Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It

Having been in therapy longer than Woody Allen, I practice what Karl Menninger called `bibliotherapy'-i.e., reading widely and deeply in the field of mental or emotional disorders. Since I'm a voracious reader, and since I've been doing this for twenty years, I sometimes feel there isn't much left for a layman to learn, or at least nothing much that could be called new. But Dr. Mate's book is wonderfully helpful on two fronts: first, it is a "why-you-or-your -child-are-like-this" book, and second, it is a "and-here-is-what-you-can-do-to-allieviate-the-condition"book. Not cure it, mind you, just make the cards you drew a little easier to play.On the first front, the neurobiology of ADD, Dr. Mate makes his point conclusively: this disorder arises first in the infant, in how he or she is wired-or not-and it occurs in the make-up of the hypersensitive baby, highly aware and from the very beginning suffering at the smallest slings and arrows life offers. Resilient children roll with the punches; ADD kids are flattened by them and get back up more slowly. Momma used to call this type "high-strung" and, boy, was she ever right. Dr. Mate even points out a study done on the vagus nerve of five-month old babies that turns out to be highly predictive of which of them will later, at fourteen months, prove to be "more reactive to maternal separation." In other words, ADD could as well serve as an acronym for Attachment Deficit Disorder. People who are hypersensitive have a disordered attachment to their caretakers that is pre-verbal and pervasive. One had better learn to deal with the fact that the fault is mainly synpatical, not social. My family doctor told me that my then-nine-year-old son suffered from severe separation anxiety because he hadn't been in pre-school or away from his parents enough. Fortunately, a more knowledgeable child psychiatrist said it was inborn so we could relax and quit blaming ourselves. Whew....That doesn't mean that experiencing this hypersensitivity isn't damaging, even with a more-than-good-enough mother. Or that nurturing a hypersensitive child is easy. It is much more tiring and trying to deal with the ADD child than it is with his or her more resilient sibling.The ADD child triggers anxiety in even the most competent parent. So, it is on the second front, the practical things to do, that this book is most helpful, even hopeful. I return to it again and again (that is, when I haven't mislaid it in one of my more driven ADD moments) to remind myself what to do and what not to do to help myself and my similarly-wired son. For instance, the section on the counter-will-an idea I'd not heard before-made me understand why I am more often than not so suspicious of authority figures. I used to think it was very adolescent of me, and now Dr. Mate tells me it is, and that this is a component of ADD. It was from this notion of a counter-will that I began my search on ways to strengthen the will itself, so as to disengage this adversarial part of me, the counter-will, that aspect of us that doesn't trust. It has been an interesting and fruitful search and I am grateful to Dr. Mate for giving me new ways to think about this way of being in the world.By the time the ADD child arrives at school, the disconnectedness is ingrained. We are attuned to every slight, intended or not. Other kids find ADDers just as trying as the grown-ups do-it takes a lot of energy to interact with a `wild child' who hogs the teacher's attention or a distracted one whose hypersensitivity presents the perfect opportunity to torture for fun and profit. I've yet to find an ADD adult who liked the social aspects of school, or didn't have horror stories about cruel peers and teachers...The most important chapters for me have been the ones on medication and on self-parenting. The first, medication, gives the limits of pharmocological help for this disorder. It is very clear about what medicine can and cannot do and the importance of finding a knowledgeable physician. The second, self-parenting, seems like a Mobius strip until Dr. Mate takes apart the results of life-time conditioning and explains the qualities one needs-compassion for self and others, curiosity rather than blame or judgment-in order to embark on a course of change. Whether one has to structure things by herself, or has the good fortune to find competent professional help, Dr. Mate's book is of inestimable help on that journey.In fact, every time my ADD tendencies pop up and I lose my copy of Scattered, I buy another. And now that my stepson has been diagnosed with ADD, I have an extra copy or two to give his suffering parents, though I would not be without this book.Scattered is definitely a keeper.

I recently completed a master's in counseling and guidance and have been reading to find a set of books that will best address some of the disorders in the DSM-IV. Following is a list I have put together from my reading so far, and these are books that I would HIGHLY recommend. I would like to say up front that the DSM-IV is full of very normal behaviors that for some reason have become magnified or exaggerated in an individual to the point of causing a negative impact in their daily lives. Take OCD for example, it is quite normal and even preferable (from a safety perspective) to check and be sure that one has turned off all the burners on the stove after cooking, or to be sure the back door is locked before going to bed. But to continue checking time and again would be problematic and can lead to problems in an individual's life. Something is diagnosed as a disorder when it moves from being a "normal" activity to being something that causes dysfunction in daily living. So, one may read the DSM-IV and see themselves reflected in many of the disorders. The question is always: is this behavior negatively impacting my life? If so then that is when it crosses the line of normal and needs to be treated.ADHD (attention deficit disorder)* Book = "Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates And What You Can Do About It" - Gabor Mateo This is not just a great book for folks with ADHD, but for everyone - as many of the lessons here translate to all of us. This is an extremely excellent book on ADHD and living in general.OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)* Book = "Tormenting Thoughts and Secret Rituals: The Hidden Epidemic of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" - Ian Osborno Excellent book on OCD - this book will help individuals with OCD as well as those who know someone with the disorder - to understand what is happening in the mind of a person with this disorder. This book will also help OCD folks realize that they are not alone and that many of the rituals or compulsions are shared by other folks with OCD.Depersonalization Disorder - essentially feeling like you are not really there* Book = "Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self" - Daphne Simeon and Jeffrey Abugelo Excellent book which will help folks understand this disorder. This is for me a very interesting disorder, I think this is one disorder where the connection between our ego consciousness and perhaps what we are at a much deeper level is challenged. Normally we are locked into full belief in our reality - we believe we are very much a part of it and that we "are" the body in which we reside. This disorder forces us to question if we are the body we think we are. It would appear that whatever piece of our mind is keeping us in full belief is breaking down a bit, leaving us a bit outside of the "normal" feeling of being the body. Folks with this disorder can actually worry that they do not have control of their body and that this body may do something they do not want it to do. Driving a car for example can be quite traumatic if you think your body may be acting without your input.Bipolar disorder - the book I am recommending is focused on Bipolar II disorder - essentially swinging from manic (very happy and carefree) to severe depression. This book was actually required reading during the Masters program* Book = "An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness" by Kay Redfield Jamisono Excellent book written by a psychologist who suffers from this disorder. This book helps to understand the importance of medication for this disorder, as well as the path of destruction that can easily be paved during carefree, manic episodes.Depression; I believe there are two sources for depression: one source is our own minds, we think ourselves into the depression - at least in this case we know where it is coming from and we should be able to step behind our thoughts and help ourselves move in a better direction. The other source seemingly comes from nowhere; one minute we are okay and the next we are thrown into the depths* Book = "Transforming Depression: Healing the Soul Through Creativity"- David H. Rosen"o I would recommend reading this at least through chapter 4, going further than that delves into some deep Jungian psychology which will not likely appeal to everyone. I certainly enjoy Jungian psychology and believe that Jung's work will become more and more important and critical to our understanding as we move forward in this field of psychology. Jung's psychology is really on the borderland between spirit/soul and the science of psychology and it is Jung's work that brought me into this field. However it is quite complex/deep/different and may lose some readers. For a very good intro to Jung's work, I would recommend "The Essential Jung" by Anthony Storr, but this is not light reading as is composed of excerpts from Jung's collected works.* Book = "Man's Search for Meaning" - Viktor Franklo I would recommend this book for two primary reasons: one is it pushes very strongly the message that meaning is essential in our lives - as shown through Victor Frankl's imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps. Frankl comments on how he observed the individuals who gave up the fight and died, and the individuals who persevered - and most importantly what it was that he believes made the difference. The other reason I recommend this book is that it helps the individuals whose thoughts may have led them to depression to realize that things could be worse. Of course there are devastations we may face that can truly be to us, just as bad as a Nazi concentration camps, but for the most part, we often push ourselves into depression for reasons that are somewhat superficial compared to other realities.That is all for now, but I am still reading

Like all his books, this one deals with a common problem with insights to non-traditional thoughts and conclusions that ring true paralleling today's forefront neuroscience. Kudos once again to Dr. Mate for his honest and revelations, about ADHD and it's personal and social costs.

One of the most important reads about ADD that not only shows it in new perspectives but lays hope for real improvement. Highly recomended.

I've lost count of the amount of so called 'life changing' books I've read, many of which didn't live up to the hype. Whilst such a term is of course completely subjective, for someone with ADHD I dare say that 'Scattered' by Dr Gabor Mate not only meets, but exceeds the criteria. Over the past year, since my own diagnoses, I have been devouring every bit of information I could find regarding ADHD, and there's A LOT out there. At first it's hugely reassuring to learn there's an explanation for the continual frustrations, confusions, anxieties and repeated failures that have made up a large percentage of both your childhood and adult life. However the vast array of conflicting information, thoughts, theories, and opinions on offer can soon become perplexing and even damaging. For some, ADHD is a medical disorder and needs to treated as such, for others it's a gift they wouldn't change for the world, and of course for others, it shouldn't even exist. All of these views have nearly limitless supporting arguments and examples, which while often interesting, do little to help the individual actually grasp, make sense of and improve their own life situation, apart from follow the well worn route to medicalization .Dr Mate succeeds by being able to acknowledge many of these conflicting viewpoints whilst pointing to a much more holistic understanding of the causes behind the development of ADHD symptoms, both in children and adults. He does not deny that ADHD symptoms often lie in neurological impairments, only that these impairments are not necessarily the sole result of a purely genetic cause. He explains that in a vast majority of cases there is evidence to suggest the underlying causes as being related to the formative experiences of a child's emotional bonding to it's care givers. In the early years of a child's life such experiences massively impact the brains development. Traumas or lack of emotional nurture in times of infantile stress can literally 'freeze' the development of key areas of a child's neurology which then result in patterns of behavior that become the well known symptoms of ADHD. I won't go into details of how this is all explained. but will say that Dr Mate makes an extremely convincing case, one which offers hope that such symptoms don't need to be simply 'put up with' or only medicated but can be adequately treated, even reversed, by forming a deeper understanding of one's emotional upbringing, healing and then meeting the needs not originally met in childhood. Not only can this have a tremendous positive effect on one's own life it can also cut the generational inheritance of ADHD symptoms within a family by not recreating environments of upbringing that only seem to foster the development of such traits.Whether deep 'emotional healing' can truly reverse ADHD symptoms in all those diagnosed is something that can only be answered individually. Yet for somebody to first explore such avenues one needs to first raise the possibility and the understanding behind it. In respect of that I can only thank Dr Gabor Mate for this original and potentially life changing contribution. If you have ADHD you owe it to yourself and your family, current or otherwise, to at least seriously consider the contents of this book. I don't think I can say more than that.

E' molto raro trovare un libro accessibile al pubblico generale che spiega un fenomeno in termini cosi chiari ma senza semplicismi o riduzionisimi biologici. Un libro di un autore con moltissima empatia e anche molta preparazione scientifica.

Great