Some Thoughts on Attention Deficit Disorder

Recently attention deficit disorder (ADD) has been much on my mind.  I have had patients come to me with ADD; people with ADD have come into my life; it has given me a lot to think about.

For those who do not know much about this diagnosis, ADD refers to the inability to hold one’s attention.  An ADD person trying to focus finds himself repeatedly getting distracted, often doing things completely unrelated to the task at hand.  They often feel like they are swimming in a sea of random thoughts. 

ADHD is mostly the same but includes an “:H” for hyperactivity, which means that the person is restless, sometimes to the point of being completely unable to sit still.  It is noticeable most in children, because In school they tend to repeatedly get out of their chairs and disrupt the class.

I have done some reviewing of the popular literature surrounding adult ADD, written both for the ADD person and those trying to understand and deal with them.  According to these experts, ADD is a brain abnormality that lands on a person the way, say, a meteor falls out of the sky.  Does it hit Dallas or does it hit Waco?   Who knows?  It’s an outcome of the randomness of the universe. 

I have not seen one sliver of evidence in my practice to support this.

From the cases I have taken of people with ADD or ADHD, I can say the following:

1)  The names ADD and ADHD are tags that only see the tip of the iceberg.  Underneath lie issues entirely specific to the individual.   

2)  A significant portion of the time, there is intense fear at deeper levels, particularly in children. As people grow into adults, the childhood fear remains, but tends to be more difficult to access.

3) In spite of the difficulties it causes, there is always some “gain” for the person in their inability to fix their attention.  By looking at what they tend to avoid in life, there may be clues to this.  However, what is avoided in life may not directly connect to what is going on underneath. 

I can give an example of this.  A number of months ago, a saw a child of 7 for ADD with some hyperactivity.  The child could not focus attention, and, in spite of obvious intelligence, was doing poorly in school.  His mother remarked that the child “seemed anxious.”   As I took this child’s case, the word “murder” came up about seven times throughout the two hours I spent with the child.   This was so even though there was no violence in the child’s history whatsoever.  The most violent incident in the child’s life was a bad knock to the head at two years of age.   What was “murder” doing repeatedly coming up in this child’s vocabulary and in his dreams? 

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting home alone at night.  You are doing your taxes.  Suddenly you hear footsteps in the house.  You fear the worst, a man with a long knife has found entrance.  You are not alone. 

Question:  Would you be able to focus on your taxes? 

if you answered “no,” welcome to the inner life of this child.  There are no murderers hanging around this child, yet the child is living life as if there were.  This child had intense fear of violence, of monsters, of large things in general, of being hurt and having to go the hospital.  Fear was all over this case.  Almost nothing else came up in the two hours I spent with the child.  This child’s inability to focus was not the  outcome of some random act of the universe, causing a chemical abnormality of the brain.  The inability to focus was a direct result of living constantly in fear. 

Let’s fast forward 20 years. Let’s say this person presented at my office at age 27 rather than 7.  The anxiousness and restlessness have never gone away.  Now, though, when I take the case, the word “murder” does not appear.  As an adult, this person learned that expressing irrational fears is not acceptable, thus this person learned to eliminate  “murder” from his vocabulary.  For me as the homeopath, however, the key issue “fear of murder” has to be found all the same. It didn’t go away; it simply was repressed.  This person still needs a homeopathic remedy that will take away the irrational fear of murder.  This is the amazing thing about homeopathy:  pin the issue (e.g. fear of violence and murder) and the state it represents, give the exact remedy that mirrors that state, and poof, the fear evaporates and the person relaxes and can focus.

There are many completely different issues that lie underneath the letters "ADD."  I remember one case of a child who appeared very sleepy and whose ADD had to do with this sleepy relationship to life.  Even in his dreams this was the case.  In one dream he was being attacked by something scary--and he fell asleep.  Imagine that, falling asleep in your dream!  I gave him a homeopathic remedy that mirrored this sleepy, scared state; and it cured his ADD. 

Human beings are remarkably integrated.  It is doubtful that anything that happens to us is truly random.  Every physical or mental disease we have expresses something integral about us and who we are.  The difficulty with diagnoses such as “ADD” is that they may hide more than they reveal.

Comments

[Leona]

Wow, it is so amazing that I found your blog. I saw you when you were a resident? at lehigh valley hospital. You were my doctor. Though you were at the end of your term there. Since you were leaving and weren't going to be around for the birth of my baby, you recommended Dr. Nicklin. Thank you for that. She is the most caring doctor that I ever met.

Well, the baby is 9 years old now. He's been diagnosed with ADD, SAD and anxiety. Been this way since he was 3. Before that he was the happiest child. He is the most scared person that I know. He is afraid of everything.
I saved all his drawings when he was younger. They were always dark..burning buildings, broken glass.
I am going to try to address the fear...Its worth a shot.
It was an interesting post. Thanks.