The ADD series (4) The Internal Emotional Climate

How to promote development of people with ADD?
The key is in how the environment and the people in it relate to people with ADD:
- The emotional support we give them;
- The calmness we give them (read here the awareness of possible stress and adequate ways to handle it);
- The acceptance we give them (it can be difficult and it implies that the acceptance is mutual).

These aspects are crucial and much more relevant than trying to change the person with ADD and how they behave.

Understanding the INTERNAL EMOTIONAL CLIMATE of someone with ADD means tapping into the realization of:

1) How low self-esteem plays an important role. People with ADD often reckon they could do much better than they manage to do, if they only didn't have all those ADD characteristics, and this put them down. 

Furthermore there is an unconscious mechanism that often plays a role: people with ADD often don't feel seen and understood completely by their environment and this translate unconsciously but deeply into the thought: 'there must be something wrong with me'. 

2) Often, people with ADD feel outsiders even when they are not. They may easily feel rejected or taking things personally even when they are not meant so. This all triggers a reaction of withdrawal in them.

3) The inability  to read social clues. Don't understand what is going on socially, how to read the group or the room. They may ask for attention to people who don't want to give it and ending up being more easily bullied than others.
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4) They may have difficulties to learn from negative experiences. They tend to keep making the same mistakes over and over to the frustration of the people that love them.

Disclaimer:

I do not do diagnosis and I do not specifically work with people who have DSM diagnoses, however, there is a growing number of people approaching my practice that shows aspects of ADD and that questions about it. There has been a lot of new discovery in how to understand and approach better ADD that may not being yet widely known. My intention is to share those views. These blog posts are written, for those asking themselves if they may have aspect of ADD and/or how to understand that better and what could be done about it. This is of course just informative and in no way can replace being diagnosed by a professional.