According to a recent study, some people with attention deficit disorder could be better served with a diagnosis of maladaptive daydreaming.
For most people, daydreaming is a fun diversion from the real world, but for others, it can become excessive.
Some people can spend up to half their waking hours in their own world, which makes it difficult to participate in daily life.
Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) is not currently considered a psychiatric disorder in its own right; instead, its characteristic influence over attention means it is lumped in as a symptom of disorders such as ADHD.
According to studies, around 77 percent of people who experience MD are also diagnosed with ADHD. According to psychologists, MD is actually its own disorder.
It can lead to periods of hyperfocus and seeming inattention if you have a disorganized attention system. Maladaptive daydreaming is more like a behavioral addiction, drawing the mind back into complex and vivid states of imagination.
A small group of 83 people with attention deficit disorder met the criteria for MD, but only 20 percent of them did.
The two disorders are not the same.
If we found symmetrically high rates of MD among adults with attention deficit disorder, it would be fair to say that the newer concept of MD is unnecessary.
The study agrees with our theory that MD is an independent mental phenomenon that can cause a deficit in attention.
There is more research to be done to support the idea of MD as a distinct psychiatric disorder.
Participants who met the criteria for maladaptive daydreaming said they had difficulty giving their full attention to a task until it was completed, but not in the same way as described by ADHD markers.
Participants said they self-directed their own daydreams, absorbing themselves in vivid and fanciful situations that made it hard to focus on external tasks.
They lost attention to their obsession with daydreaming.
The authors conclude that the diagnosis of ADHD does not adequately describe the problem in such cases.
The hypothesis is supported by the fact that participants who met the criteria for both MD and ADHD reported higher levels of psychological distress than those who only met the criteria for ADHD.
According to the authors, excessive daydreaming could be caused by a desire to escape depression, low self-esteem, or loneliness.
That finding is important because it shows that if MD and ADHD have different underlying mechanisms, they might not respond to the same interventions.
If you find yourself drawn to engage in elaborate, narrative, vivid, and highly emotional fantasies, you may need different treatment than if you find yourself wandering with general mind-wandering.
If it is the latter, we suggest seeking psychological help, and introducing the concept of MD, which has been researched extensively in the past years, but is still quite unknown.
Without a proper understanding of MD, it is not clear how many people have the disorder.
MD seems to have become a bigger issue during COVID-19 because of the idea that daydreaming is our way of dealing with trauma.
The journal published the study.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
