ADHD is not a neurological condition

ADHD is commonly said to be a neurological developmental disorder. The difficulty I have with this statement is that it implies ADHD is a brain disorder. I have no problem with people seeking environmental adjustments, for example at work or in education, because of the kind of person they are. But to justify these adjustments because of a brain disorder is misleading.

Development is neither predestined by our genes nor completely malleable to shaping by the environment. To suggest that ADHD and other neurodevelopmental conditions cannot be “cured” may underestimate the extent to which people can change. It’s all very well to encourage training and education about ADHD, but people do need to be taught facts rather than speculation.

Psychiatry commonly justifies its speculation that ADHD and other functional mental disorders have a biological cause by suggesting it takes a biopsychosocial position, properly taking into account psychosocial as well as biological factors. But it fails to allow for the extent to which the brain is socially constructed by our experiences. Genes set the boundaries of the possible but environments define the actuality of what happens. It doesn’t make sense to reduce mental conditions such as ADHD to a brain disorder. Brain connections in ADHD may be no different from our ‘normal’ experiences. Certainly they have not been proven to be different and even academic reviews of the biological basis of ADHD will caution that no biological markers for ADHD have been found.