Over the years I have found it more useful to limit the term mental illness to severe psychiatric disorders only. By these I mean disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar one mood disorders, and severe major depressive disorders. I do believe most forms of adult ADHD are simply variations on human experience and neurocognitive processing style. if unaddressed and mismanaged in youth, many forms of ADHD can morph into more severe forms of mood or anxiety disorders in adulthood. If one learns how to manage and harvest the beneficial aspects of ADHD such as problem-solving, hyper focusing, intuitiveness, creativity, atypical time management techniques, etc. then what we refer to as adult ADHD could be a model for neurocognitive styles. These styles can be managed for completion of certain tasks that require sustained attention. Treatment then is focused on managing problematic aspects and symptoms specific to various contexts and not a global approach as an illness!. This has huge implications in self perception.
Low frustration tolerance is a hallmark of the ADHD sufferers. The scenario goes something like this: You are trying to focus on completing your expense report, and the guy from the next cubicle in...
Over the years I have found it more useful to limit the term mental illness to severe psychiatric...
One of the more challenging aspects of my my work as a psychiatrist is when patients with good intentions come in to the office with a self-diagnosis of ADHD. They are completely convinced af...