highlights
11 highlights saved, filed under psychology.
- 01
People with ADD are hypersensitive. That is not a fault or a weakness of theirs, it is how they were born. It is their inborn temperament. That, primarily, is what is hereditary about ADD. Genetic inheritance by itself cannot account for the presence of ADD features in people, but heredity can make it far more likely that these features will emerge in a given individual, depending on circumstances. It is sensitivity, not a disorder, that is transmitted through heredity. In most cases, ADD is caused by the impact of the environment on particularly sensitive infants.
- 02
It may be said that no two children have exactly the same parents, in that the parenting they each receive may vary in highly significant ways.
- 03
ADD is not a problem of knowing what to do; it is a problem of doing what you know. — RUSSELL A. BARKLEY, PH.D., “Improved Delayed Responding”
- 04
A sense of urgency typifies attention deficit disorder, a desperation to have immediately whatever it is that one may desire at the moment, be it an object, an activity or a relationship.
- 05
The hallmark of ADD is an automatic, unwilled “tuning-out,” a frustrating nonpresence of mind. A person suddenly finds that he has heard nothing of what he has been listening to, saw nothing of what he was looking at, remembers nothing of what he was trying to concentrate on.
- 06
Completely lacking in the ADD mind is a template for order, a mental model of how order comes about.
- 07
What can be immobilizingly difficult is to arouse the brain’s motivational apparatus in the absence of personal interest.
- 08
The second nearly ubiquitous characteristic of ADD is impulsiveness of word or deed, with poorly controlled emotional reactivity.
- 09
The restlessness coexists with long periods of procrastination. The threat of failure or the promise of reward has to be immediate for the motivation apparatus to be turned on.
- 10
On the other hand, when there is something one wants, neither patience nor procrastination exist. One has to do it, get it, have it, experience it, immediately.
- 11
The common theme on all days, good or bad, is a gnawing sense of having missed out on something important in life.