WMA Seminar: Understanding ADHD

Roberta Locatelli (Tübingen) - "Understanding ADHD and Bridging the Gap Between the Neurodiversity Model and the Disorder Model"

What is ADHD? The current orthodoxy, informed by the biomedical model of mental disorder, tells us that it is a dysfunction of attention and/or the executive functioning system.

On the other hand, we have the neurodiversity model, which opposes the pathological model of ADHD and other conditions (most importantly autism) and claims that ADHD is a non-pathological natural variation in cognitive style.

The aim of this paper is not to adjudicate between these two options. Instead, my aim is to bridge the gap between these two models. I will argue that the reason why these two models seem incompatible is because they actually share some assumptions. If we get rid of those fallacious assumptions, the two models can be reconciled. Once we get rid of these wrong assumptions, we will have space for a different view of mental disorders, which I will call the disjunctive view of mental disorder. While the view presents several advantages over competing views of mental disorders, in this talk I will only focus on how it allows us to bridge the gap between the biomedical and the neurodiversity models of ADHD, and offer an understanding of the condition that is empirically informed, supports treatment and research, and promotes justice.

contact: eve.poirier@warwick.ac.uk