The treatment of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) begins with hope. Most people who discover they have ADD, whether they be children or adults, have suffered a great deal of pain. The emotional experience of ADD is filled with embarrassment, humiliation, and self castigation. By the time the diagnosis is made, many people with ADD have lost confidence in themselves. Many have been misunderstood repeatedly. Many have consulted with numerous specialists, only to find no real help. As a result, many have lost hope.

The most important step at the beginning of treatment is to instill hope once again. Individuals with ADD may have forgotten what is good about themselves. They may have lost, long ago, any sense of the possibility of things working out. They are often locked in a kind of tenacious holding pattern, bringing all theory, considerable resiliency, and ingenuity just to keeping their heads above water. It is a tragic loss, the giving up on life too soon. But many people with ADD have seen no other way than repeated failures. To hope, for them, is only to risk getting knocked down once more.

And yet, their capacity to hope and to dream is immense. More than most people, individuals with ADD have visionary imaginations. They think big thoughts and dream big dreams. They can take the smallest opportunity and imagine turning it into a major break. They can take a chance encounter and turn it into a grand evening out. They thrive on dreams, and they need organizing methods to make sense of things and keep them on track.

But like most dreamers, they go limp when the dream collapses. Usually, by the time the diagnosis of ADD has been made, this collapse has happened often enough to leave them wary of hoping again. The little child would rather stay silent than risk being taunted once again. The adult would rather keep his mouth shut than risk flubbing things up once more. The treatment, then, must begin with hope. We break down the treatment of ADD into five basis areas:

1. Diagnosis
2. Education
3. Structure, support, and coaching
4. Various forms of psychotherapy
5. Medication

In this article we will outline some general principles that apply both to children and adults concerning the non-medication aspects of the treatment of ADD. One way to organize the non-medication treatment of ADD is through practical suggestions.

50 TIPS INSIGHT AND EDUCATION:

1. Be sure of the diagnosis. Make sure you're working with a professional who really understands ADD and has excluded related or similar conditions such as anxiety states, agitated depression, hyperthyroidism, manic depressive illness, or obsessive compulsive disorder.
   
   
2. Educate yourself. Perhaps the single most powerful treatment for ADD is understanding ADD in the first place. Read books. Talk with professionals. Talk with other adults who have ADD. You'll be able to design your own treatment to your own version of ADD.
   
   
3. Coaching. It is useful for you to have a coach, for some person near to you to keep after you in a supportive way. Your coach can help you get organized, stay on task, give you encouragement, or remind you to get back to work. Friend, colleague, or therapist (it is possible, but risky for your coach to be your spouse), a coach is someone to stay on you to get things done, exhort you as coaches do, keep tabs on you, and in general be in your corner, on your side. A coach can be tremendously helpful in treating ADD.
   
   
4. Encouragement. ADD adults need lots of encouragement. This is in part due to their having many self-doubts that have accumulated over the years. But it goes beyond that. More than the average person, the ADD adult withers without encouragement and positively thrives when given it. The ADD adult will often work for another person in a way he won't work for himself. This is not "bad," it just is. It should be recognized and taken advantage of.
   
   
5. Realize what ADD is NOT, i.e., conflict with mother, etc.
   
   
6. Educate and involve others. Just as it is key for you to understand ADD, it is equally, if not more important, for those around you to understand it--family, friends, people at work or at school. Once they get the concept they will be able to understand you much better and to help you out as well. It is particularly helpful if your boss can be aware of the kinds of structures that help people with ADD.
   
   
7. Give up guilt over high-stimulus seeking behavior. Understand that you are drawn to high stimuli. Try to choose them wisely, rather than brooding over the "bad" ones.
   
   
8. Listen to feedback from trusted others. Adults (and children, too) with ADD are notoriously poor self observers. They use a lot of what can appear to be denial.
   
   
9. Consider joining or starting a support group. Much of the most useful information about ADD has not yet found its way into books but remains stored in the minds of the people who have ADD. In groups this information can come out. Plus, groups are really helpful in giving the kind of support that is so badly needed.
   
   
10. Try to get rid of the negativity that may have infested your system if you have lived for years without knowing what you had was ADD. A good psychotherapist may help in this regard. Learn to break the tapes of negativity that can play relentlessly in the ADD mind.
    
    
11. Don't feel chained to conventional careers or conventional ways of coping. Give yourself permission to be yourself. Give up trying to be the person you always thought you should be -- the model student or the organized executive, for example--and let yourself be who you are.
    
    
12. Remember that what you have is a neurological condition. It is genetically transmitted. It is caused by biology, by how your brain is wired. It is NOT a disease of the will, nor a moral failing. It is NOT caused by a weakness in character, nor by a failure to mature. It's cure is not to be found in the power of the will, nor in punishment, nor in sacrifice, nor in pain. ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS. Try as they might, many people with ADD have great trouble accepting the syndrome as being rooted in biology rather than weakness of character.
    
    
13. Try to help others with ADD. You'll learn a lot about the condition in the process, as well as feel good to boot.