Scattered

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) has quickly become a controversial topic in recent years. Whereas other books on the subject describe the condition as inherited, Dr. Gabor Maté believes that our social and emotional environments play a key role in both the cause of and cure for this condition. In Scattered, he describes the painful realities of ADD and its effect on children as well as on career and social paths in adults. While acknowledging that genetics may indeed play a part in predisposing a person toward ADD, Dr. Maté moves beyond that to focus on the things we can control: changes in environment, family dynamics, and parenting choices. He draws heavily on his own experience with the disorder, as both an ADD sufferer and the parent of three diagnosed children. Providing a thorough overview of ADD and its treatments, Scattered is essential and life-changing reading for the millions of ADD sufferers in North America today.

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I finished this book a couple of weeks ago, and thought it was very helpful. I wanted to read it partly because Gabor Maté's other books (When the Body Says No and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts) had been so helpful to people here on the forum, and partly because it had been suggested to me that I had some qualities that seemed ADDish. Before reading Scattered, I had a more stereotypical idea of what ADD looked like, and wasn't sure I fit the description -- after reading it, however, I feel like it fits me quite well, and reading about Maté's own experiences with ADD has been very useful.

As it mentions in the summary above, Maté goes beyond many other books on ADD in addressing both nature and nurture. Regarding the former, he hypothesizes that people with ADD tend to be born with more sensitive temperaments, something which can actually be measured physically in infants. While Elaine Aron's book ended up being problematic for various reasons, Scattered could have easily been subtitled "The Highly Sensitive Person", and will probably be useful for anyone who feels they fit that description.

Regarding the latter, Maté emphasizes the role of connection, first with parents and caregivers in childhood, and later with significant others (including close friends) later in life. He says at one point that ADD is literally "Attention Deficit Disorder" -- meaning that children with ADD have suffered from a lack of attention from the caregivers which they were supposed to bond with early in life. He is very slow to assign blame to parents for this, however, arguing that in today's society it is nearly impossible not to be neglectful as a parent to some extent, particularly when they are under financial, work, and other kinds of pressure. Part of what makes the book so attractive is that Maté freely discusses his own shortcomings as a parent and spouse, and what he has learned from these as he has studied ADD and worked with his own patients.

There are several concepts which Maté introduces that I found useful. One example is 'time-blindness', where the adult suffers from an inability to make realistic temporal judgments, often procrastinating or biting off more than they can chew due to a kind of wishful thinking, which he relates to an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex (something which he argues characterizes the ADD personality in general). Another is 'counterwill', which is the resistance (either active or passive) that a child erects as a defense to being forced to do something for the sake or convenience of the parent, which is later habitualized to the detriment of the child as they mature and it stops serving a useful function.

Overall, it's a highly engaging book and is applicable to a wide range of people and situations -- I highly recommend it.

Thanks for posting this Shijing. You have made a very good summary of the book. I am almost finished, and have a lot of highlights/notes that I would like to organise and discuss more. For now however I will speak from my current understanding and link a piece of info that I found interesting.

I am a long time sufferer of nearly all of the symptoms that Dr. Mate describes in Scattered, and through my own recent research into my own uncontrollable pleasure-seeking patterns I have been looking into dopamine a whole lot. Addiction and ADD are very much intertwined, and this book is a great compliment to In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by the same author.

In terms of healing, he talks a lot about providing the right environment of compassionate, validating people, as well as self compassion, which can be neatly understood by reading the recent popular article on addiction. As well as this, I have been looking into the pratical side of healing, which so far I think involves gradually building the "willpower muscle", both through the removal of things that trigger a large release of dopamine with little effort, and adding difficult activities that generate more dopamine receptors and help build those prefrontal cortex pathways associated with self-regulation, impulse control, social skills etc.

Today I found this interesting summary of the practical side of healing on a forum dedicated to Persistent Finasteride Propecia side-effects. Basically, replace "PFS" with any symptom of ADD. _http://www.propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=4481&hilit=dopamine+receptors

A lot of discussion has been had regarding the role of dopamine in the side effects we have been facing. Numerous people have claimed to have some, albeit, short-lived, results with anti-depressants and l-tyrosine. However, I theorize that a lack of dopamine may not be the cause of our issues, but rather a lack of dopamine receptors.

Consider the occasions where a PFS sufferer has taken l-tyrosine (a dopamine precursor) or Wellbutrin (a dopamine reuptake inhibitor) only to find temporary relief, and sometimes, even find themselves feeling worse than they did prior to their supplementation. I find it possible that the reason the positive effects are transient is because by increasing dopamine, PFS sufferers actually begin to further decrease their levels of dopamine receptors. An influx of dopamine, such as is seen in cocaine users, actually causes the body to respond by decreasing the number of dopamine receptors (thus creating a tolerance). In order to feel the same, one needs to increase the source of dopamine, causing more losses to the number of dopamine receptors. Similar effects have been found in obese people, where obese persons, possibly due consistently rewarding oneself with food, have less dopamine receptors than their thinner counterparts (http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2001/bnlpr020101.htm).

I find further support for the dopamine receptor theory in the results seen by those who have seen improvements via exercise and/or fasting. Exercise is generally known to increase dopamine production, and consistent exercise increases the level of dopamine receptors. While people such as japanther have claimed success via fasting because fasting has "detoxification" properties, I believe that fasting may contribute to PFS healing via dopamine receptor increases. Fasting has been scientifically proven to increase the count of dopamine receptors one has (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025091036.htm)

...

If on a day to day basis, a PFS sufferer has 10 available dopamine receptors and 5 units of dopamine floating around, then he is at 50% utilization. However, if he takes some l-tyrosine or some Wellbutrin, he may achieve 100% efficiency by making 5 more dopamine units available. But, if the Wellbutrin/tyrosine causes dopamine levels to go past 10, then the body begins to drop dopamine receptor levels to 9, leaving the PFS sufferer with a less high level of optimal dopamine experience.

However, if a PFS sufferer increases his dopamine receptor levels via fasting or exercise from 10 to 11, then his total possible dopamine experience increases. Maybe there are some minimum thresholds (each person's would likely be different); if a PFS sufferer reaches 13 dopamine receptors filled with dopamine, brain fog begins to subside. At 15 receptors filled, brain fog disappears. At 18 receptors filled, emotions increase. At 20 receptors, emotions restored. At 22 receptors filled, libido increases, and at 24 receptors filled, libido is restored. With this theory, a lack of dopamine receptors would mean some people can never reach 100%, even if they are filled to the brim with dopamine, because they do not have enough receptors to make use of all the available dopamine. If you have 30 units of dopamine, and only 15 receptors, well, you're libido won't be helped at all because you need to be filling a minimum of 22 receptors.

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Exercise and fasting can be great tools. Obviously, we are lucky to know of even more useful tools here, such as keto diet, EE, mediation, posting on the forum and doing other meaningful things, etc.

I definitely recommend this book. Especially for those of us who grew up in the internet age, with it's readily available distractions such as video games, porn, social media and other endless distractions, all in addition to the super-pathological culture.

Shijing said:

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago, and thought it was very helpful. I wanted to read it partly because Gabor Maté's other books (When the Body Says No and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts) had been so helpful to people here on the forum, and partly because it had been suggested to me that I had some qualities that seemed ADDish. Before reading Scattered, I had a more stereotypical idea of what ADD looked like, and wasn't sure I fit the description -- after reading it, however, I feel like it fits me quite well, and reading about Maté's own experiences with ADD has been very useful.

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I read part of the book some time back. Since I read some other books on the topic, I wasn't expecting much, but It has lot of good information and it is very useful.

I'm currently reading the book and a fourth of the way through - but the descriptions have already made for a stunning sense of recognition. Below is a summary I wrote of several things that struck me so far in reading the book, along with some dot-connecting.

As Shijing already mentioned, essentially the problem is one of impaired brain development. The more sensitive a person is born, the greater the risk that their brain development is disrupted when the environment is poor - and a poor environment basically means unattuned parents, or a bad emotional "climate". Such can be the case in a narcissistic family, and it can also be the result of parents being stressed due to any variation of unfortunate circumstances. (For more on stress, see Mate's other book, When the Body Says No.)

While the degree of disrupted brain development that leads to ADD can vary widely, the pattern is the same. The right prefrontal cortex is implicated: its development is stunted. That means poorer self-regulation in general. This shows up not only in lack of attention and focus (involuntary "tuning out"), but also in uncontrolled hyper-focus.

Adverse conditions that affect brain development can also result in other outcomes than ADD, or a combination of them. Mate ties impaired development to addictive tendencies in his later book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (thread). There is a considerable overlap between the two. Additionally, Mate suggests that autistic spectrum conditions have similar origins.

I have not yet read about Mate's suggestions for dealing with ADD in Scattered, but Mate points out that the human brain can develop throughout the entire lifetime. Apart from what others have mentioned above, what we can do to really overcome our limitations seems to boil down to neuroplasticity and work on the self. (The book Brain Changer, discussed here, gives general information on this. Mate's later book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts covers it in the context of addictive tendencies, and it may be helpful for ADD as well.)

Some of the ADD traits

A person with ADD will typically need to have a much greater sense of personal motivation in order to focus well. It is harder for the brain's motivation circuit to rouse - and it tends to be underactive most of the time, unless the person stimulates it into disorganized overactivity. When a strong motivation is there, focus can be strong - even becoming obsessive, to the detriment of the person's life (and others who depend on them) in general.

Engagement in activities can follow a chain of associations in an uncontrolled way. One activity leads, by association, to another, and another, and another, while the original task is left hanging. That frequently means things are left undone.

There can also be a poor sense of time - and an immature "all or nothing" attitude towards it. Until the last minute, the person feels like they have all the time in the world - or on the contrary, the feel like they have no time at all.

Large projects and goals can be hard to work with. Distraction, "all or nothing" attitudes, poorly regulated motivation, impulsivity. Usually, work is only consistently productive when it involves a series of small tasks under time pressure.

Often, people with ADD have a sense of urgency, usually feeling they should do something, but not knowing what. (Mate calls this being "organically driven".) There is also often a pervasive sense of having missed something in life, and a strong sense of unrealized potential. (Indeed, people with ADD often go through life without managing to make good use of their talents. In the more severe cases, people often even fail to keep their lives together in a basic sense.)

Also related to addictive tendencies, someone with ADD usually works best under the influence of stimulants - whether from the body, e.g. adrenaline (connected to workaholic tendencies, and to doing important work at the last minute), or from external sources. Among the latter, I think in most cases, the best ones for us to consider (and use or not depending on the effects on each individual) are nicotine and caffeine. Anyway, in the absence of stimulants, the prefrontal cortex can be sluggish, even slowing down further when it should rouse. Stimulating it enables it to coordinate brain activity more efficiently, which brings some order to the chaos.

Psalehesost said:

Also related to addictive tendencies, someone with ADD usually works best under the influence of stimulants - whether from the body, e.g. adrenaline (connected to workaholic tendencies, and to doing important work at the last minute), or from external sources. Among the latter, I think in most cases, the best ones for us to consider (and use or not depending on the effects on each individual) are nicotine and caffeine. Anyway, in the absence of stimulants, the prefrontal cortex can be sluggish, even slowing down further when it should rouse. Stimulating it enables it to coordinate brain activity more efficiently, which brings some order to the chaos.

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Like leaving a primitive vagal state of immobilization with fear to one of polyvagal social engagement. Other than benign stimulants, what comes to mind is the aid of a social network, writing, exercise, curiosity and so forth. Anything that will engage your prefrontal cortex at that moment in time. The important thing is the "super effort" to engage a higher cognitive regulation.

That was an excellent overview, thank you for writing it. Gabor Maté's books have been very useful indeed. It sounds like the ADD's book is also very insightful.

S

ome of the ADD traits

A person with ADD will typically need to have a much greater sense of personal motivation in order to focus well. It is harder for the brain's motivation circuit to rouse - and it tends to be underactive most of the time, unless the person stimulates it into disorganized overactivity. When a strong motivation is there, focus can be strong - even becoming obsessive, to the detriment of the person's life (and others who depend on them) in general.

Engagement in activities can follow a chain of associations in an uncontrolled way. One activity leads, by association, to another, and another, and another, while the original task is left hanging. That frequently means things are left undone.

There can also be a poor sense of time - and an immature "all or nothing" attitude towards it. Until the last minute, the person feels like they have all the time in the world - or on the contrary, the feel like they have no time at all.

Large projects and goals can be hard to work with. Distraction, "all or nothing" attitudes, poorly regulated motivation, impulsivity. Usually, work is only consistently productive when it involves a series of small tasks under time pressure.

Often, people with ADD have a sense of urgency, usually feeling they should do something, but not knowing what. (Mate calls this being "organically driven".) There is also often a pervasive sense of having missed something in life, and a strong sense of unrealized potential. (Indeed, people with ADD often go through life without managing to make good use of their talents. In the more severe cases, people often even fail to keep their lives together in a basic sense.)

Also related to addictive tendencies, someone with ADD usually works best under the influence of stimulants - whether from the body, e.g. adrenaline (connected to workaholic tendencies, and to doing important work at the last minute), or from external sources. Among the latter, I think in most cases, the best ones for us to consider (and use or not depending on the effects on each individual) are nicotine and caffeine. Anyway, in the absence of stimulants, the prefrontal cortex can be sluggish, even slowing down further when it should rouse. Stimulating it enables it to coordinate brain activity more efficiently, which brings some order to the chaos.

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Thank you to share!
:)
Just a thought, isn't Gurdjieff said that scattered attention and dissociative mind is part of human nature? :/

Sorry not to provide the exact quote, but I have to go to work, I will try though later.

Emma said:

Just a thought, isn't Gurdjieff said that scattered attention and dissociative mind is part of human nature? :/

Sorry not to provide the exact quote, but I have to go to work, I will try though later.

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Essentially, Gurdjieff did say so. What he described, though, is something more "deep" and ubiquitous than ADD. There's a distinction to be made between what is healthy and functional in "normal" terms, and what is healthy and functional in terms of The Work. For The Work, the standards are not just higher, but of a different quality.

Even a person who is free from ADD and other troubling issues can be - and usually is - asleep. The "norm" is to have a sleeping conscience and to lack objective understanding of the world. Living a well-ordered, well-adjusted life doesn't change that. Life is lived according to imaginary values, and all kinds of lies are believed. Internal considering directs both inner and outer activity. The person is wrapped up in subjective narratives and cannot see beyond them.

In short, a person who is healthy and functional in "normal" terms is a more efficient machine than a person who isn't. But other things are required for a machine to begin to wake up and grow in consciousness.

For the person interested in doing The Work, ADD is "simply" yet another obstacle to self-mastery, as well as to becoming truly mature. A challenging obstacle - but like other obstacles that are not genetic, and not a matter of irreparable damage to "the machine", it can be worked on.

OSIT.

Thank you Shijing for bringing this book and the topic to the Forum. I am currently reading the book and am finding it invaluable. I have often noticed that I have a tendency towards tuning out and distraction, but would have never thought to classify myself as having ADD. However, many of the attributes he discusses really hit the nail on the head. I agree that the book is a great addition to the other books on narcissistic families because the developmental stunting caused by growing up in such an environment manifests in so many ways. It reminds me of the toxicity of gluten. We have found that so many diseases are related to this sensitivity, yet doctors often simply treat the symptoms of the presenting health issue while remaining ignorant of the root cause, thus the problem is rarely identified and addressed. It seems this is also true of growing up in narcissistic families.

This discussion is quite timely as I have been noticing an increase in my dis-tractability and difficulties in controlling it and focusing. One of the things I realized is that when life was relatively smooth, it was easier to maintain the fiction that those issues had been dealt with via EE, the diet and working on myself. However, I can now see that while these have been a great help, I have actually been missing some real issues. The past year, I have been through a lot of changes, so that life has not continued on its rather ordinary routine. Now that things are more uncertain, these core issues are erupting and it's not as easy to suppress or ignore them.

While this is intensely uncomfortable, it's a wonderful gift because you cannot work on something that you are incapable of seeing. And sometime it takes such extremes of pain and discomfort for us to be motivated to address the causes of our dysfunction. Last night I was reading about the hypersensitivity and vulnerability that many ADD people have as a result of the lack of real parenting and it was a shock because I realized that I still suffer from this but have been very adept (or so I thought) at patching over the holes thus convincing myself that I had conquered them, while nothing could be further from the truth!

It is often more painful initially to see these things exposed, but the greater understanding and the tools given in the book will be so helpful in beginning again to work on these issues.

Psalehesost said:

Emma said:

Just a thought, isn't Gurdjieff said that scattered attention and dissociative mind is part of human nature? :/

Sorry not to provide the exact quote, but I have to go to work, I will try though later.

Click to expand...

Essentially, Gurdjieff did say so. What he described, though, is something more "deep" and ubiquitous than ADD. There's a distinction to be made between what is healthy and functional in "normal" terms, and what is healthy and functional in terms of The Work. For The Work, the standards are not just higher, but of a different quality.

Even a person who is free from ADD and other troubling issues can be - and usually is - asleep. The "norm" is to have a sleeping conscience and to lack objective understanding of the world. Living a well-ordered, well-adjusted life doesn't change that. Life is lived according to imaginary values, and all kinds of lies are believed. Internal considering directs both inner and outer activity. The person is wrapped up in subjective narratives and cannot see beyond them.

In short, a person who is healthy and functional in "normal" terms is a more efficient machine than a person who isn't. But other things are required for a machine to begin to wake up and grow in consciousness.

For the person interested in doing The Work, ADD is "simply" yet another obstacle to self-mastery, as well as to becoming truly mature. A challenging obstacle - but like other obstacles that are not genetic, and not a matter of irreparable damage to "the machine", it can be worked on.

OSIT.

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Thank you Psalehesost!
Since questioning authority became a "mental illness",
http://www.sott.net/article/236934-Canadian-broadcaster-CBC-conspiracy-theorists-are-mentally-ill-and-not-to-be-trusted

I'm questioning ADD as a made up disease, as you said man is mechanical and forgetful and have million "little i's", wondering about this description fits easily anybody.
Probably I would be diagnosed with ADD.
I'm just wondering, how many of us could be diagnosed with ADD?
Especially Dr. Mate pointing toward childhood trauma, and consequences, heck, somebody could suffer from PTSD and not aware of it, but suffers from it, osit.

My point is Big Pharma try to sell more drugs, i.e. Ritalin, amphetamine to children, more and more, as young as 6 years old.

http://www.sott.net/article/119581-I-think-in-10-years-time-we-will-ask-ourselves-what-we-were-thinking-giving-these-children-amphetamines

http://www.sott.net/article/199995-Ritalin-Linked-With-Sudden-Death-of-Children
http://www.sott.net/article/136740-Pediatric-Ritalin-Use-May-Affect-Developing-Brain-New-Study-Suggests
http://www.sott.net/article/110452-Children-wrongly-given-Ritalin

I remember I read somewhere Stalin when he didn't executed or jailed people who opposed them, he just put them in a mental institute.

My question is:
In this insane world only authoritarian followers considering "normal"?
(Lunatics took over the asylum, nothing new... :D)

I found this thread interesting:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,6419.0.html

[quote author= Laura]Now, there's another interesting thing about this. Pavlov noted that when one small cortical area in a dog's brain reached a state of pathological inertia and excitation, (it was at maximal stress and shutdown), it would generate odd stereotypical movements like shaking or repeated scratching or pawing of something. He concluded that if this cerebral condition could affect movement, it might also affect thought, stereotypically, and could thus account for certain obsessions in human thinking.

Pavlov also learned that these small areas of the brain were subject to the equivalent, paradoxical, and ultra-paradoxical phases of abnormal activity which he had previously thought only applied to larger areas of the brain. Pavlov thought, in fact, that what is called projection and introjection - when a persistent fear or desire is projected outwards or inwards - is a physiological manifestation of localized cerebral inhibition.

Pavlov found that some dogs of a stable temperament were more than usually prone to develop these "limited pathological points" in the cortex when at the point of breaking down under stress. New behavior patterns would be the result such as a compulsive and repetitive pawing or some form of physical debilitation. Once acquired by a dog of stable temperament, patterns of this sort were extremely difficult to eradicate. This may be the way a more stable person reacts to such stress: instead of splitting psychically, they instead develop some sort of external, physical action that releases the stress.

During WW II, quite a few studies were done of shell-shocked patients in hospitals in England. Some of these patients had reached this state of cerebral shut-down and it manifested in gross and uncoordinated, yet regular, jerking and writhing movements which were accompanied by temporary loss of speech, or a stammer or explosive talking.

The parallels between these patients and Pavlov's dogs subjected to stresses should be obvious.

That is to say, these abnormal mental states may be succeeded in human beings as in Pavlov's dogs, by "dynamic stereotypy" - a new functional system in the brain is formed which requires increasingly less work by the nervous system to maintain it just as learning to drive requires increasingly less focus once one has done it for awhile.

The repetitive pattern of movements or thoughts that are formed under these kinds of stressful conditions (and in some people, there are truly extremely stressful conditions in their infancy) do not yield easily to treatment.

But then, in these cases, we are talking about only a statistically small sample.

Nevertheless, Pavlov's findings that severe focal excitation on one area of a dog's brain can cause profound reflex inhibition of other areas of the brain might be a key to the problems of programs, buffers and the Predator's Mind. In a normal person, time and other experiences can disperse the abnormal neurological structure to some extent, but in certain genetically susceptible individuals, it can become a core structure.

But keep in mind that even if one deals with programs and essentially "deprograms" the self from these kinds of abnormal states, sensitivity to what brought about the nervous disruption can persist a very long time in a latent state. Events will remind the person of the "program," and they will have to struggle with it to some extent again and again for some period of time before it is entirely extinct. (And I have no certainty that total extinction ever occurs!)[/quote]

Emma said:

Since questioning authority became a "mental illness",
http://www.sott.net/article/236934-Canadian-broadcaster-CBC-conspiracy-theorists-are-mentally-ill-and-not-to-be-trusted

I'm questioning ADD as a made up disease, as you said man is mechanical and forgetful and have million "little i's", wondering about this description fits easily anybody.
Probably I would be diagnosed with ADD.
I'm just wondering, how many of us could be diagnosed with ADD?

Click to expand...

It seems to me that you're engaging in black and white thinking. It is true that the way in which psychiatry is used - and the way its classifications have developed - is often insane, or to be more precise, ponerized and inhuman. However, that doesn't mean that everything associated with psychiatry is completely wrong. As in so many other areas, there's a mixture of valuable elements and corrupted elements, and the task becomes one of discerning which is which and piecing together a more objective picture.

Maté's views are not those of the typical drug-pusher, and in his book he tries to go beyond several simplistic views. Apart from pointing out the problem with seeing ADD as a genetic disorder, or as caused purely by the environment, he also points out the problem with seeing it as altogether made-up. The last problem mentioned has to do with the variation of the ADD traits among people.

When it comes to diagnosis (i.e. who really has and hasn't got ADD), Maté's point is that ADD traits are present to varying degrees in just about everyone. It is only when those traits are strong and they make a person's life disordered that Maté would find the diagnosis appropriate. That would be the case for some, but not for everyone. He also points out that there are extreme cases where people suffer tremendously and are literally unable to hold down a job and to maintain relationships as a result of it.

Maté also criticizes how psychiatry deals with ADD. First of all, he sees the term itself as just the latest description of something that has been known before modern psychiatry existed. He also disagrees with the way in which psychiatry focuses on outward behavior to the exclusion of the experience of patients. Finally, he's strongly against the use of medication as the first line of treatment, considering it something secondary to other things that can be done to help a person.

Especially Dr. Mate pointing toward childhood trauma, and consequences, heck, somebody could suffer from PTSD and not aware of it, but suffers from it, osit.

My point is Big Pharma try to sell more drugs, i.e. Ritalin, amphetamine to children, more and more, as young as 6 years old.

[... links ...]

I remember I read somewhere Stalin when he didn't executed or jailed people who opposed them, he just put them in a mental institute.

My question is:
In this insane world only authoritarian followers considering "normal"?
(Lunatics took over the asylum, nothing new... :D)

I found this thread interesting:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,6419.0.html

[... quote ...]

Click to expand...

The lunatics have indeed taken over the asylum, so to speak. We live in a civilization on a downward spiral and rapidly approaching its destruction as a result. I actually see the information Maté has conveyed as making clear a sign of the times: the craziness of our world has gotten so bad that it is now scrambling the brains of a large portion of children, and they'll have to live with this their whole lives unless they work very hard on themselves.

When it comes to trauma in general, issues such as widespread depression and anxiety, and the information you linked to at the end, it's all connected. And what Maté conveys adds some pieces to the same overall picture. He basically describes how the kind of early experience described in the thread you linked to shapes brain development and the resulting "architecture" of our brains. He also describes the consequences and what can be done about them and the underlying issue.

In conclusion, don't get hung up on the label (ADD) or what mainstream psychiatry and Big Pharma do with it - what matters is the knowledge (which is largely ignored in society) and what we can do with it.

Thank you for opening the topic Shijing and for all others detailed book description I will put it on my reading list.

Reading the description of the book reminds me also a bit of a German researcher: Gerald Hüther and he took also the approach to look closer into a family situation of the child instead of just giving them drugs.

[quote author=Psalehesost]It seems to me that you're engaging in black and white thinking. It is true that the way in which psychiatry is used - and the way its classifications have developed - is often insane, or to be more precise, ponerized and inhuman. However, that doesn't mean that everything associated with psychiatry is completely wrong. As in so many other areas, there's a mixture of valuable elements and corrupted elements, and the task becomes one of discerning which is which and piecing together a more objective picture.
[/quote]

Thank you to pointing at this! I had this uneasy feeling when I posted this, you're right! Finding the balance between real information, real science and biased pathological "research" is hard.
I'm just a "conspiracy nut", anyway!

Yes, I shouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water, looks like I developed a general bias against so to speak "Health Industry".

[quote author=Psalehesost]Maté's views are not those of the typical drug-pusher, and in his book he tries to go beyond several simplistic views. Apart from pointing out the problem with seeing ADD as a genetic disorder, or as caused purely by the environment, he also points out the problem with seeing it as altogether made-up. The last problem mentioned has to do with the variation of the ADD traits among people.
When it comes to diagnosis (i.e. who really has and hasn't got ADD), Maté's point is that ADD traits are present to varying degrees in just about everyone. It is only when those traits are strong and they make a person's life disordered that Maté would find the diagnosis appropriate. That would be the case for some, but not for everyone. He also points out that there are extreme cases where people suffer tremendously and are literally unable to hold down a job and to maintain relationships as a result of it.[/quote]

That was my thinking also.
I think the trouble starts when the so called"experts" starting to label a lot of people, i.e. Dr Mate, -who is very functional, indeed-, simply just forcing people to take more drugs.
I would think serious ADD case when a person is dysfunctional, with serious problems to "fit in" there are different methods to help these people.
I guess this is what he is talking about.

[quote author=Psalehesost]Maté also criticizes how psychiatry deals with ADD. First of all, he sees the term itself as just the latest description of something that has been known before modern psychiatry existed. He also disagrees with the way in which psychiatry focuses on outward behavior to the exclusion of the experience of patients. Finally, he's strongly against the use of medication as the first line of treatment, considering it something secondary to other things that can be done to help a person.
[/quote]

Bingo! ;)

[quote author=Psalehesost]The lunatics have indeed taken over the asylum, so to speak. We live in a civilization on a downward spiral and rapidly approaching its destruction as a result. I actually see the information Maté has conveyed as making clear a sign of the times: the craziness of our world has gotten so bad that it is now scrambling the brains of a large portion of children, and they'll have to live with this their whole lives unless they work very hard on themselves.

When it comes to trauma in general, issues such as widespread depression and anxiety, and the information you linked to at the end, it's all connected. And what Maté conveys adds some pieces to the same overall picture. He basically describes how the kind of early experience described in the thread you linked to shapes brain development and the resulting "architecture" of our brains. He also describes the consequences and what can be done about them and the underlying issue.

In conclusion, don't get hung up on the label (ADD) or what mainstream psychiatry and Big Pharma do with it - what matters is the knowledge (which is largely ignored in society) and what we can do with it.
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Thank you! :)

We all hear to learn.

It is true enough to say that Gurdjieff’s system of ideas is complex and all-encompassing, but one must immediately add that their formulation is designed to point man toward a central and simple power of apprehension which Gurdjieff taught is merely latent within the human mind and which is the only power by which man can actually understand himself in relation to the universe. In this sense, the distinction between doctrine and method, which is fairly clear in most of the older spiritual traditions, does not yet entirely obtain in the Gurdjieff teaching. The formulations of the ideas are themselves meant to have a special action on the sense of self and may therefore be regarded as part of the practical method. This characteristic of the Gurdjieff teaching reflects what Gurdjieff perceived as the center of gravity of modern man’s subjectivity—the fact that modern civilization is lopsidedly oriented around the thinking function. Modern man’s illusory feeling of “I” is built up around his thoughts and therefore, in accordance with the level of the pupil, the ideas themselves are meant to affect this false sense of self. For Gurdjieff the deeply penetrating influence of scientific thought in modern life was not something merely to be deplored, but to be understood as the channel through which the eternal Truth must first find its way toward the human heart.

Man, Gurdjieff taught, is an undeveloped creation. He is not really man, considered as a cosmically unique being whose intelligence and power of action mirror the energies of the source of life itself. On the contrary, man as we encounter him is an automaton. His thoughts, feelings, and deeds are little more than mechanical reactions to external and internal stimuli. He cannot do anything. In and around him, everything happens without the participation of his own authentic consciousness. But human beings are ignorant of this state of affairs because of the pervasive influence of culture and education, which engrave in them the illusion of autonomous conscious selves. In short, man is asleep. There is no authentic I am in his presence, but only an egoism which masquerades as the authentic self, and whose machinations poorly imitate the normal human functions of thought, feeling, and will.

Many factors reinforce this sleep. Each of the reactions that proceed in one’s presence is accompanied by a deceptive sense of I—man is many I’s, each imagining itself to be the whole, and each buffered off from awareness of the others. Each of these many I’s represents a process whereby the subtle energy of consciousness is absorbed and degraded, a process that Gurdjieff termed “identification.” Man identifies—that is, squanders his conscious energy, with every passing thought, impulse, and sensation. This state of affairs takes the form of a continuous self-deception and a continuous procession of egoistic emotions, such as anger, self-pity, sentimentality, and fear which are of such a pervasively painful nature that man is constantly driven to ameliorate this condition through the endless pursuit of social recognition, sensory pleasure, or the vague and unrealizable goal of “happiness.”

According to Gurdjieff, the human condition cannot be understood apart from considering humanity within the function of organic life on earth. The human being is constructed to transform energies of a specific nature, and neither his potential inner development nor his present actual predicament is understandable apart from this function. Thus, in the teaching of Gurdjieff, psychology is inextricably connected with cosmology and metaphysics and even, in a certain sense, biology. The diagram known as “the Ray of Creation” provides one of the conceptual keys to approaching this interconnection between humanity and the universal order, and as such invites repeated study from a variety of angles and stages of understanding.

Click to expand...

http://www.gurdjieff.org/needleman2.htm

Thank you Psalehesost!

Emma said:

[quote author=Psalehesost]Maté's views are not those of the typical drug-pusher, and in his book he tries to go beyond several simplistic views. Apart from pointing out the problem with seeing ADD as a genetic disorder, or as caused purely by the environment, he also points out the problem with seeing it as altogether made-up. The last problem mentioned has to do with the variation of the ADD traits among people.
When it comes to diagnosis (i.e. who really has and hasn't got ADD), Maté's point is that ADD traits are present to varying degrees in just about everyone. It is only when those traits are strong and they make a person's life disordered that Maté would find the diagnosis appropriate. That would be the case for some, but not for everyone. He also points out that there are extreme cases where people suffer tremendously and are literally unable to hold down a job and to maintain relationships as a result of it.

Click to expand...

That was my thinking also.
I think the trouble starts when the so called"experts" starting to label a lot of people, i.e. Dr Mate, -who is very functional, indeed-, simply just forcing people to take more drugs.
I would think serious ADD case when a person is dysfunctional, with serious problems to "fit in" there are different methods to help these people.
I guess this is what he is talking about.
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It is a little more complex. There is a whole range of dysfunction in-between "no serious problems" and the extreme I mentioned. And beyond "fitting in" in terms of external appearance, there are subtler things that can be dysfunctional. Maté himself, who describes his own issues in his works and his talks, is a good example.

Before he researched and wrote his book on ADD, Maté had been unable to successfully work on such large projects before. His working style basically amounted to doing a lot of small things at the last moment, fueled by the adrenaline rush of time pressure. Chronically late, disorganized and forgetful, and engaged in a workaholic frenzy, the people who worked with him described it as working in the center of a tornado.

At home, things weren't too well, either. Simply put - in our terms - he was unable to be externally considerate. The workaholism meant he was absent all too often, and when he wasn't, he was often depleted. Sometimes he could do a good job as a parent, but not consistently. Sometimes he was mature, sometimes childish. His wife also being stressed for other reasons, the troubles combined, and the emotional atmosphere of the home became volatile and often tense. Ultimately, as a result, their troubles were passed on to the children to a significant degree.

There's more to his descriptions of his past - e.g. how it took a long time for him to become able to go through with his medical studies - but the above illustrates the point, I think. While externally successful, he was troubled, and both he and those he cared for suffered as a result of the problems he had.

The same goes for Maté's addictive tendencies - and the addictive tendencies of people in general. There's a fairly large range in-between "no real problem" and hardcore dysfunction. And most people who have such issues will be somewhere in that range. And for those who find themselves in such a position, indeed there's a variety of approaches for working on it.

Thank you as well Shijing for starting this thread and for all who have shared their insight into this topic. I picked up this book the other day after reading some of this thread.

I have largely associated ADD with hyperactivity in children, not really realizing how certain traits could apply to myself. A few of the traits that were mentioned in this thread that really stood out to me (that I believe I have dealt with for years and to varying degrees) are: a sense of urgency, working best under the influence of stimulants (in my case caffeine) and under a deadline, especially poor time management that relates to procrastination, as well as needing a motivation to complete a task and focus well.

Like Maté mentioned about himself as a college student, in high school and college I was often waiting till last minute to write the paper or get homework finished, often needing the pressure of a deadline and a stimulant, in my case caffeine (in the college years), to focus and get my work completed. I can definitely see how some of these traits have since carried over to the work world and in my ability to do The Work, for example in my ability to transition to a keto diet.

The analogy that Maté gave at the beginning of the book to illustrate the situation for parents of ADD children- that of the stalled car in the middle of traffic, others honking and passing by, not offering help- caught my attention because I had a similar dream so many months ago last year, although I don't remember there being honking or yelling going on as the cars passed. I remember being incredibly stressed out in the dream, as if I couldn't get the car into the correct gear it seems. I wonder if the analogy might also illustrate the situation in varying degrees for not only the parents, but for those who have ADD traits as well.

[quote author=Psalehesost]At home, things weren't too well, either. Simply put - in our terms - he was unable to be externally considerate. The workaholism meant he was absent all too often, and when he wasn't, he was often depleted. Sometimes he could do a good job as a parent, but not consistently. Sometimes he was mature, sometimes childish. His wife also being stressed for other reasons, the troubles combined, and the emotional atmosphere of the home became volatile and often tense. Ultimately, as a result, their troubles were passed on to the children to a significant degree.
There's more to his descriptions of his past - e.g. how it took a long time for him to become able to go through with his medical studies - but the above illustrates the point, I think. While externally successful, he was troubled, and both he and those he cared for suffered as a result of the problems he had.

The same goes for Maté's addictive tendencies - and the addictive tendencies of people in general. There's a fairly large range in-between "no real problem" and hardcore dysfunction. And most people who have such issues will be somewhere in that range. And for those who find themselves in such a position, indeed there's a variety of approaches for working on it.
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Indeed. I have listened the video second time and he is talking about improving brain function and this perfectly parallel with
Gurdjieff's thoughts and this, he was an expert on psychology.
I mean people who do the work, improving their brain function, grow new nerve cell, etc.
I'm emphasizing this, because the importance of it.
Sorry to repeat myself. :/

Thank you Psalehesost!
:)