Decoding Disturbance: Why Does Everyone have ADHD and is Neurodiverse?

Social, political and environmental events affect our individual emotional functioning. We are still living with the impact of the Covid Pandemic which disrupted our usual defences leading to a collective sense of abandonment and emotional disorientation. The result has been an explosion in the ways in which mental unease and emotional disturbance have become diagnosed in increasingly fixed, rigid and pathological terms.

Originally part of my training Decoding Defences, given at Birkbeck College University of London, this new audio training goes further. It provides an in-depth analysis of the far reach of brutal wars, wild technology and a rapacious drug industry that have broken barriers intruding into our internal world and distorting our sense of self and identity. 

Overwhelming evidence over many years indicates that many pathological medically focused approaches to understanding emotional problems have not led to hoped for outcomes. These all-inclusive quasi medical diagnoses paradoxically often obscure the specific mental health concerns for which people require attention and treatment. 

To counter the notion of emotional functioning as pre ordained, I present a psychodynamic meaning making therapeutic approach which seeks to restore the agency of the individual in the service of self understanding and decision making about their lived life. Drawing on the extensively researched area of attachment and bonding as the building blocks of emotional experience, the psychodynamic approach prioritises the vital importance of relationships. In particular it emphasises the devastating impact of separation, loss and trauma on these developmental pillars.

I explain the effectiveness of time-limited psychodynamic therapy and how the relationship between the therapist and the client is the engine room of the therapeutic experience. It is this therapeutic relationship which provides the necessary containment for the client or patient to enable them to manage uncertainty and begin to engage in the reflective process that helps them chart the future course of their lives. 

As a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and clinical psychologist I have pioneered the application of a psychodynamic approach over many decades, one that promotes understanding of the meaning of behavior rather than uncovering pathology. Through my professional trainings run throughout Australia and overseas, now presented as audio trainings, I argue that narrow pathology-based diagnoses not only compromise children, young people and adults, but also compromise the ability of professionals to offer meaningful treatment and support.

My pioneering work extends into my extensive publications including Rethinking ADHD: An Illness of our time with Dr. Vicki Anderson and Tim Godber and my recent chapter involving parents in Psychoanalytic Crisis Work with Adolescents Edited by Papadima, Acheson and Tzikas. 

The psychodynamic method I promote demonstrates the intersection between the intrapsychic, the interpersonal and the systemic where none of these fields can be kept artificially separate. It enables us to move from pre-ordained prescriptive diagnoses to one that validates the inherent knowledge of the people we are trying to help.

Copyright 2026 Ruth Schmidt Neven, all rights reserved.