I love listening to your videos. I used to be a sculptor and one of my main themes was time. Problem was, I could never finish my work on time. I used to be absolutely sure I would be able to make all my objects and get them working by the deadline - people arriving for the private view - but I rarely did. This turned making exhibitions into a nightmare rather than a creative adventure. Eventually, I gave up and took up gambling instead (that's a whole other story). I went to therapy for my time issues where she told me I must hate myself and fear success. As you can imagine, that made things worse (huge waste of money). When I finally found a wonderful psychiatrist here in Germany, her first thought, when I told her my despair over 'failing' as an artist, was bipolar. Later on, when I described what happens when I try to concentrate, she suggested testing for ADHD. The meds really have been life-changing.
You know, boss... I'm adhd so of course I adore all of the content that I didn't know I needed, to understand who I am and how I work. Yet also, I love to listen to your videos as a tutorial of how to think and evaluate data more effectively. Despite the rich data given on adhd, it remains my secondary function in listening to you. You make my process of critical listening so much more robust!
as an adhd clinical services provider and soon to be registered psychotherapist, your weekly literature updates are invaluable for keeping my interventions and psychoeducation on ADHD with clients up to date. I really appreciate you doing this even though youre retired!!!
Hi Dr Barkley - I just wanted to send a note and let you know that your videos, lectures, and books have been instrumental for me as I've gone through the process of getting diagnosed and treated for ADHD as an adult. You've broken it all down in easy-to-understand ways, and also been very conscious of the way ADHD brains work in how you present your information - its not just for folks without the disorder. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! All the best to you and your family in 2024. A quick question - would you ever consider releasing the audio from these videos as a podcast? I tend to listen to podcasts a lot when I am doing work around the farm, or going from place to place, as it seems like one of the only times I'm able to take in what I'm hearing and process it well (yay kinetic learning). I just finished listening to the audiobook of Taking Charge of Adult ADHD and would love to consume more of your content in this way. I'd be happy to help you get that sorted content wise, if its a new direction for you!
Dr Barkley, I’ve seen so many of these studies about maternal depression, eating habits, obesity etc and none of them appear to screen the mothers for ADHD. Given what we know about the impact of late diagnosis on health etc, is there a reason researchers haven’t included that as a way to understand their results more clearly?
Pardon the double comment but I can't resist. Back in 2019 I underwent transcranial magnetic stimulation over my left prefrontal cortex, 30 mins/day, daily, for 6 weeks. I was suffering from severe med-resistant depression. The TMS was very effective, I began to feel better in the first 4 days. I haven't had another depressive episode since that time. It did absolutely everything for MDD and absolutely nothing for ADHD.
Hello Barkley, following your many lectures on the topic, I believe I might have ADHD. Because the diagnosis procedure takes quite a long time where I live, one of the things I've decided to focus on for now is exercise. Exercise is not something I have ever enjoyed, I believe it's because internally I am way too corrective while doing it. While exercising I will be overtly thinking about my posture, how I have to move exactly, what people around me think, if my performance is acceptable, noticing every discomfort, setting super mini goals constantly just to keep going. It feels more like I'm controlling and managing a biorobot. Because of all the things I've learned about ADHD, I've tried to slow this thinking part of myself down and trust the doing part more. I went from being able to last 5 minutes on a rowing machine to 30 minutes, which is quite surreal. The act of just doing something and being in the moment are quite scary, it's like trying to walk with your eyes closed. I wonder if this is a concept behind mindfulness and whether it can be extended to other activities in life. My questions are: 1. Would you be interested in making a video on the topic of mindfulness, what is actually meant with it, the research that exists about it and how it helps with the treatment of ADHD? 2. Is it valid to believe the symptoms of ADHD people are made more severe because the "thinking" part of their mind is exerting too much pressure on the "doing" part of their mind, causing dysfunction beyond what would be expected from their weaker executive function?
Here's your rim shot for the dad joke: ba-dum-tishhhh!!!! So, I've been this way all my life, therefore I can't directly know how NT people experience time, much the same as a person with congenital profound deafness can't fully experience music. I would really love to know what normal time perception feels like, along with all the other perceptual differences we have. I often wonder what normal emotional range feels like on the daily. My husband can't adequately describe his subjective experiences that well, especially time. He shrugs and says, "it just IS". As it is with me, I have to set my watch to vibrate every 20 minutes during my workday to prompt me that I'm working inside time expectations. It makes me wonder, how can I ever hope to function at the level I'd like to if I can't possibly know what I'm missing? I've got no metric (lol, literally!) to understand my level of impairment. Kind of a brain baker to contemplate, I really want to read that first study now.
Dr. Barkley, Thanks so much for your weekly updates. I would love to see a best of 2023 video highlighting in your mind the top research papers published this past year.
I literally said “wow” and proceeded to walk up the stairs and retrieve my phone to write this comment lol - that’s insane… I didn’t know about the finding with postpartum dep and maternal ADHD but DUH…. And yeah that was me and my first experience in therapy as a psychologist… postpartum with my daughter who I believe also has ADHD
Thanks for these reviews. I’ve spent years trying to optimize my ADHD meds. For me, and I suspect everyone, the therapeutic benefits scale with the side effects, now add decreased testicular functioning, which should be included in the medications guide’s list of “potential” side effects. The word potential is not strong enough, as it evokes a sort of individual exceptionalism bias, like you probably won’t experience them. I say everyone will proportional to the therapeutic effect. It takes time, years even, to recognize and appreciate the side-effects presence. So many of these studies rely on self-reporting, and an implied ability to recognize something worth reporting. Are participants certified as supremely self-aware. Of course not. So when Dr. Barkley points out a statistical low significance, as in the sexual functioning study, it’s a too dismissive. Like a good portion of the other side-effects.
5:46 I'm waiting for the study on women, showing how ADHD medication affects estrogen and progesterone... That study on Testosterone seems a little one-sided...
Hello Dr. Barkley, thanks for sharing this valuable information with us! Would you consider making a video about neurofeedback for ADHD? I’ve tried it myself with positive results but I’m not sure if it’s placebo or something else. I see mixed reviews about it. Thank you!
I've been following your lectures ever since I received my ADHD diagnosis a year ago at 32 and son received an ASD diagnosis at 17. I 've been doing so much research and have a few questions: Within ADHD support groups, ADHD social media creators and websites, I see terminology that I haven't heard you use in reference to characteristics/symptoms. "Stimming" and "masking" are widely considered to be ADHD traits. Do you consider these to be ADHD characteristics or are they better recognized as the percentage of ADHD individuals who have autistic traits? I also hear the phrase "dopamine chasing" within ADHD support groups. This is usually applied to the tendency toward excessive spending and poor eating habits most directly. Would you say this term is analogous to your characterization of inhibition deficits in EF? Or is it possible that dopamine chasing is the immediate result of decreased norepinephrine and dopamine and that impulsivity and lowered inhibitions are secondary effects?
Those terms apply more to ASD than ADHD, but some use them to describe both conditions. Stimming is self stimulation as in hand flapping when excited or engaging in unusual gestures and postures especially with the hands while seeing how light plays off of them. Just examples. Masking is the effort to cover up or disguise a symptom by channeling it into a related behavior or activity that is more socially acceptable. There is very little research on the latter term. As for dopamine chasing, it’s just a pop culture phrase for sensation seeking or other excitement in the belief that it increases dopamine in the brain, which it really may or may not do. I don’t use that term as it implies one knows that it is dopamine related which is irrelevant. And, yes, it can reflect t impulsivity as well as in risk taking. Be well
I think that you again miss the possibility that it's very likely the other way around. Moms getting post pardum depression from having kids with adhd. Babies with ADHD very like statistically acts in a another way than baby's with out ADHD. Having a harder time sleeping. Having a harder time breastfeeding, being more fussy and demanding. You know what that does to a new mother? You don't know why your little one won't go to sleep like all the rest. You don't just get disturbed at night equal to all the others, you have an always fussy kid and dad just hands the kid back to you with in 5 minutes, saying the little one is properly hungry (again). But the kid can't even focus on taking in milk. This mom doesn't have the baby that sleeps more than it's awake, she has the kids that "she fails" at getting to sleep. Fails at getting to calm down. My kid cried and cried from day 1, and I did not do anything else than trying to get him to feed. The tiny creature went ballistic with hunger as I was once and again told to take him to my breast. First time I had a chance to sleep, 2 days after giving birth (and how much sleep did you think I got doing those 42 hours?) , nurses kept knocking on my door. Yes, I was in tears. But anyone else would have been too. I did not actually sleep until at least a day later, and then it really, really still wasnt anywhere near 6 uninterupted hours. And then one nurse had the odacity to trick me to go to a doctor who no matter what I said concluded that I had a post pardum depression. He apparently concluded that based on my mother having had a depression once. I did not have a depression, I had a kid who just could not be calmed down and no one listened.
Hi Uncle Russ, happy new year! Are there any studies on ADHD and psychic abilities? Because I've noticed that I can perceive more than someone who's neurotypical, and I suspect it's a perk of being on the spectrum. Thank you for all your hard work 💜
