Adult ADHD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer's World

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But there was an odd side effect to these skin-disease cures: the children’s behavior also changed. Many of Dr. Feingold’s young patients, in addition to being victims of skin diseases, had been diagnosed with hyperactivity or minimal brain dysfunction. But when the skin-disease-causing foods or food additives were removed from their diets, the hyperactivity quite often disappeared, or was reduced so dramatically that parents and teachers noticed the change. Though the Hunter has been found on every continent, our western culture came out of Mesopotamia about 10,000 years ago when the hunter-gatherers began to learn the ways of the agriculturists. They gradually moved west across what is now Europe and North Africa, and eventually across the Atlantic into North America. The evolution from the Hunter to the Farmer can be considered an evolution in consciousness as the immigration slowly moved west and the successful Farmer learned to focus on the details of farming, details that the Hunter would have considered boring. Yet, there were/are those who have maintained their Hunter consciousness. But with the Farmers’ conquests in moving west they became the dominators and takers of what laid before them. The genocide they inflicted upon the conquered showed them to be amoral and predatory invaders of Europe and North America. Hartmann then provides fifteen stories of individuals with ADHD, stories that are very revealing in opening the reader to a greater sensitivity in recognizing ADHD. Following these stories are stories of the lives of six famous people with ADHD and how their ADHD was an asset for all they accomplished in their lives, in their inventive creativity, openness to taking risks, and how their lives changed the ways we now live: Thomas Edison with his more than a thousand inventions, Amelia Earhart with her risk taking and adventurous nature, Benjamin Franklin whose thinking and writings led to his assistance in the writing of our constitution, Sir Richard Francis Burton whose exploration of the many then unknown lands opened the door to the world we now know, Ernest Hemingway whose writings we are all familiar with, and Thomas Carlyle whose written tirades exposed many problems in our modern world. The March 25, 1996, issue of Time featured a cover story on the functions of the brain and the latest research into why our brains behave the way they do. Evolutionary notions of behavior played an important part in that article, including the recent discovery by researchers that those people most likely to have the gene that causes the brain to crave fatty foods and thus produce obesity are also those people whose ancestors over the past ten thousand years came from parts of the world where famines were common. What was an adaptive behavior for primitive peoples has become maladaptive in a world where most hunting is done at the supermarket. But there were some children with hyperactivity or minimal brain dysfunction—perhaps a majority—whom the Feingold diet did not help. This troubling inconsistency led many professionals to discard Feingold’s hypotheses in whole, and the movement that bears his name is now, years after his death, just a shell of what it once was.

Review – ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer’s World by Thom Hartmann, Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press, 2019. People with ADHD often grow up with strong negative feelings about themselves. Thom Hartmann offers hope, help, and positive solutions to those with ADHD… Once again, Thom casts a bright light on ADHD, showing us all that by looking at the positive in ourselves we can lead more fulfilling, productive, giving lives. This book is inspirational and a must-red for those who have ADHD or care about someone with ADHD.” ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer’s World, 3rd Edition: A Hunter in a Farmer's World Thom Hartmann,Michael Popkin - foreword,Robin Douglas,Inner Traditions Audio Mobi Online

ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer's World by Thom Hartmann, Michael Popkin

Individuals who are almost pure Hunters are classified as classic ADHD. Individuals who are almost pure Farmers are classified as slow, careful, methodical, and, sometimes, boring. Since Farmer characteristics are less likely to be risky and dangerous (for reasons explained), these extremely non-ADHD people are not often classified by psychologists. They don’t generally get into trouble in school or at work, and tend not to stand out (for better or worse) in our society. More recent research, however, has demonstrated a high incidence of ADHD among the parents of ADHD children. This discovery caused some psychologists to initially postulate that ADHD was the result of growing up in a dysfunctional family; they suggested that ADHD may follow the same pattern as child or spousal abuse, moving through generations as learned behavior. The dietary-cause advocates contended that children pattern their parent’s eating habits, and this accounts for the generational patterns of ADHD. Other studies suggest that, like Down’s syndrome or muscular dystrophy, ADHD is a genetic disease, and a specific gene, the A1 variant of the D2 dopamine receptor gene, has been identified by scientists as the leading candidate.

It’s not so unusual, apparently, for humans to have, built into our genetic material, protection against local diseases and other environmental conditions. Certainly, Darwin’s theory of natural selection argues in favor of such bodily defenses. Those individuals with the immunities would survive to procreate and pass along their genetic material. A clear and positive view of our remarkable children with practical tips for the parent. Stephen C. Davidson And so, more than twenty years after the first publication of this book, we are left with the ongoing questions: What is ADHD, where did it come from, why do we have it, and where do we go from here? Since Feingold’s time, psychiatry has largely merged hyperactivity into ADD, referring to it currently as ADHD. This is working: [Read] ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer’s World, 3rd Edition: A Hunter in a Farmer's World by Thom Hartmann,Michael Popkin - foreword,Robin Douglas,Inner Traditions Audio EPUB KINDLE PDF EBOOKMany years ago a psychologist friend explained ADHD to me in this way: “A child comes into my office and touches something. I respond with ‘NO.’ With more “NO’s” he is soon racing around the office touching everything, looking for a ‘yes.’” In some ways this child is acting like a Hunter, hunting for a “yes” with an awareness of everything that is in his environment, yet in today’s world he would be considered a problem. The answer lies with the second basic type of human culture which primitive humans produced: the agricultural society. In this sort of community, farmers were the ones who provided sustenance and survival. And the skills of a good Farmer are quite different from those of a good Hunter. And so, over the past five thousand years, on every continent and among every people, hunter-gatherers have been wiped out, displaced, slaughtered, exterminated, and oppressed by Wétiko farmers/industrialists. Today, fewer than 2 percent of the world’s human population are genetically pure hunter-gatherer peoples, and only a remnant of them is found in our gene pool, and that only as the result of enslavement and assimilation. THOSE WHO WOULD DISEMPOWER FOR THEIR OWN GAIN I much prefer a rational middle ground, well articulated by Harvard Medical School associate professor of psychiatry Dr. John Ratey in his foreword to my 1995 book ADD Success Stories: A good ADHD book should be clearly written, humorous, validating, conversational, and highly stimulating. Thom Hartmann accomplishes all these things in Healing ADD. He outlines a host of useful techniques that the ADDer can add to his or her repertoire of coping strategies.”