The key ideas

Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood

Edward M. Hallowell, John J. Ratey, 1994

A woman notices a cough drop on her dashboard all day and keeps forgetting to throw it away. Two psychiatrists who themselves live with attention deficit disorder explain why this is not about laziness, what ADD looks like in adults and quiet daydreamers, and what may help. The book offers understanding, not a diagnosis.

Who it is for

For anyone who has heard “pull yourself together” for years without understanding why they cannot, for parents of distracted children, and for people close to someone with ADHD.

Telling a person with ADD to “try harder” is no more helpful than telling a nearsighted person to squint harder.

What the book is about

Someone has left a cough drop on a car’s dashboard. A woman notices it and thinks: I need to throw that away. She reaches her destination and gets out, but the cough drop stays. She gets back in, sees it again and has the same thought. This goes on all day. Psychiatrists Edward Hallowell and John Ratey tell this patient’s story in their book. Why did such a small thing matter to them?

The book came out in 1994, and the authors updated it in 2011. It is often described as one of the first popular books to explain that attention deficit disorder affects adults as well as noisy boys. Both authors say they live with the condition themselves. The book calls it ADD, the term used in the DSM from 1980; ADHD appeared there in 1987 and is the term used today. This is a book from the 1990s, and its model should be read through a contemporary lens.

An important caveat. The book offers understanding, but it does not diagnose you or your loved ones. It contains a self-assessment questionnaire, which we deliberately leave out: recognizing yourself in a description does not mean you have a disorder.

Idea 1. The cough drop on the dashboard

What is going wrong in the cough-drop story? The woman knows what she needs to do. The task takes a second. She sincerely wants to do it. And still she does not.

In the authors’ view, this is one of the main difficulties with ADD: the gap between intention and action. Someone may understand perfectly well what matters and yet repeatedly fail to follow through. From the outside, this is easy to mistake for indifference or laziness.

The small detail was chosen for a reason. With a large task, failure can be attributed to complexity. Here, there is no complexity, which makes the mechanism itself more visible.

An email that needs a two-line reply sits in an inbox for a week. Every time the person opens their email, they think: “I’ll reply now.”

An unfinished task does not always mean the person does not care. Sometimes knowledge and desire are both there, but the bridge from thought to action is missing.

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About the author

Edward Hallowell and John Ratey are American psychiatrists. When the book appeared, both were affiliated with Harvard Medical School and, by their own account, both have ADD. Hallowell has worked with people with ADHD since 1981 and founded the Hallowell clinic network. The authors have also written follow-up books together.

All books by this author: Edward M. Hallowell, John J. Ratey

Terms from the book

  • DSM
  • Hyperfocus
  • ADHD
  • coaching
  • Moral model: The authors’ term for the view that attention difficulties are explained by weak character, laziness and a lack of willpower.
  • External structure: Routines, lists, reminders and other outside supports that the authors believe are especially necessary for people with ADD.

All terms

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