New Perspectives

Knowing the right thing to say in a given moment can be difficult.

Dulce Torres, LPC-S, BCC, ACC, gives help for choosing positive words and avoiding sarcasm, assisting us to better communicate with our children and build them up while coping with ADHD.

Watch the short video “What’s the best way to talk with a child who has ADHD?”

Anxiety is one of the most common co-occurring conditions

Social anxiety and general anxiety can take the joy from life, while struggling with ASD can make it difficult to enjoy social interactions. Treating ADHD can help alleviate some of the stresses caused by anxiety.

Watch the short video “What is the impact of social challenges for people with ADHD?”

Several common conditions frequently co-occur with ADHD in adults.

Recognizing co-occuring conditions and including them in treatment can making life-changing differences for most people.

Watch the short video “What are the some common diagnoses/conditions that co-occur in adults with ADHD?”

What Causes the Most Trouble is Diagnosed First
It’s often not ADHD…

The condition that causes the most trouble or distress is the first to be identified and treated, followed by the underlying ADHD. Dr. Thomas E. Brown tells us why this is the often the situation.

Watch the short video “How do you decide what to treat first when there is more than one diagnosis?”

Treating more than one disorder at a time

I think that there’s a tendency in medicine sometimes to think in diagnostic silos, that you say, “Okay this person has depression, this person has anxiety, this person has substance use disorders, this person has ADHD,” and then everything that you consider about treatment and intervention – what you’re going to do to try to help the person – it gets thought about in terms of this particular silo. I think it’s really important.

It takes more time to ask the questions, to be able to listen to the answers about where the person’s struggles are, where their strengths are. But it’s important to get out of the constraints of silo thinking and begin to look at the person as a whole, in terms of their strengths and their difficulties, which may not be adequately contained in a silo, as though they’re all one issue.

About the Speaker

Thomas E. Brown earned his PhD in Clinical Psychology at Yale University and served on the Yale faculty for 25 years. He is now Director of the Brown Clinic for Attention and Related Disorders in Manhattan Beach, CA, is an elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and has published numerous articles and six books on ADHD. His website is www.BrownADHDclinic.com