Any opinions on this ADD book I will beHEY LETS RIDE BIKES

November 19, 2007 12:27 PM

Are Gabor Maté's books on ADD considered relevant or are they widely dismissed?

I got a copy of Maté's book Scattered a few years ago. I ordered it with feelings of "this is it!" and "finally! a solution". I remember putting it down but I can't recall why.

Now that I'm trying to do full-time schooling and full-time employment and keep house and relationships going, I figured maybe I should pick it up again.

I started re-reading it last night and it's causing those good feelings again. It provides what seems to be a sensible model of ADD as developmental delaywith sensible, counter-intuitive-so-they're-the-sort-of-thing-not-tried-often solutions (no link sorry).

Here's what I'm curious about. When I put it down, I think one of the reasons might be that I heard it devalued or dismissed somewhere reputable but I can't recall that now. A google search brings up nothing truly informative and the lower-star ratings at amazon are just complaints.

Even more damning: an ask me search brings up nothing while The Feeling Good Handbook, well...

So what is it? Did I discover a genius who has somehow just not made any waves or did the world give it a try and just shrug?

Or did the accents in his name just foil most of my searches?

posted by Brainy to Health & Fitness (2 answers total)

Although there is in ADD an inherited predisposition, a heightened sensitivity, the condition itself is rooted in social factors that have placed nearly intolerable burdens on the parenting environment. It is not bad or unloving parenting that is the problem, but stressed parenting.

From the link you gave. It gives me pause. I'm the parent of a son with ADHD and going by this assumption, my daughter should also have ADHD and she does not. I'm not saying that the guy may not have good things to say, I just would be cautious of a book that seems to advocate a much more societal link to ADHD than current wisdom would suggest.

Edward Hallowell has written some very good books on ADHD (Driven to Distraction, Answers to Distraction, Delivered From Distraction, etc.) that I would highly recommend. The thing with ADHD is that it's very individualized. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Hallowell takes that into account more so than a lot of other authors do.
posted by cooker girl at 2:11 PM on November 19, 2007

Response by poster: Cooker, that brief summary does not quite seem to do his theory justice. However, as an abandoned paragraph I just wrote shows, I cannot actually do it justice either. So I shall not even bother trying. Suffice it to say, it isn't quite as cause > effect as that quoted sentence makes it sound. There needs to be a situation PLUS genetic predisposition in the child for it to develop.

I might look into Edward Hallowell as well.
posted by Brainy at 2:42 PM on November 19, 2007