I finally bought Driven to Distraction. Interestly, what struck me most was the way the Hallowell described snippets of his sessions with his patients. The sessions sounded like exactly what I expect and hope for in my new diagnosis. Each time he decribed something a patient said and then his reaction, I thought, "yes." He seemed to listen to his patients and respond to them as people. He seemed able to help them understand what they were experiencing and guide them in understanding their ADD and in making practical changes in their lives and awareness.



At one point Hallowell says, your therapist should "remain attuned to the omnipresent therapy issues of hidden meanings, covert signals, concealed motives, repressed memories and unspoken desires. Your therapist should leave aside all preconceived ideas derived from diagnosis and should seek first of all to

know you as you really are. You should feel understood."




I suppose the reason I was struck by what I wrote was that it reconfirmed what I knew: my doctor isn't working effectively with me. I feel like my doctor has engaged in no dialog showing an attempt to get to know me, how ADHD affects me, how I have managed in the past what I consider my strengths and weaknesses....nothing.



So to those of you who are ADHD without comorbid conditions, what took place with your doctors after the you were first diagnosed and why did you seek more than just an ADHD coach? What types of therapy worked well for you and why? Were you able to negotiate treatment modalites? Have you found treatment methods that though effective for some, just didn't work for you?

I have stopped going to my doctor.

I find that seeing how my condition affects me academically (learning problems keep me from graduating) just increases my sense of failure and self-loathing. :(

Well, I'm not sure if you're talking about therapists or DOCTORS here, but assuming you are talking about therapists, I ADORE mine and have been seeing her for about three years now.

I definitely feel that she knows me very well as a person, and we do discuss my personal life a great deal. She is very encouraging and never tells me that something I've done is wrong, stupid, etc.

I don't really talk about my ADHD with her, though. I mean, it does come up, but I kind of leave those topics to my psychiatrist. My therapist isn't a doctor, she's a social worker, so she can't help me out in the ADHD area too much.

We talk about other things, namely my "troubled childhood" and how that affects me today. I'm not sure I agree about the author you're quoting's views on repressed memories, concealed motives, and unspoken desires. A lot of my therapy has been digging up the past, reexamining it, and trying to make sense of my actions without chalking everything up to ADHD. It has been extremely helpful and, for lack of a better word, therapeutic.