vPrefaceAttention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a lot of movements, feelings and ideas that often seem to interact without clear meaning and purpose. With respect to current knowledge, this distraction and hyperactivity may have various reasons and conditions which may characterize ADHD development. This book introduces new “old-fashion” concept proposed by Hughlings Jackson, who studied hierarchical organization of the CNS during development and found that various brain developmental stages are connected on various hierarchical levels, and closely linked to each other in a similar way like components of a “solution” create unique qualities of the whole system and its unity.
Opposite of these healthy developmental stages as Jackson found are various conditions and disturbances that may lead to “dissolution,” where more primitive functions are not congruent and integrated with later-developed neural organization. As historically proposed by Jackson in his until-now-accepted concept of the brain development, this dysfunctional develop-ment may be related to interference of older and later-developed brain functions during ontogenesis.
This interference may manifest in the case when emergence of a new function that should insert the older one is not related to diminishing or suf-ficient inhibition of this older function which leads to “neural dissolution.”nAlthough this Jackson’s concept significantly influenced modern neurology, psychology, and psychiatry, its connection with ADHD development currently repre-sents new field of research and clinical applications focused on disintegrated primitive reflexes, balance deficits, and other symptoms of cognitive and motor dis-integration that may occur in children with ADHD.
Those Jackson’s ideas inspired also Janet and Freud, who later used Jackson’s concept of dissolution to develop psychological theory of trauma, intrapsychic conflict, and dissociation, where they used concept of mental “dissolution.” In connec-tion with these historical concepts, this book links recent findings about stress and dissociation in ADHD children with various recent and historical neuroscientific findings which show that specific processes related to brain developmental disorga-nization create vulnerable background that increases sensitivity to stress stimuli from psychosocial environment, mainly in families and schools.
In this context, the purpose of this approach to ADHD development is to show close connections between historical roots in neurology, psychology, and psychiatry with current thinking about developmental deficits in ADHD and new psychologi-cal findings which indicate that ADHD children are more sensitive with respect to stress stimuli and have increased tendencies to mental dissociation. This sensitive background that occurs in ADHD children is likely closely related to unfinished developmental stages that tend to interfere with each other, as, for example, highly prevalent manifestations of disinhibited primitive reflexes that likely frequently occur in ADHD children.
This book ADHD, Stress, and Development aims to review basic and modern findings on ADHD development, and also it suggests new horizons in context of these “old-fashion” perspectives provided by Jackson, Janet, and Freud. Those novel perspectives may help to understand modern findings about disinhibited primitive reflexes and their links to increased psychological vulnerability and sensitivity with respect to various stress stimuli from social environment. The book may be useful as a comprehensive review for research, health care, and teaching practice and also for any reader interested in the topics of ADHD and brain development.
