ADHD Does Not Exist

BY RICHARD SAUL, TNR

You might be saying to yourself, okay, ADHD is probably overdiagnosed. And yes, some people who are on a stimulant probably shouldn’t be, like the college student struggling to focus on a boring lecture or the kid who’s fidgeting a bit too much for his teacher’s liking. But how can it be that among the millions of people diagnosed—over 4 percent of adults and 11 percent of children in the U.S.—not one of them actually has ADHD? Because we’ve all encountered someone with severe attention or hyperactivity issues—the boy who is always daydreaming, the girl who gets out of her seat to run around the room while her classmates sit calmly, the woman who consistently asks questions that have just been answered. Surely at least some of these people have ADHD! Actually, not one of them does. Let me be clear: In my view, not a single individual—not even the person who finds it close to impossible to pay attention or sit still—is afflicted by the disorder called ADHD as we define it today.

Ever since 1937, when Dr. Charles Bradley reported that children who exhibited symptoms of distractibility responded well to stimulant medication, the core concept of ADHD has remained essentially unchanged. Imagine, despite decades of advancement in neuroscience, we’re still approaching this “disorder” the same way.

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