Dr. Russell Barkley

Well, I think superficially people would assume that because there are attention problems that go with anxiety and depression.

And so people automatically think that all attention deficits are ADHD.

And that is way oversimplifying.

We now know that there are at least two and eventually there'll be five, but at least there are two kinds of inattentiveness.

The one that goes with ADHD is being externally distracted.

So I'm skipping from one thing to another and all of the irrelevant events going on around me are pulling me in various directions.

So I am overly coupled to my environment and not coupled enough

to my mental information about my goals, my plans, my do list, the things I said I was going to do today.

I'm not governed by mental information the way other people are.

I'm overly governed by context and the now.

And so that's ADHD.

Now let's look at anxiety and depression.

What we see with them is the opposite.

They are overly coupled

to mental information rumination obsession fear anticipation worry sounds like fun so they're inattentive but they're going to be inattentive in a staring daydreaming mind-wandering kind of way like an absent-minded professor

They're not hyperactive.

They're not distracted.

They're just in their head way too much.

And ADHD people are not in their head that much.

And if they are, it's because their ideas are skipping all over the place.