[viburnum]

There’s a view that ADHD is badly named, because many ADHD people have incredible focus (at times), and many are not hyperactive in the least. It’s more of an issue about emotional dysregulation, which can be exceptionally painful for those who suffer.

[PragmaticPulp]

> because many ADHD people have incredible focus (at times)

The concept of "hyperfocus" as a symptom of ADHD is relatively recent idea. It didn't appear in any medical literature for a long time. The first appearance I could find was in some author's book about ADHD, which wasn't even targeted at medical professionals.

It might be a symptom for some people, but misinterpreting it as a symptom of ADHD leaves the door wide open for misdiagnosis and over-diagnosis. When we start diagnosis a disorder notorious of lack of attention in people who demonstrate an abundance of attention, there's a problem.

The pop-psychology definition of ADHD is so broad that it's rare to find an HN commenter who hasn't self-diagnosed as maybe having ADHD at some point in their lives.

As you said, pathological ADHD (as diagnosed by a medical professional) can have a severe impact on people's lives. It's best that we leave the diagnosis to professionals and not give people the impression that the regular ups and downs of focus (studying/focus/mental endurance is work for everyone) are indicators of a mental health disorder.

[dragonwriter]

> When we start diagnosis a disorder notorious of lack of attention in people who demonstrate an abundance of attention, there's a problem.

Inattention in ADHD has always been the lack of ability to appropriately direct attention, not the absence of attention to anything.

While “hyperfocus” by name is a fairly recent association, at least as far back as the DSM III-R ADHD has included both tendency to be easily distracted by extraneous stimuli (inability to maintain appropriate attention) and that of not having attention drawn by stimulus that should draw it (appearing not to listen.)

Hyperfocus is simply the latter.

[skissane]

> The concept of "hyperfocus" as a symptom of ADHD is relatively recent idea

Hyperfocus is a symptom of ADHD, ASD, and schizophrenia [1]. So a person who experiences hyperfocus may be experiencing one or more of those conditions. (Although, when I say "symptom", not necessarily a diagnostic one – conditions can have both diagnostic symptoms, which form part of the diagnostic criteria, and non-diagnostic symptoms, which don't, but nonetheless have been commonly observed clinically and/or in research in those formally diagnosed.)

Since it is possible to have subclinical manifestations of psychiatric diagnoses, a person who experiences hyperfocus without meeting the diagnostic criteria for any of these diagnoses may have such a subclinical manifestation of one or more of them. The formal name for subclinical ASD is "Broad Autism Phenotype" (BAP) [2]; I don't think subclinical ADHD [3] or subclinical schizophrenia [4] have distinctive names, but both have been researched. (A lot of people who incorrectly self-diagnose themselves as having X despite not actually meeting the diagnostic criteria, may in fact be correctly identifying the existence of subclinical traits of X in themselves.)

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31541305/

[2] e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5949081/

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2547346/

[minerjoe]

> leave the diagnosis to professionals

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23821855

[toomanybeersies]

I was diagnosed in my mid-20s with inattentive-type ADHD. I had never even considered that I had ADHD until about a year prior to seeing a doctor, because I don't "look" like I have ADHD. There's this stereotype of people with ADHD being unable to sit still, constantly bouncing off the walls, which isn't really me at all.

There's so much more to ADHD than that though. I'm smart enough that I never struggled academically, and wasn't hyperactive enough to cause significant enough disruption in the classroom, so externally it was never picked up that I might have ADHD. But now that I'm aware of it, I've come to realise how significant of an impact it's had in my life, all the self-destructive and self-sabotaging behaviour, the instability of my relationships, the abuse of drugs and alcohol, the lack of internal motivation, emotional hypersensitivity, a lack of emotional and object permanence, and more. I could go on for days (and have) about the less obvious effects and symptoms of ADHD.

[twojacobtwo]

I completely agree that it is poorly named. One of the reasons I never even considered that I had ADD/ADHD was that I was never really exhibited hyperactivity and during certain activities -reading an amazing book or playing my favourite games- I can focus for hours on end. I think it would be great for the scientific/psychiatric community to seriously consider a new name.

[patmorgan23]

I do like the category ADHD is put in though. It's a form of 'executive disfunction' which I think describes it much better.