well i. think. that had we had a court of law if. there's a story. playing out in real life. welcome to the it's conversations with great minds dr alan lipman and sorry sold dr alan lipman is a clinical psychologist in private practice in new york an international speaker and has been involved with the spectrum of attentional disorders for over twenty five years in private practice dr lipman focuses on the high i.q. adult addles adolescent a.d.h. d. populations she specializes in identifying and treating complex presentations of radiation may be misinterpreted or overlooked she's also the co-author of the book understanding girls with a d.h.b.

story solon is a psycho psycho therapist who has worked with individuals couples in groups with a.d.h. the adults for over twenty five years she's also prominent in the national keynote speaker and trains and consults with other mental health professionals in assessing and counseling adults with a ph d. series also the author of the books journeys through adulthood discovery a new sense of identity and many with attention to deficit disorder and the book women with attention deficit disorder which is also now available in spanish and all digital formats like ellen litman surgery so with me now to have the yes. i've known you both for a while i don't care if you go so just reveal this to our audience and as such both of you have absolutely fascinating personal stories that brought you to this and it's to the extent that you might want to talk about it out or. who or what you're doing what you're up to that story kind of start with well yeah i was searching for what was. different about maybe my whole life basically and right around the time i

met you i was working at a counseling agency for a special program for adults with learning disabilities and i started saying a lot of people and it was right around the early ninety's when i started to understand that maybe there was something with attention also why i wrote my book and what was so interesting for me personally and professionally was that the women all told the same story that no matter if they had the same organizational retention problems as the man the women had said shame and pain about not being able to meet those cultural gender role expectations and that's really what propelled me to write that book and to focus on that for the last twenty five years and in the process i did get diagnosed and did get helped through medication to stay awake you know we talk about this stereotype you know little boy hyperactive acting out but millions of women are not understood and not helped because they can barely even stay awake. the girls massively. are you

and i tend to not bother anybody there are people saying they're not bothering anybody and it's often that they hit college or are after college when they cannot and will no longer be able to keep up with the demands even if they're really smart so they don't have a wattle later and this is your practice this is what you do what drew your attention interest well my specialty is girls and women i was originally looking into a situation that would be explain my son's behavior who had a very high i.q. but also had trouble sitting still started attending conferences. argued with the present there said the girls were want to be because i had seen him because he has seen lots of girls that do not present like boys but the diagnostic criteria are based on young. boys young hyperactive boys so our criteria and it up being about

hyperactivity and so girls who are hyperactive and more inattentive were being missed and now i think that what they're finding is that for adults it's one to one male to female so it's not yet one to one with girls or ideally it will be when we get even better at diagnosing and we've come a long way from. the seventy's and the hyperkinetic syndrome and find gold in the whole you know. number sixty nine or something so let's let's actually start with some definitions probably started there to begin with what is. well we know definitively now that it's a neuro biological disorder it's a difference in brain wiring i don't call it the disorder i think it's a horrible name that it has because it's just

a difference and it's people self regulate in a different way they respond to stimuli in the environment in a different way and it's on a continuum and everyone has some of those symptoms and when it gets in your way then it's a problem and then maybe you seek help and that gets in your way part of the surgery that's a big part of it is not cause you to go through the diagnostic criteria in front of just any random group of people i mean if you go to a bruce springsteen concert just let me tell you for three minutes here's the guy most of the people who are going to raise their hand and say that's me but they're not necessarily every night and that's why it's so easily dismissed as everybody this is their keys and everybody understands this but it's the degree it's the severity it's the. witness and it's getting in the way obviously and like you've always talked about finding the right environment and finding a good fit is what you you what. we want to do and i tell everybody whether you

take medication or not the point is to make it easier for you to be who you are to embrace who you are to accept your differences so i think it's a false you know thing you have blessing medication not if you're suffering internally a lot of adults just are suffering it's difficult to live with for some people with this severe pulls and pushes and not being able to manifest who they are tend to be a pain underachievement so treatment is really not about getting over you are conforming it's about understanding we all have differences and how can we help you find a life that works for you basically that's how we view it now well and in this with this medication medication thing you know. back in one thousand nine hundred seventy nine final published book why your child was hyperactive and he asserted that it was just food. and you know the reason i run into community for abuse kids at that time and we had thirty eight kids we put about to find one of them respond

and that kid had really bad psoriasis and find gold was a dermatologist you know so he was dealing with a population that was dermatological a challenge yeah you know some kids actually you know but it's it was such a minority and some kids respond really well the medication others don't some kids and same with adults what's what's the current state of thinking and curious from both of you what's the current state of thinking. the evolution of medications we've gone from just the old you know i mean arguably it was benzedrine in the fifty's to you know to where we are now. telling our story they haven't gone too much further they've refined those things but there's basically. ritalin based drugs and there is. sort of related to that. and there's stimulants and i mean i would be lying if i didn't say that. the

research does say that it works and that any intervention is more successful if you're also using medication but that being said. at least half the people in my practice choose not to use medication there are so many other interventions the more psycho education that you have the more that you understand how your brain works and the neurotransmitters that you're trying to balance there are so many ways that stimulation can be used to actually not just treat it but actually where you will thrive and it is so i lean towards going with the strengths and weaknesses profile and there's a lot of ways to find a good fit between someone and their universe without medication these stimulant drugs primarily kick up. a transmitter associated with everything from cocaine to caffeine frank for that spectrum stimulant drugs there are other things that will

kick up you know being happy kicks up trouble and being excited being. frightened there's drinking caffeine. this is the situational stuff. i mean this individual for some people they can't get into that kind of positive cycle that is our hope for people until they get that kick start and for some people they just need that along with the support in their guidance to find a life that works in that does kick in their dopamine and keep them more stimulated and get the support they need so that they can thrive i think that you used to use the metaphor of glasses. you know you're. so it's but i mean some pretty difficult situation to live with internally you know we're going to tell drugs you got your glasses on you can see exactly but then you can see where you want to go and you can see what you need and for some people they're going to their brain is just too sleepy or just you know something just like you know i feel like antidepressants really some people are going to need to be on the. for

a long time some people you know don't need it for ever but it's just one part of the puzzle but it's often necessary but not sufficient. situationally do you deal differently. with it in your practice the people you work with siri do you deal differently with people who present as the hyperactive people present as the more passive form of. psychotherapists are basically everybody's been hurt most people i deal with have not been diagnosed to adulthood they bring a lot of wounds with them they're still dealing with and my goal is to help them heal those wounds to understand what those wounds are when they're reactivated now and what's really going on with them before they can even start to attempt to construct a life that works often just have to figure out who is in a great sort of just kind of parts of themselves so it takes a while before some of that shame and avoidance and withdraw all those secondary

effects is really what we see a lot of if you're just dealing with a. band you're doing pretty good it's usually about adults by this time i've accumulated so many. of who they are you know what they're good at. second grade teacher gone i mean you know it's like all of this stuff well and what what do you see is the most useful therapeutic. like think that being a linear thinker is probably overrated and you know so i think that the idea of these medications helping you be more normal is not necessarily the goal i mean i don't have to tell you that there's you know we need in the world we need farmers in the world so. it's more about reframing the way you see yourself i mean people see themselves with a lot of shame and say make me normal and that. it's not at all the goal the goal

is like this is the way you do it and this is not the way other people do it but is that ok is that acceptable it is acceptable the only thing that really works is what works for you. and the more that people can embrace that and sort of just celebrate that their brains are different the more you know they're willing to you know just go with the idea that non-linear thinker you know come up with like the coolest ideas because you know they put together associations that linear thinkers don't always see as been you know a lot of amazing people and over history who think in a non-linear way and they move the world ahead to kind of speak to that and that you know because that reminds me people coming to see me nobody says i just want to be more of who i am i also you know i want to get over who i am i want to get over this case of terminal uniqueness and they want and that's why i talk about a.d.h. he is a minority mental health issue that was my original actual focus was minority mental

health and cross cultural counseling and i think i've been successful in this because as i've always viewed when you go to a conference you see that i want to drill into. more of a nice conversations with great minds of doctors and service sold. very. well. with their.

well i'm. a little. i'm the president and i think a society bucket and big corporation trying to convince us to consume consume consume and the bankers try to get all that all about money and i was actually sick for a politician writing the laws and regulations to tax corporate bankers. there's just too much is a society. that. i

drove her back to conversations of the great minds i'm speaking with dr alan lipman and cerise old and dr lipman a clinical psychologist who's been involved in the spectrum of potential disorders for over twenty five years service solem psycho therapist who has worked with individuals couples in groups for over twenty five years let's go back to it first of all sir you were talking about used a phrase during the break that i had heard in a long time actually i'm not sure that you have never heard of neuro bigotry maybe that nerve bigotry of neural profiling. but it was exciting because i did the keynote this summer in detroit where i'm from and five miles from where i grew up in downtown detroit happened to be the same week as the trayvon martin verdict and

so i was it came full circle because that was my original study of focus was was minority mental health then i realized that so many of my clients were painted with such a broad brush and just judged on the surface surface disorganization and that really see what's underneath them and same thing obviously with any kind of profiling there's bigotry but as a therapist what i'm interested in is what happens as a result whether it's women or men with difference is what i see happening is that a minority we have learned from the culture in general what's good what's valued in people they d.h.b. or other minorities realize that's not me and so they idealize those things and internalize those things they compare themselves to that because i needed to account for the terrible self oppression that i see in my clients even if their families weren't telling them they were bad somewhere along the way the culture is telling them what is good and what is valuable and that's not just like you you know. documentaries about little you know african-american girls who are picking

out. the white dolls is being good and that's what i see in a.d.h. the women do the neurological version version so it cultural diversity gender sexual preferences i see even neuro diversity is the next big fight for acceptance for all of us with differences now you know there's a big movement in the asperger's community about that to have there you go from there of he wrote this book called diagnosing jefferson it's amazing because he goes through a brilliant jefferson biographer and i read that book and i'm convinced jefferson has a speed which is older about it but not at all but neurodiversity started in that in the autistic community and now that armstrong wrote about neuro diversity which talks about you know bracing all differences even though we still help people who are suffering we still have bad. guys who are demonized well it's arguably it's this it's kind of a variation. to say it's

a variation on affirmative action it's not right you know yeah it's like saying you know ok you've been dissed long enough you know. we're going to acknowledge your own pride right ok that's good stuff now ellen you work with high i.q. kids i was my life was saved by spock i was six or seven years old when sputnik one and we all had this satellite going over our heads going. and eisenhower went nuts and said ok we're going to fund programs for gifted kids and i got pulled out of the public school actually in the school pulled out of my classroom along with another friend of mine and a couple of other kids and put in this fast track for grades two three four five and six and by the time i was done with sixth grade i was you know had two languages i was doing math the calculus i was reading that bloody bloody i don't want so i can break it. down to be more started. all the funding for that one away in which i was in junior high school i was going down in flames and my brothers

were hit in school who were just as smart as i was and were being given i mean it seems like there was a time in this country when we actually fund special education for gifted kids that pretty much doesn't happen anymore and. it seems to me that there might even be an element of a lot of kids who are being diagnosed as he wants are just. i mean. i just i just threw a whole bunch of stuff at you want to. ok so. there's so much overlap between and giftedness this so many of the behaviors are very similar so you know what the difference is is how annoying do your parents or the teachers find you i mean it's essentially the difference in terms of who gets. well and whether it's pathology as to whether it's celebrated. so the point is that.

there's a developmental delay in. some behaviors that are required for more linear thinking and for doing schoolwork are acquired later so a really gifted kid with a.d.d. is intellectually maybe three years beyond their peers and socially and emotionally about three years behind their peers so that's a huge discrepancy that really no one can make sense of the child can't make sense of it that stressful for them they don't fit in anywhere they like to talk to adults they play with younger kids. you know teachers don't understand if you're so smart why did you leave your backpack in the middle of the room. and it's a great first station to everybody they think that if people are gifted they're like oh goody smart we don't have to deal with that but that needs addressing just this much. as you know and the other kinds of symptoms that they need to be

simulated and so a lot of what you're seeing i agree with you totally is a mind that has not been. roused intellectually and when it is they can focus as well as the next person. so it's really i mean i think that is something that we're really we're probably you know there were over diagnosing and you know in some cases probably under diagnosing but. that is really the group that won't ask for help won't be identified because they're not necessarily disruptive but they're bored and they are frustrated and they withdraw. or you know they get in trouble just because they're bored story of my child. and you know and i see a lot of this in adults i work in a university town so i have a lot of really really smart or talented i don't. talented people who are very creative people who could do great things but also know have this huge split like

they have all these talents but they have either a learning disability or they have problems the tension and the terrible demoralization and frustration of not being able to manifest and not be able to describe tell people all the great thoughts you have it's a really huge split and that is a different condition than just having one or the other having both of those is something you can't even find a peer group you hide your gifts when you're with people who have the same challenges and when you're with people who have strengths you know they don't understand why you have these challenges are you really caught in a narrow box so let's talk about the ecology or. if you were to. use businesses. i mean nobody in their right mind would suggest as the new c.e.o. of pepsi cola for example i'm going to take the most promising division of my company and i'm going to fund it. i'm going to take the least promising division of my company and throw eighty percent of my resources and you know it seems like

that's what we're doing with education and that's not to say you know kids who are struggling at the least potentially productive many of them most of them have a tremendous potential that needs to be brought out but that that those it seems to me like in america we're leaving an enormous amount of potential on the floor and they don't do that and they don't do that or what what are what are we missing how do we fix this at the educational level how do we fix this workplace how do we fix this relationship so we fix this there of the best is what we've got six minutes or that maybe your time it is that it but it's it's to me and for conformity which is so unfortunate because that takes all the outliers all the kids that are not directly under the bell curve and saying you're different but in a bad way and you know there's been just a move towards greater and greater demands for conformity and girls and women are i

think even more sensitive to that then males so there's a lot of shame and withdrawal i'm different and i shouldn't be involved but when they get to the men especially when they get to the point of being out in the world if they've survived school in some way they then they're they can be the risk takers they're you know and they can come up with ideas that are outside of the box and they're not afraid so there's a there's some really great options for moving ahead with life if you get through the narrow constraints of our educational system start there are and there are and there are so many i mean you know you're writing across afghanistan on the camels. yes i was. there are some women who step out and say yes i'll do that but society's tells women don't do that. whether you know what we do i mean you are an amazing role model if we can talk about you

personally you know you just said ok that was that is he having people that you can identify with who are not just those normal kind of role models leaves a lot of us out so having you know models like what happened to you finding a good fit you were already successful in what you were doing but you were not valued as much as you needed to be you had had not been able to express all that you have inside of you and brilliancy you have and you found an amazing venue for yourself so you are a wonderful role model for people with these kind of differences that you've gotten support to be able to do that. and actually i would say if i had married. that's what i was that women we don't have wives and. women don't have as much support so that we can just you know and let our gifts but you know so. so you want to so should somebody i mean by experience as somebody who would self identify and self

diagnosis. and i have since i've known about it. is that by marrying somebody who is very solid and stable pays attention to details it has kept me anchored to the world one starts. out as a woman do that particularly a lot of women never even let anybody know that they're. just one. of the ideas that women unfortunately have to do the job of organizing themselves and everyone else i do suggest to all of them that they find a wife themselves because you don't have to be good at everything but women feel like they have to be that wife yes absolutely high reason why you have to be good at everything i mean so you know. organized and ten think in a more linear way so i mean that isn't a deficit you think in a different way and the complementary nature of the. relationship is fabulous so i think that it's just finding someone who can you keep you tethered and then the

other person can feel free to use their gifts in a different direction even through the stuff like the book keeping in the house keeping all right every somebody who respects each of them that have a polarizing or someone has a page to make a parent saree thank you so much and is now this great was about. to see this and other conversations and great minds go to our website conversations of great minds dot com. i know c.n.n. the m s n b c news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's closer to the truth and might

think. it's because one full attention and the mainstream media works side by side the joke is actually on here. at our teen years we have a different purpose. because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not. you guys stick to the jokes i will handle the stuff that. i've got a quote for you. it's pretty tough to. say wait substory. let's get this guy like you would smear that guy stead of working for the people most

issues in the mainstream media are working for each other drivers vision. of the good rather low. cost tough rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want.

today on larry king it's jeff garlin and wendy mclendon tubby to a comedic forces aligned for the new comedy the go birds i never thought i'd be on a network show it's just not i'm not i can network kind of guy you're a cable guy you know. and then i get the script and i'm like oh my god this is great i do not jewish i'm not jewish. and yet i'm i'm playing one on t.v. is doing right look overbearing mothers there you know first of all and i had one plus so you're everywhere i'm everywhere what was it like to we're going to hug your dreams to anybody deserves me just me you know right you know i want else really when you think about it when you think about all of showbusiness who deserves major success or anyone else nope that's all next.