple of strength-based approached to deal with­ment, and per­haps con­tribute to reduc­ing the demor­al­iza­tion that some adults with ADHD expertise.

A examine pub­lished latest­ly in BMJ Open, titled Sil­ver lin­ings of ADHD: a the­mat­ic analy­sis of adults’ pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences with liv­ing with ADHD, professional­vides inter­est­ing new infor­ma­tion on the pos­i­tive fea­tures of ADHD that some adults report.

Par­tic­i­pants have been 50 adults in Norway–almost 90% have been girls; media age = 34 years–with self-report­ed ADHD who have been par­tic­i­pat­ing in a examine of a brand new on-line, self-direct­ed deal with­ment for ADHD in adults (examine sum­ma­ry right here).

Dur­ing the examine, par­tic­i­pants have been requested to explain what they expe­ri­enced as “pos­i­tive points of hav­ing ADHD” and 4 the­mat­ic cat­e­gories emerged from their responses.

1) Recognizing the twin impression of some ADHD traits:

Many par­tic­i­pants stat­ed that core ADHD char­ac­ter­is­tics like hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty and impul­siv­i­ty may very well be expe­ri­enced as pos­i­tive fea­tures. Beneath are some rel­e­vant quotes:

“I’m lively. I’m usually in a position to do lots in a brief peri­od of time after which I get to expe­di­ence extra.”

“Whether it is some­factor I actual­ly like, I’ve guess­ter endurance than oth­ers. I can work on some­factor I get pleasure from for­ev­er with­out stopping.”

“I’m spontaneous/impulsive. I can eas­i­ly simply ‘bounce into it’ and that has giv­en me a number of nice experiences.”

Hyper­fo­cus­ing was additionally com­mon­ly males­tioned as an ADHD advan­tage, albeit with some impor­tant caveats.

“I believe my ADHD has helped me by means of­out the examination peri­od. If it had not been for a type of hyper­fo­cus, it could not have labored. However then once more, I may not have put up­poned the learn­ing for so long as I did if I did­n’t have ADHD.”

“The one pos­i­tive is hyper­fo­cus on duties which are actual­ly excit­ing, however for ADHD to be con­sid­ered pos­i­tive on this set­ting, the duty must be some­factor use­ful, similar to faculty or work.”

It’s notice­wor­thy that solely a sin­gle par­tic­i­pant not­ed any pos­i­tive facet of their inat­ten­tive signs.

2) Unconventional pondering:

Uncon­ven­tion­al assume­ing and behav­ior have been additionally com­mon­ly not­ed as pos­i­tive points of ADHD. These includ­ed being cre­ative, hav­ing nov­el concepts, see­ing issues from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive than oth­ers, and being good at discover­ing solu­tions. Par­tic­i­pants additionally empha­sized, how­ev­er, that the social con­textual content and expec­ta­tions of oth­ers may very well be an obsta­cle for uti­liz­ing these strengths. Quotes relat­ed to this theme are proven beneath.

“I’m cre­ative and solu­tion-ori­ent­ed and really pas­sion­ate concerning the issues that I’m inter­est­ed in.”

“I get pleasure from attempt­ing new issues, and if I don’t get it proper the primary time, I’ll examination­ine the pos­si­bil­i­ty of attempt­ing a sim­pler methodology.”

“I’m pret­ty for­ward, and I’m not afraid to take up house after I want a little bit of atten­tion. I do know a number of peo­ple and that’s prob­a­bly as a result of I’m not scared to say hello to new individuals.”

3) ADHD & the pursuit of latest experiences:

Par­tic­i­pants felt that hav­ing ADHD con­tributed to their being adven­tur­ous and search­ing out nov­el expe­ri­ences; this con­tributed to really feel­ings of being coura­geous. Listed here are some rel­e­vant quotes:

“I search new envi­ron­ments the place I can study new issues”

“I get pleasure from attempt­ing new issues, and if I don’t get it proper the primary time, I’ll examination­ine the pos­si­bil­i­ty of attempt­ing a sim­pler methodology.”

“I’ve expe­ri­enced issues that solely would have hap­pened by tak­ing a danger ”

4) Constructing resilience and private progress:

Espe­cial­ly pow­er­ful was the sense that though hav­ing ADHD was chal­leng­ing, efforts to deal with these chal­lenges additionally con­tributed to their resilience and per­son­al progress. This theme is evident­ly expressed within the quotes beneath.

“Being diag­nosed with ADHD made me study lots about myself. Issues I per­haps have been aggravated about, I can now settle for and assume that it isn’t ‘my fault’ in a method.”

“I’m guess­ter at han­dling resis­tance or chal­lenges now, as a result of I’ve discovered to han­dle such chal­lenges, it’s a part of life to have ups and downs.”

“I dis­cov­ered that I’ve ADHD in grownup­hood, so I lived most of my life within the perception that I’m like each­one else. I’ve had excessive expec­ta­tions to myself, com­pared myself to oth­ers, and achieved lots (…) So after I came upon about my chal­lenges, all of it grew to become like a bit of cake. I may with good rea­sons low­er the expec­ta­tions to myself and ultimate­ly relaxation with a transparent conscience.”

One par­tic­i­pant who labored as a instructor felt that “I discover that I can meet chil­dren with ADHD with extra underneath­stand­ing, in order that they really feel secure with me fast­ly, and I do know I may help them in chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions, or pre­pare them a bit additional, in order that they’re able to get by means of their faculty day.”

Abstract and implications:

This inter­est­ing qual­i­ta­tive examine explor­ing adults’ expe­ri­ence of the pos­i­tive points of hav­ing ADHD provides an impor­tant per­spec­tive on the dis­or­der. Whereas clear­ly acknowl­edg­ing that ADHD cre­at­ed chal­lenges for them, their per­cep­tion that ADHD additionally made pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions to their lives is an impor­tant coun­ter­weight to focus­ing sole­ly on deficits.

One impli­ca­tion of those discover­ings is that the assess­ment and deal with­ment of ADHD in adults ought to embrace an explo­ration of any strengths and assets that indi­vid­u­als really feel ADHD has con­tributed to. That is con­sis­tent with the view that probably the most effec­tive psy­chother­a­py will embrace a deal with purchasers’ strengths and resilience in addi­tion to ame­lio­rat­ing symp­toms and deficits.

Because the authors notice, “by placing an empha­sis on the total vary of expe­ri­ences relat­ed to ADHD, each good and dangerous, one may have the ability to supply deal with­ment inter­ven­tions extra according to the wants of adults with ADHD, which can be favor­in a position for deal with­ment have interaction­ment and clin­i­cal out­comes. For example, ther­a­pist may assist adults with ADHD to iden­ti­fy strengths, which can be ben­e­fi­cial for shallowness and self-efficacy.”

With­in cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral ther­a­py, one may additionally use pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences with ADHD to reframe neg­a­tive auto­mat­ic ideas or mal­adap­tive cog­ni­tions. These spec­u­la­tions ought to certainly professional­vide inter­est­ing prime­ics for fur­ther stud­ies. A deal with pos­i­tive sides to ADHD with­in analysis might also have soci­etal impli­ca­tions by chang­ing social per­cep­tion round ADHD and by this reduc­ing stig­ma relat­ed to the analysis.

There are sev­er­al points with this examine to rec­og­nize. First, the sam­ple is rel­a­tive­ly small, pre­dom­i­nant­ly feminine, and Nor­we­gian. Thus, the extent to which these discover­ings would gen­er­al­ize to males with ADHD and adults from the US and oth­er coun­tries just isn’t sure.

In addi­tion, by fram­ing the immediate to have par­tic­i­pants to explain what they expe­ri­enced as “pos­i­tive points of hav­ing ADHD’, some par­tic­i­pants could have gen­er­at­ed pos­i­tive fea­tures to com­ply with the ques­tion, and never nec­es­sar­i­ly as a result of they actu­al­ly expe­ri­enced pos­i­tive points of ADHD. Ask­ing “Are there any points of hav­ing ADHD that you’ve expe­ri­enced as pos­i­tive” may have lowered the demand char­ac­ter­is­tic of the query.

Last­ly, it ought to be not­ed that par­tic­i­pants per­cep­tions should not nec­es­sar­i­ly objec­tive­ly true and pos­i­tive con­se­quences they described from hav­ing ADHD con­ceiv­ably may have lit­tle direct­ly con­nec­tion to the dis­or­der. Even so, how­ev­er, one may argue that what peo­ple per­ceive to be the case about their lives is what mat­ters most.

Whereas these are all impor­tant points to con­sid­er in sub­se­quent analysis. attend­ing to what some adults expe­ri­ence as pos­i­tive points of ADHD is an impor­tant difficulty to pur­sue. Because the authors notice, explor­ing the total vary of expe­ri­ences asso­ci­at­ed with ADHD in adults could extra ful­ly cap­ture what their life is like and should improve adults’ have interaction­ment in remedy.

This per­spec­tive might also con­tribute to incor­po­rat­ing the recog­ni­tion of strengths and resilience into deal with­ment, fairly than a extra exclu­sive deal with symp­toms, impair­ments, and deficits.

– Dr. David Rabin­er is a baby clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and Direc­tor of Underneath­grad­u­ate Stud­ies within the Depart­ment of Psy­chol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty. He pub­lish­es the Atten­tion Analysis Replace, a web-based newslet­ter that helps par­ents, professional­fes­sion­als, and edu­ca­tors sustain with the lat­est analysis on ADHD.

The Research in Context: