My first proposal
That we herald in a long overdue name change for ADHD – one that more accurately reflects this brain type. Or, if nothing else, create one that is less misleading to others… and also less offensive to its owner.

My second proposal
Is that we stop “diagnosing” people with ‘ADHD’…

As someone who was “diagnosed” later in life with this disorder, looking back, I would have much preferred to have been labelled with ‘ADHD’ as opposed to some of the other choice descriptors I’ve been given over my time: intense, lazy, flippant, disinterested, mercurial, quirky, inappropriate, over-reactive, all-talk, scary, etc.

That said, I really don’t appreciate now being tagged with a misleading label… especially given that it generally conjures up images of badly behaved little boys 😒

Being deficient in attention, and more than sufficient in activity does not even begin to accurately describe this so-called disorder. I think we can come up with something much more fitting!

How about:
Weikard-Crichton Syndrome 🤗
(VYE-kard-KRY-tuhn)

Way back in 1775 (!), German physician Melchior Adam Weikard – followed later by Scottish physician Sir Alexander Crichton in 1798 – observed, and published the earliest known clinical descriptions of attention disorders.

Further to this, I believe that using ‘syndrome’ (which is a collection of symptoms that tend to occur together but don’t necessarily have a known cause) is a more accurate way of describing this mental and emotional phenomenon. Using ‘disorder’ suggests a functional abnormality or disturbance in the body or mind.

Now, I know the medical establishment are trying to move away from naming ‘things’ after the person who discovered it (known as eponyms). You know what I mean, right? Some examples include: Alzheimer’s disease, Asperger’s syndrome (now ASD-1), Crohn’s, Hashimoto’s, Hodgkin’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s disease.

Note: in some cases they are simply removing the possessive “s” e.g it was Down’s Syndrome and now it’s Down Syndrome. 

This is because they want the names to be:
Descriptive to provide clarity for both clinician and patient
This is also supposed to reduce possible associated stigma… uh-huh 🤨

Consistent across the globe
Eponyms often vary across languages and countries.

Ethics and Equity
Some eponyms may have had a contentious past, and have not accounted for other people who may have contributed to the findings.

And, while I can understand all this, they clearly suck at being ‘descriptive’ – given what we are discussing here. It is impossible to do justice for ‘ADHD’ as it’s incredibly nuanced. So, I think it’s easier to roll with an eponym, and just give credit where credit is due. And, if people don’t know what it means, then they can simply refer to their pocket medical dictionary…

Rather than getting ‘diagnosed’ with ADHD (which suggests we have a medical condition). I have started using ‘determined to have’ or ‘deemed to have’ in regards to myself, and to clients.

To me, it’s more like Harry Potter and the Sorting Hat! This sentient magical hat at Hogwarts was used to determine which of the four school houses was the best fit for each new student.

Having felt like an outsider for much of my life, I found it really helpful to be ‘sorted’. And, I really like the idea of not being the only one of my kind, and finally slotting in somewhere. 

Maybe we could shorten Weikard-Crichton Syndrome to just Crichton Syndrome? (Sorry, Melchior!) Then after it was ‘determined’ that we had this syndrome, we could ‘deem’ ourselves to be –

House Crichton 😉
Strengths: creativity, ambition, and a strong sense of justice.
Weaknesses: impulsivity, easily bored, and distractibility