Emotions in ADHD:Getting Stuck & Moving Forward

Thomas E. Brown, Ph.D.Dept. of Psychiatry

Yale University School of Medicine

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

Problems with Emotions in ADHD

• Children & adults with ADHD experience similar emotions to others of similar age

• Yet they and their families often have more difficulty in recognizing, responding to and managing their emotions

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

How ADHD can affect emotions:

Reactions to small frustrations can gobble up all the space in their mind—like a computer virus frustration/anger

hurt feelings“got to have it now”“what if?”

So they forget other feelings and bigger picture

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

Flooding with one emotion

• While flooded with one emotion, persons with ADHD tend to forget about other relevant emotions

-may forget their love & wish to protect the person—friend, parent, child, co-worker

who frustrated or angered them and say or do things that are too hurtful

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

Sue 14 year old middle school student

• “Until I got into middle school I always got really good grades and never got into trouble. Now everybody thinks I’m hopeless because I dress Goth and don’t do much homework. My parents and teachers all look down on me just because of the friends I hang out with. They don’t really know me or my friends.”

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

Eric20 year old college student

• “I’m in a great university where I want to do well, but I just can’t get myself motivated to do the work. I did really well in high school, now my grades have tanked. I’ve been spending too much time hanging out with my girlfriend and smoking weed. I’ve tried some ADHD medicines, but they make me too jittery.

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

Emotions in the Family with ADHD

Frequently parents of a child with ADHD are excessively stressed and may become polarized against each other.

“Butt-kicker” vs. “Marshmallow”Need to work together to decide when to support with confrontation vs. flexibility.

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

Rearranging Penalties & Rewards

• People with ADHD often have difficulty in waiting for delayed payoffs—may think too much about now and not enough about later

• You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar

• Keep corrections and penalties short/focused

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

Missing the bigger picture, the larger context and other goals

When flooded with one emotion, they may forget other goals they have or how actions of the moment may affect their bigger picture

like one who is watching a basketball game through a telescope, they may miss other relevant aspects of the situationliving too much in the moment, eg. want to sleep longer in am, may forget that

boss warned about excessive lateness

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

What may help?(nothing works all the time)

• Get help to explicitly recognize your conflicting emotions

• Support now and nurture realistic hope for future

• Adequately tailored medication for ADHD

• Defer confrontation until a cooler moment

• Anticipate and prepare for “danger zones” e.g. “handoff”

• Utilize “Getting to Yes” strategies to work toward “win-win”

TEBrown,Ph.D. Yale Medical School

For more info:

A new book:

Smart but Stuck: Emotions in Teens & Adults with ADHDread a segment of this book on my website for free:

www.DrThomasEBrown.com