ADHD Therapy

In 1937, psychiatrist Charles Bradley was working at the first psychiatric hospital for children in the United States. He gave 30 children a stimulant called Benzedrine to ease painful headaches after a medical test. Teachers noticed that about half the children were calmer and doing better in school. The children called the medicine arithmetic pills. Bradley’s findings were mostly set aside for decades.

In 1944, Swiss chemist Leandro Panizzon made a new stimulant. His wife, Marguerite, who went by Rita, tried it first, and it was named Ritalin after her. It was first sold for fatigue, depression and narcolepsy. By the 1960s, doctors were prescribing it to restless children.

In 1968, psychiatry’s diagnostic manual named restlessness in children hyperkinetic reaction of childhood. Hyperkinetic means too much movement, and the focus was on boys who couldn't stay in their seats.

In 1971, McGill psychologist Virginia Douglas spoke to the Canadian Psychological Association. She had spent years testing children in her lab in Montreal. She found their biggest struggle wasn’t moving too much. It was staying with a task and stopping to think before acting. She called her paper Stop, Look and Listen. By 1980, the manual renamed the condition attention deficit disorder.

In 1994, psychiatrists Edward Hallowell and John Ratey published Driven to Distraction. Hallowell had dyslexia and recognized ADHD in himself. The book showed that ADHD often continues into adulthood, and many adults recognized themselves for the first time.

In 1995, therapist Sari Solden wrote Women with Attention Deficit Disorder. She noticed women in her practice quietly struggling with laundry, groceries and meals, and blaming themselves. Many had spent years hiding it out of shame.

But ADHD is often measured by how well a child fits the classroom.

Children who move too much are often seen as disruptive before anyone asks why.

In 2012, a study of nearly a million children in British Columbia found the youngest in each class were more likely to be diagnosed. Boys born in December were 30% more likely to be diagnosed than boys born in January, and girls were 70% more likely.

Quiet daydreamers are often missed. Many find out they have ADHD as adults, after years of wondering if something was wrong with them.

People with ADHD often grew up hearing they were lazy, careless or too much. 

Trauma can also look like ADHD. A person who is always on alert for danger can have a hard time paying attention or sitting still.

Trauma-sensitive ADHD therapy works inside those gaps. It asks what’s behind a struggle before naming it. It looks at trauma and ADHD together, since they can look alike and often overlap. It makes room for the grief and shame of years spent misunderstood or corrected. And it helps you build a life around your brain instead of forcing your brain to fit.

Trauma-sensitive therapy starts with curiosity about how you work.