[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