Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurobiological disorder originating in childhood that involves a pattern of attention deficit, concentration, hyperactivity, and/or impulsivity, which hinder academic performance and is often associated with other comorbid disorders.
In recent years, the number of children diagnosed with ADD or ADHD has been increasing significantly. This has generated a worldwide debate in congresses, professional forums, and media, where it has even been said that it is a disorder generated by the modern lifestyle.
In 1845, psychiatrist Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann published a book of children’s poems in which two cases of ADHD were described, showing the psychiatric community’s concern for this disorder which, at that time, was associated with possible brain injuries.
More recently, Dr. Russell Barkley, the internationally recognized professor of psychiatry and leading authority in the study of ADHD, postulated that children with ADHD have problems maintaining prolonged attention, have difficulties in planning and maintaining goals and in inhibiting responses (or controlling impulses) and often exhibit problematic behavior (non-compliance with instructions, aggression, etc.) which can be confused with that of oppositional children or those from a lax and permissive upbringing (2005).
The most commonly used treatments today are medications (stimulants) and behavioral therapy. However, both have limitations. Medications only work in the short term and can have side effects. Behavioral training is applied to parents, but it is very difficult to follow, sometimes because parents may also show ADHD symptoms or simply due to the difficulty involved in carrying it out consistently in situations of prolonged fatigue or stress.
In any case, both methods require external control, and these children grow up without learning self-control strategies. Furthermore, the habitual use of punishments frequently leads to a significant deterioration in parent-child relationships and a high level of frustration in both. This has led to the search for alternative and/or complementary treatments to medication, but ones that focus on the core deficits of children with ADHD, which are inattention and impulsivity.
One of these alternative treatments is training in Mindfulness techniques (MDF), which is being studied in clinics and universities in the US and other European countries, and the results are very encouraging. In fact, it has been concluded that Mindfulness training for parents improves relationships with children and increases parental satisfaction (Singh, 2010). Additionally, adults who undergo Mindfulness training significantly improve attentional processing (Jha, 2007; Semple, 2010); those with extensive meditation experience show improved concentration and inhibition of automatic responses compared to non-meditators. (Van der Hurk et al., 2010). Mindfulness training for psychologists is now presented as essential.
Diana Winston, Mindfulness instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), points out that MDF practice can be the best ally to overcome the problems caused by ADHD (2010). “Completely Present” is the flagship book by this author, who was the first instructor of the Mindfulness program for people with ADHD.
Winston was looking for ways to teach MDF to young people, so she designed a program that could be useful for adults and adolescents and, consequently, observed that the practice was so powerful that it could be effective even with ADHD.
One of the things reinforced in the study was letting those with ADHD know that this was not a problem and that, on the contrary, their brains were very creative. But that they needed to know when it was the right time to think about something else and when they should focus on the present activity. Participants learned to notice that distracting thought that pulled them away from the present and returned to the activity being performed.
The entire group was able to meditate with adaptations that included more movement, meaning Mindfulness practices that added physical movement and shorter meditations at first (5, 12, and then 20 minutes); after eight weeks, practices were extended to 30 minutes.
The study found that participants, as sessions progressed, managed to maintain full attention throughout the day.
Finally, Winston points out that the minds of people with ADHD are usually in the past, in the future, or all over the place. MDF is an invitation to return to the present moment and connect directly with life, with being here and present instead of being lost in thoughts and the anxiety and tension these thoughts generate. Furthermore, Mindfulness teaches us to intentionally and consistently place our attention on something, to have control over our attention and not be at its mercy.
ISEP provides Mindfulness training through its Master’s in Psychotherapy of Emotional Well-being. The program is designed with the objective of teaching our patients to live with full and total awareness of the here and now, with all that implies, including the child population. The application of Mindfulness techniques in parents of children with ADHD, in the children themselves, or in adults with the disorder offers multiple possibilities yet to be explored, all with the same objective: to improve their lives.