Sari Solden's "Journeys Through Addulthood"

Sari Solden is a therapist who specialises in writing about ADD in women. Journey’s Through Adulthood is her first book that is written for both men and women with ADHD.

The book is well written and will appeal to the kind of people who get a lot out of counselling therapy. It takes a realistic look at the various challenges posed by ADHD and follows the lives of a small group of people struggling with ADD over an extended period of time and the up and downs they go through after treatment.

An interesting idea put forward in the book is that people with ADHD need an optimum amount of stress to function well. Too little stress can be just as undesirable as too little.

The main problem I have with book is that the author does not make a clear distinction between ADHD and inattentive ADHD. Although one person described in the book clearly has inattentive ADHD, this is not clearly pointed out by the author.

Furthermore, since there is only one person in the book who has the inattentive type of ADHD, there is only a limited amount of advice in the book that is relevant for people with this type of ADHD. For example, it is pointed out that lack of assertiveness is a major problem for some people with ADHD, yet this is only mentioned once in the book.

People with inattentive ADHD have major problems with assertiveness and would benefit from an in-depth discussion of this issue. Conversely, people with ADHD, who are often bossy and over-assertive, don’t need advice on being too quiet and unassertive.

This failure to distinguish between different types of ADHD is a common problem with many books on ADHD. In Driven to Distraction for example, it is states that people with ADHD tend to be risk takers, but this rarely applies to people with inattentive ADHD, who are more likely to take too few risks.

By contrast, in Barbara Fisher’s ADD: Practical coping methods, a book that deal specifically with ADHD inattentive type, it is clearly pointed out that people with inattentive ADD have problems with taking necessary risks, and that this an area that they need to work on.

Another thing about Journey’s Through Adulthood is that is won’t appeal to a lot of male readers who prefer a drier, more matter-of-fact style of writing, or who have a strong aversion to counselling therapy.

Overall though, a good read for those interested in exploring counselling as an option for dealing with ADHD.