We take a lot for granted during our waking hours: our bodies’ automatic breathing, automatic walking, automatic speech production. In fact, a problem for people with ADHD is the automatic speech production — words get blurted out that they wish had some filtering before exiting their mouths. Both automatic and volitional actions start in our brains. While we often cannot “sense” this, when there is damage to the brain, we see the actions are impacted. A common trauma to the brain is a stroke. Depending on where the injury happens in the brain, different actions — speech, walking, memory recall
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for ADHD
A great book on the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, for people who have ADHD has just been released in paperback. While it is intended for therapists who want to help people with ADHD to build skills in executive functioning, the first half of the book presents evidence about the areas in life where working adults may struggle and fail, in spite of being talented, articulate and hard-working. It’s called Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adult ADHD: Targeting Executive Dysfunction by Mary V. Solanto. She is a psychiatrist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. I’ve taken