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Episode 25: The positives of ADHD with Dr Tom Nicholson
291 Plays2 days ago
Is ADHD a superpower? Is that a helpful way of talking about it. Our guest, once again Dr Tom Nicholson, has done actual research on the positives of ADHD, as experienced by ADHD people ourselves!
Catch up with Tom on social media or at https://www.drtomnicholson.com/
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Transcript
Introduction at Norwich Science Festival
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello. Welcome to the ADHD Science Podcast. Welcome back. Yes. Coming back. Come. Yes. We are on location in sunny, sunny Wyndham. Well, hang on.
00:00:21
Speaker
You're Max Davey. I'm Max Davey. I'm Tess Davey. We are on location in sunny Wyndham. In sunny Wyndham. oh The Norwich Science Festival.
00:00:32
Speaker
Yes. Norwich is near Wyndham. Yes. Although rather, Wyndham is near Norwich. Probably more to the point. Yes. Yeah, we're going to talk today in about...
Interview with Tom Nicholson on ADHD Positives
00:00:43
Speaker
two hours, to an audience at the Norwich Science Festival all about ADHD. You'll be not surprised to hear. um This is going to go out, obviously, after that time.
00:00:55
Speaker
um and we're going to talk in this episode. This is basically a pre-recorded episode talking to Tom Nicholson. Tom Nicholson. Tom is probably one of the best communicators about ADHD, I think, in the UK.
00:01:11
Speaker
um I don't think I've met that many people who are better at talking about it. and He goes through his sort of CV at the beginning of the interview, so we don't need to go go through that now.
00:01:22
Speaker
But he talks about the positives of ADHD, and I think what's really important is that he's... It's kind of, it's not the opposite of the kind of TikTok, you know, what's great about ADHD, ADHD is a superpower thing, but it is an important corrective to that kind of thing. Yeah, I think it takes elements of that because, you know, the philosophy of it is still kind of rings true, but it's the, we kind of get caught up on the the actual facts of it a little bit, don't we?
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, in the interview, No, on TikTok. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely right. No, I think, and um anyway, I think it was a great interview and Tom is great, so follow him on all the kind of various social media. Although, weirdly, the one that he kind of highlights is LinkedIn. LinkedIn, yeah. Which I cannot bear. but that's fine That's one of the most key things I remember from the interview is him saying LinkedIn being like, being like. What?
00:02:17
Speaker
What? anyway his choice of social media aside he is a a top man and enjoy so welcome tom once again to the adhd science pod thank you very much for having us and lovely to see both of you today yes i'm here tess is here we managed to get it all together tess thank you very much for literally taking a day off work No. Okay, well, that was worth try. It just happened to work out this way. Okay. Very lucky.
00:02:49
Speaker
Very lucky. um Tom, please introduce yourself again to our listeners, and then we'll start with the questioning. Yeah, so my name is Dr. Tom Nicholson. I wear a number of hats in the ADHD world. First off, I am already ADHD myself, so um' I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was five years old.
00:03:06
Speaker
ah Medicated as a child, unmedicated for 20 years, and then recommenced medication during my PhD. Recognized that I was also autistic at about 28, 29. and My current role, I have two. I um have my own ADHD training business, a neurodiversity training business, so I go into...
00:03:24
Speaker
organizations in health, social care, and education to support them on their neurodiversity agenda, how to support neurodivergent staff and also neurodivergent stakeholders, whether that be service users, students, patients, you know, whatever your group, clients, whatever your group is. but That's my sort of side job. My my other job is I'm an assistant professor of mental health nursing at Northumbra University, where I teach nurses to be nurses, where almost all of my research is on ADHD or ADHD adjacent topics.
00:03:53
Speaker
So today we're going to be talking about the big positive ADHD project, but I also do a lot of work around parenting and parenting neurodivergent children. There we are. i we are So what we're going to talk about today is some work about positives ADHD.
Exploring ADHD Positives and Research Gaps
00:04:10
Speaker
Tessie, do you want to get started? We're getting started with our first question, which is what question were you answering?
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah, so the Positive ADHD project came about when myself and Dr Laura Coulthard got together and we were seeing a lot of the sort of discussion in social media and in the wider sort of communities talking a lot about positives, but not really being able to link to any sort of strong empirical evidence or research evidence.
00:04:41
Speaker
And what seemed to be happening happening is anything positive about anyone neurodivergent was being ascribed to being part of ADHD. So the positives of ADHD became here, there and everywhere and everything.
00:04:56
Speaker
And what we were really curious about is, so what does the research actually tell us up until now ah wrap about what the positives are of having ADHD, ADHD traits, ADHD symptoms, and what benefits can it give?
00:05:10
Speaker
So we were curious about finding in as much detail as possible, what do we already know? So that was the core question.
00:05:20
Speaker
Yes. But when when you say, sorry, Sorry, go on. I'm having one of my moments. um When you talk about positives being drawn from all areas of mental health, what kind of thing are we talking about here?
00:05:36
Speaker
So one of the things that we would find and it um is someone might say, talk about how the positives of are are that you have, someone might say, it's kind of forgot I have ADHD and my positives, i have ah I have a really strong attention to detail.
00:05:54
Speaker
Now, what we actually would say in the research is that that was probably more of one of the positive traits of of an autistic type syndrome or an a autistic person. So it's not that it's a positive of ADHD, but it's a positive of neurodivergence.
00:06:07
Speaker
So we were curious about what were the specific ADHD positives in relation to hyperactivity and attention and impulsivity, and where do... we gain benefit from those specific symptoms and those traits, not just from having a neurodivergent brain generally.
00:06:26
Speaker
So is it specifically from the things that make us uniquely ADHD? I see what you mean. So it's it's almost from those features, perhaps would be a better word than symptoms.
00:06:40
Speaker
Well, the term we use is trait. Yeah. yeah Because as you say, Features, traits, symptoms can become a bit problematic because some some would argue there are other sort of ADHD type symptoms that aren't in the classification, like emotional dysregulation or emotional regulation difficulties.
00:06:59
Speaker
And that's not quite what we were looking at. We were looking at the specific traits of ADHD. Right. Okay. So that but you've sort of narrowed down onto those. That's really interesting. Because of course, I think that's right. but I'm just thinking about the, you know, the fact that some lots of people with ADHD might have a particular um characteristic, which is nothing to do with ADHD, does not make it a positive of ADHD. I think that's a really important point. So I suppose you could say,
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and we'll explore it later on, but you could say, you know, a lot of comedians have ADHD, so therefore... being ADHD, having ADHD makes you funny. And that may be a kind of gray area because it may be true. So that's what we need to explore today.
00:07:44
Speaker
ah yeah And that that was one of our findings, funnily enough, is about how being different and alongside something like mind wandering, which improves creativity and creative thought and allow and allows disparate thoughts is beneficial in the context of comedy.
00:08:01
Speaker
it's not beneficial in the context of doing your GCSEs and having to sit in an exam. So one of my big things, and certainly our project is interested in, is not demons just discussing ADHD in this like Pollyanna, wholly positive superhero narrative.
00:08:17
Speaker
What we're talking about is sort of contextual benefits, contextual strengths in certain environments and what they are. That's what we were really interested in. I think that that's very important because you know i see a lot of people talking about you know the positives of ADHD and they're like,
00:08:36
Speaker
I know that you're struggling to complete your exams. I know that you're experiencing deep anxiety as a result from the medication that you have to take in order to pass these exams. I'm out of school now, guys, don't worry.
00:08:49
Speaker
I'm recovering. um But at least you're creative. And it's like, well, that's not, you know, and and so I think it's very important to look at these things contextually, as you said. Yeah, yeah.
00:09:02
Speaker
And the superhero narrative, maybe we'll come into it later, but the superhero narrative of neurodivergence is, I find quite i find quite annoying. yes
00:09:13
Speaker
I find it infantilising and minimising. i think it is a particularly privileged position for people who have often had some success in some areas, often with scaffolding and support. And can't deny a little bit of luck for some of us. Certainly myself, I was very lucky with the mentors that I had that allowed me to be successful.
00:09:33
Speaker
But we don't talk about superpower or superhero narratives for those who are the most impaired, for those who are so impulsive that it's led to increased criminality and they're living their lives in the prison system.
00:09:46
Speaker
They aren't talking about ADHD superpowers. They're talking about it as their nemesis, as their biggest difficulties. And so you're I think you're right, we'll have to be quite mindful of how ubiquitous and how all-encompassing these narratives of positivity can be, because they minimise.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Shall we go to our next question? I think so. um So what did you find? Well, so a little bit of context. I'm going give a bit of context. so but but Both of the researchers on this study, what we were both ADHD. We were both researchers at the time in different institutions. Laura was at Durham.
00:10:27
Speaker
And I was at the start of my PhD. So I was literally in the middle of my PhD. And we both thought, let's do a huge, massive, systematic slash narrative review on all of the research that's ever been written on the positives of ADHD.
00:10:42
Speaker
got So and in terms of what we found, I think it's helpful to say how we got there a little bit as well. We reviewed, ah we were looking for any aspect of any positive of anything in relation to ADHD traits or symptomology in any of the literature and the main body text.
00:11:02
Speaker
So this was a huge net. It was not hyper specific in terms of search criteria. It was actually a huge net. We eventually came away with, was, 15,800 articles.
00:11:17
Speaker
um And so we had 15,800 articles in this giant database. This this is just ADHD in a nutshell, though, isn't it? This is us. and And over the period of the next year, between us, we screened the titles and the abstracts and got rid of about 14,000 of them because they were inappropriate.
00:11:37
Speaker
and And then we got rid of more and more and more until a gradually we got to the point where... and we excluded certain research trials and things that where there wasn't any evidence.
00:11:50
Speaker
And then we had 180 full papers that we read fully and attempted analysed. Still 180. Still 180 papers. Still 180. I mean, this took... Those things are not easy, man. It took so much time. And then the most depressing thing of all of it was in the end there was only 36 total papers that were included into the review.
00:12:20
Speaker
So to reiterate that, of 15,800 articles, we found 36 that had any reference to any positive about ADHD, which would make you think that there are no positives. there There's so little evidence, so little research showing that there are even any positives.
00:12:39
Speaker
And there was an absolute dearth of literature. But then we delved a little bit closer. And what we found is only 12 of those 36 papers specifically asked for ah asked a question or looked for positives.
00:12:54
Speaker
So that's what you know to put that in context, one paper in every 1300 specifically asked about the positives of ADHD. So this was until 2020, just to for context, where we are currently updating this and review as we speak.
Incorporating Strengths in ADHD Assessments
00:13:10
Speaker
But until 2020, only We only found 12 papers that actually asked about the positives of ADHD. What we found, before I talk about the themes and the actual findings, ah macro findings that we found,
00:13:23
Speaker
people aren't looking for positives or certainly weren't looking for positives over the last six decades, seven eight decades. They weren't asking about positives. They were and front-loading questions about impairment, about difficulty, about problems.
00:13:36
Speaker
What's the worst thing about ADHD? But never what's the best thing about ADHD, at least very, very rare. So the biggest sort of core finding we found ah was a massive gap in the literature around...
00:13:52
Speaker
exploring positives. we if And one of one of the big things I've said since since then is if we don't look for positives, we won't find them because we need to look for things to actually explore them deeply. And fundamentally, we came away with, is it a nine, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
00:14:14
Speaker
Seven, sorry. Seven core themes. Seven core themes. But I don't know if you want to jump in there on terms of the or ah underlying issue of the massive dearth of positive related questions. Not even PayPal specifically, just a single question.
00:14:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:34
Speaker
So, i I mean, I think it's really interesting because... One of the things that we are trying, no, I would say some of us are trying in medical profession is not to talk just about problems. It's to, you know, so example, there is a movement to,
00:14:51
Speaker
partly actually because of our relationship with the education sector, which is more strength-based, um is to put strengths and and difficulties in our reports. So it may not be the reason why somebody has come, but we'll put some things that they're good at, that that are qualities that that they have within the report.
00:15:08
Speaker
And this actually, in my the the the service that I just left, is because education require them when we put in reports for education. So it's actually, it's not actually necessarily come from the medical profession, but nonetheless, it's ah it's it's a positive, it's a positive relation, it's a positive development.
00:15:24
Speaker
But I mean, I think it is, if you, I'm just thinking back about some of the accounts of the process of assessment by, particularly by parents and how just negative the experience is because you're just there to talk about what your child is not very good at. And it's,
00:15:42
Speaker
rough yeah I mean even doing an adult assessment you know when you're having to write about the things you are the weakest at and the worst at and your partners or friends or whoever your corroborator is and you read the reams of evidence of how obvious your difficulties are to you the people around you it's pretty tough yeah And they don't necessarily, but none of these, I'm thinking about all of the kind of proformas and the, the um you know, all of the kind of questionnaires, they never ask about strength. That's just not there.
00:16:21
Speaker
No, it's not. And and it's in it's endemic of the sort of but medical model. i'm sure you've talked about quite a lot before about the how the medical model prioritises impairment and prioritises disorder and has little interest in strengths and benefits because it's it's looking for what medical problem can we treat or utilise intervention to support.
00:16:46
Speaker
There's a really interesting paper by Sanuga Bach, and I think Anita Thapar, on how the medical model can ingratiate itself with the neurodiversity model. Yeah, yeah. and Actually, we we interviewed we we interviewed Edmund...
00:17:01
Speaker
um for our previous podcast years ago, and he talked about this as well. So, yeah so we'll see if I can dig that one out. oh definitely i've I've had a few chats with Edmund over the years. and He helped me with my PhD topic actually.
00:17:14
Speaker
And I really like what he was saying about, we can start exploring the evidence of environmental interventions to support neurodivergent traits more than, and by recognizing that there is an environmental issue, recognizing there is a societal issue.
00:17:34
Speaker
I've realized I'm already going slightly on a tangent off my project, but it this becomes all relevant in the sense of, all the podcasting and this is the context that we are in where as researchers, where it's also deficit driven.
00:17:51
Speaker
or at least it certainly has been. and So doing a project like this, the Positive ADHD project, was ah unusual, certainly in 2019, 2018 when we started.
00:18:04
Speaker
And that the the hint that you're giving to us is that that's changing. To what extent is that changing? It is changing. we don't know I don't know exactly to the extent because that is the project we are currently doing right now. What we are doing is updating this the this narrative review, this sort of big so big review, with all of the evidence that's been done from 2020 through So we are currently getting that massive amount literature again and then we're going to be and
00:18:37
Speaker
cutting it down and reading and reading and analyzing all of what's come out since then. But already in sort of preliminary searches in the first few databases, we are seeing more papers that have specifically looked for data positives in one year than what happened in 50 years before 2020.
00:19:01
Speaker
So we are having seeing projects that are specifically positive focused. We are seeing questionnaires that are entirely around positives, around strengths-based models and things like that.
Emerging Support for Neurodiversity Research
00:19:13
Speaker
So the winds are very much changing. Why don you think why do you think that's happened? What's your kind of feeling about that? I think a couple of things have happened. and One, the rise of the neurodiversity paradigm has emboldened researchers and academics and clinical experts.
00:19:34
Speaker
who had an interest in that to feel justified in actually doing that research now. and There's funding available for that sort of research now that wasn't before. and I think we're also seeing a lot of neurodivergent academics outing themselves, so to speak.
00:19:51
Speaker
and um i've I've spoke to a lot of academics, especially some of what dig the old guard who have been around for a long time, who would say actually they wouldn't have disclosed their conditions 20, 30 years ago, but would now and have now.
00:20:06
Speaker
So I think we're seeing an emergence of the realities of just how many academics are autistic, ADHD, et cetera, and wanting to do this research, needing to do this research, and you know, myself and Laura being two of them of this needs to happen and no one no one else seems to be doing it. So maybe it's us, maybe we're the ones who have to do it.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, true. almost like running a podcast, you know, around the science of ADHD. No one else is going to do it. Yes, I suppose that's right. Yes. but No one else is doing it, which is always surprises me a little bit.
00:20:41
Speaker
um Okay. Well, now that we've said that, in the next five years, the neurodiversity paradigm is going to take off and there'll be 20 million ADHD science podcasts we'll have to compete with. Oh, God.
00:20:55
Speaker
Oh, no. I want competition. um want to be i want to be special and unique, Ted. Okay. um So, all right. So you found that. I suppose we move on to our next question.
00:21:08
Speaker
Okay. Well, this question is, what does this mean for people looking after ADHD people? So I suppose what the overarching macro finding of there being no limited research, but it's improving.
00:21:22
Speaker
what what it means is that we can start finally pointing to the evidence a little more strongly or when we're discussing the positives, where we can have a more robust, rigorous, and valid response to what has previously happened. Because often, you know, we know anecdotal evidence is the lowest form of evidence in terms of our sort of evidence hierarchies. And that's typically what's been prioritized in the positive discussion around ADHD. So now we have more literature, we have more evidence, we can start pointing to it.
00:22:00
Speaker
And then some of what what I've been doing and in sharing my project or our project, sorry, is so the themes that we found, so the core themes within the project, and quickly, they were like energy and speed and how energy. We didn't even do that bit. We laid that one down and we didn't pick it up either.
00:22:20
Speaker
We've gone systematic. Honestly. Systematic issues. it's It's great. I love it. Amateurs. and yeah So I can point to specific positives in conferences and talks, as I will be doing and on Sunday, the and Seed Talk ADHD Summit, and as I did on the ADHD UK conference, which allows people to connect with these traits in a way that's validating in a way that's supportive to go oh you know what i do really struggle with my impulsivity i do really struggle with inattention but actually i am creative but there's also evidence that that's part of my wonderful brain that allows me to think outside the box so so let shall we track back and just go through what the seven core themes are yeah
00:23:07
Speaker
yeah So our seven core themes, I'll lightly
Contextual Advantages of ADHD Traits
00:23:12
Speaker
describe each of them. So the first one was energy and speed. So often people with ADHD describe themselves as sort of spontaneous quick thinkers, having high energy and its links with improved athletics athletic performance.
00:23:25
Speaker
You know, we think about ah Michael Phelps or Simone Biles, the people who are incredibly... ah High energy, high effectiveness. There's this idea of being a sort of full of beans and never running out of batteries and actually that having a real contextual benefit in some areas like sales as well.
00:23:41
Speaker
and um Some people describe being hyperactive as feeling quite nice as well. The sort of positive physic physiological experience of hyperactivity. So energy and speed was number one.
00:23:52
Speaker
Number two was creativity. Now, this is something that's been kind of talked about a lot on ah day you work in the ADHD world. We talk about increased creativity or at least thinking outside of the box, that divergent thinking being beneficial, not just in art and artistry in the creative industries, but also in and solution finding, sort of problem solving.
00:24:14
Speaker
and This idea of seeing the world differently and not allowing a different way of doing things. ah One of the points we said is this idea of curiosity. ADHD minds don't go empty, they go elsewhere.
00:24:27
Speaker
so That's nice. it's what Where do they go? so for For a short story writer, what a wonderful strength to be able to think of a hundred different ideas for your short story.
00:24:41
Speaker
Less so again, when you've got to sit and do an exam on a specific topic at a specific time on a specific day. Or in fact, when you want to write down that story, you have to choose one of your ideas. Yes.
00:24:53
Speaker
um And this idea we talk about like mind wandering and mind wandering as a requirement for novel thought. So in mind wandering being associated with inattention and linking with creativity, because, know,
00:25:05
Speaker
you this idea of finding solutions and creative thought being linked with mind wandering Number three was resilience, which was quite a bit of a surprising one, I'll be honest, in that a lot of people described ADHD. And this is where it becomes, is this about the ADHD traits or is this about living with ADHD?
00:25:27
Speaker
Because if you have, when you live with ADHD, there's a lot of higher tolerance for chaos and ambiguity, which we think links with impulsivity. and Being better in high-stressed, varied, and interesting or hands-on work.
00:25:44
Speaker
So again, we link with that sort of like that novel experience of it being high stress, different jobs every day, and and that increased determination to sort of prove oneself, whether that's about ADHD brains themselves or about the experiences we have as children.
00:25:59
Speaker
You know, that's not what this review is trying to work out. We're just talking about what the research says. But there's an interesting sort of further discussion down there. So resilience and the links with chaos.
00:26:11
Speaker
Probably one of my favorite core findings is number four, and that is being different. and and the The theme was being different and how people describe their ADHD and their their inattention, their hyperactivity, their impulsivity is making them more fun, more interesting. parent talk Parents would talk about their children and saying, well, no day's boring with them.
00:26:33
Speaker
You know, they're anything but boring. It's a personality enhancer. It makes you an interesting person. you You are allowed to, not allowed to, you are more likely to combat the social norms and that sort of trend-setting social norm-breaking difference being a strength contextually, of course, because in some areas it very much isn't when we think of about bullying and things like that.
00:26:56
Speaker
Yeah. was this interesting point of parents who said that because their children were so different, the parents had to develop their own personal resilience and problem solving and maturity and communication and develop family bonds.
00:27:14
Speaker
So it was like a benefit to the parents having ADHD children, which, is different from what a lot of the parent research says, which is about how like horrible and terrible and how suicidal you're gonna be and how depressed and hopeless and everything's gonna be terrible.
00:27:29
Speaker
Whereas actually there are these benefits and within the literature. So being different. Next one was empathy. And we talk a lot about in the in this sort social world in ADHD about empathy.
00:27:42
Speaker
There was this this link with people saying, this idea of higher empathy or increased empathy, but that being particularly linked with bigger picture issues, bigger picture problems.
00:27:54
Speaker
So links with justice sensitivity, links with and involvement in social justice movements, you know, like the LGBTQ plus rights or and but your Black Lives Matter or veganism and this increased awareness or need to do something it's not wasn't just about being feeling increased empathy but about like almost feeling a need to do things to change the world for the better to put that into action and which is ironic given that we have three ADHDers in the room one with the signs of podcasting one with a business that supports ADHD and
00:28:32
Speaker
sort of infrastructure in the UK. So there's this like, this is what it looks like. this Yeah. going in Not waiting for others to do things. and I'd love to do a piece of research looking at something like veganism out and see if people who are neurodivergent are more likely to be vegan.
00:28:50
Speaker
um Yeah. Well, and that's so interesting. I mean, obviously the the connection. Yeah. I mean, there's a connection with... autism as well and and justice and also i suppose sensory issues as well potentially across both conditions.
00:29:06
Speaker
I suppose there's a couple of things um ah do I want to think about. um One is the i mean the empathy, you said earlier that the emotional dysregulation which I think is an absolutely vital component of ADHD although it's not specific which I know is why it's not on the on the on the um diagnostic criteria, but it is so important.
00:29:27
Speaker
Do you think that is related to the empathy? Yeah, I think that it wouldn't surprise me if there was a strong correlation slash link found in that. And so I think for me, yes, I think it is because it's not just that you see injustice, it's that it deeply affects you, you know, in a dysregulated way for a lot of us where we get over-involved in either people's lives or in people's struggles or in the struggles of others or in at these social justice movements because
00:29:59
Speaker
Because ah for me, it's almost like I feel that there's an affinity of, I've described in the last podcast how my educational joint journey was traumatic and horrific. And I've experienced a lot of sort of and educational trauma and difficulty. And now for me, it's, I can't,
00:30:16
Speaker
can't cope with the idea almost of others going through that journey, which is why I do what I do to try to, so people don't have the experiences I had. and And again, there's a level of dysregulation to that, of course, because that isn't just an intellectual decision.
00:30:32
Speaker
It's a visceral one. It's a, it's an emotive one. Yeah. and and You can argue yourself in or out of any of these things, um but but it's whether it connects with you at that level. Sorry, Tess, come on.
00:30:44
Speaker
No, it's okay. um Oh, now I've lost the thing i was going to say. oh no. Oh, yeah, I've got it. So I know you said that that comes to a level of like proactivity when it comes to these sort of social issues that we're feeling a lot of empathy towards. Where do you think that that the action specifically comes from within ADHD, if that makes sense? Yeah, I think what we ah fairly confident with is that but ah You know what It links to the next theme, which is a wonderful little thing.
00:31:17
Speaker
Because the next theme, this lovely segue, the next theme is risk-taking.
ADHD Impulsivity and Risk-Taking Benefits
00:31:23
Speaker
Okay? So it's about risk-taking, but a positive risk-taking. So positive risk-taking of entrepreneurialism, entrepreneurship, risk-taking to change career, risk-taking, taking positive risks that lead to increased opportunities.
00:31:38
Speaker
So... risk-taking impulsivity is linked to risk-taking risk-taking is led is linked to action so for our adhders know we're more likely to quit our job and open a vegan bakery we're more likely to just go you know what i'm gonna go on the march i'm gonna go and fight fascism on the march like i'm gonna take the action and not think of that particularly this week Tom I've idea yeah yeah like i think world nothing happening relevant to the consideration of fascism anyway the neurodivergent community is really struggling I think emotionally with what's happening because we're seeing such injustice we're seeing the eradication of you know equality diversity and inclusion narratives and
00:32:27
Speaker
It's wrong and it's so viscerally wrong for us that where people are looking for ways to do things. So we see people opening businesses. We see people and going on the news and and and talking and challenging it We see people going on marches and protests. We see so much more of that action being taken.
00:32:49
Speaker
Now, that action is obviously sometimes there's a negative side to that. There's the risk side to that where action leading to you know people losing their jobs, people becoming bankrupt because they've opened a new business.
00:32:59
Speaker
So the risk taken in itself is not wholly positive. But up until now, which has been predominantly around how negative risk-taking is, yeah there is also a positive wing and a positive element to it, especially if you have the scaffolding and support to be able to take risks.
00:33:17
Speaker
It's easier to take the financial risk of entrepreneurialism when you have the financial backing or you don't have to pay rent. Yes. Yeah, of course. So it's, again, and that's where that privilege comes in of those who have been able to take risks to become millionaires, to have incredibly successful businesses, et cetera,
00:33:33
Speaker
what opportunities have they had or what scaffolding or safety nets have they had that maybe they're not considering when they talk about how wonderfully positive their impulsivity is absolutely and it is all very well but I mean, I think that's right, because when you talk about, I think we're thinking about young people, particularly, there's a kind of ah stereotype of young people that they take, you know, they they are more risk taking, which isn't actually entirely true. i mean, there's elements of truth to it, but but there are other sorts of risks that they don't take.
00:34:06
Speaker
And again, you know, the consequences of that risk taking massively vary according to the person's social context and social position and and privilege. ah So I think that's a similar, that's a related um point, isn't it really?
00:34:23
Speaker
I love what you said there about how we see ADHD young people as taking lots of risks and we stop taking as many risks when we're older, and that's just not true. We take different risks.
00:34:34
Speaker
Yeah. Exactly. we we Quitting a relationship, starting a relationship, and quitting your job, pivoting your education, pivoting your career, they are risks.
00:34:45
Speaker
And actually, to an extent, when you're older, you have more to lose. So to an extent, they're larger risks. Absolutely. Yeah. You've got obviously in young people, you've got the health risks of, you know, ah crossing the roads, risky behaviours, taking drugs, but also that drug taking risk as adults is equally cha and high,
00:35:08
Speaker
high threat, high risk. You know, when we think look at alcohol, we think of and gambling, we think of those sorts of risks being taken. Absolutely. taking Taking a mortgage that you can't really quite afford, you haven't fully worked it out because you impulsively jumped into it.
00:35:25
Speaker
There's an adult this thing, right? We're okay. We're okay. Your mother was involved. interests me that you talk. of that's Yes. It interests me that we're talking so much about, you know, ADHD people being active and taking risks because there's such this stereotype and this view of ADHD people as being lazy.
00:35:44
Speaker
ah A lot of people think about it as, oh, you have ADHD. No, you don't. You're just lazy. So what do you think that difference is between tasks that we find so challenging in like executive dysfunction?
00:35:56
Speaker
And then, i mean, obviously the in the social issues thing, that's the empathy that that comes from. But just in wider life, what do you think... the differences between what we find very easy to just do the things that kind of link. I know that this might be slightly outside. Well, no, I think the neuroscientist element of the neuroscience would argue that it would be the ones that give more dopamine.
00:36:20
Speaker
And I would say the ones that are exciting and novel and interesting. It's exciting and interesting to open a new business. It's exciting and interesting to go on that protest. It's not exciting and interesting to sit down and finish your novel.
00:36:33
Speaker
It's not exciting. Or maybe it was when you started It was when you started. To set up your organisation or your vegan cafe is exciting, but to actually do the health and safety checks and the and and the bookkeeping and the tax return, that's the bit that often people fall down on.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like that thing of, you know, thinking about in my own business, it's the doing talks in front of hundreds slash thousands of people is incredibly thrilling. It's great. it's most ADHD friendly job in the world. I get to talk about my special interest. I get to be the center of attention. People listen to me.
00:37:09
Speaker
I get to talk as much as I want. It's great. It's a dopamine bath. You don't get to talk as much as you want. If I ever chair you at a conference, you don't get to talk as much as you want, Tom. That's good point. Yeah, that is a good point. But i old but like I often don't prepare for my talks so that they're novel and interesting to me. So it it allows room for a couple of tangents.
00:37:28
Speaker
They're not yeah fully structured. But when it comes to sales, invoices, and getting new clients, social media sort of strategies and then and and talking about stuff on social media, that stuff, oh, yeah.
00:37:45
Speaker
That's a chore. yeah And so that's why we see ah high into entrepreneurialism in the sense that we we see multiple businesses being opened.
00:37:57
Speaker
i've got ah I've got a friend who's had, i think, seven different businesses in three years. Wow. So it's... That's exactly that think about that's exhausting. it's It is. It's exhausting. And some of them have dropped. Some of them have maintained.
00:38:13
Speaker
But also one of them might be the million pound idea. And so this like millionaire narrative of neurodivergence is, well, if you open 10 businesses, one of them might be more likely to be incredibly successful than if you only open two.
00:38:29
Speaker
It's a bit of a numbers game.
00:38:32
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, no obviously an element of large of that. Now, I have to admit, I have been listening to the content, but I've slightly lost track of how many themes. We have one left. We've got one left. I thought we did. Okay. So and the last one, and this one, is that is an interesting one because as the one would could argue with that it links more with autism, but it was prevalent across all of the ADHD, almost every single ADHD paper.
00:38:57
Speaker
And it was acute passion and enthusiasm for specific interest. Oh. So having a good memory for the things that are you are interested in, being good, being above average at the things you're interested in, having high levels of enthusiasm for the thing you're interested in, and often high productivity for the thing that you're interested in.
00:39:19
Speaker
Now, there's obviously, this becomes particularly positive in the sort of capitalist society we live in, where the thing you're interested in is something that also makes you money. Mm-hmm.
00:39:31
Speaker
yeah it's less beneficial societally, not that that's the be all and end all, if it's something that doesn't and something that society doesn't deem as valuable, if it's reading bus timetables, for instance.
00:39:43
Speaker
But the and for me, my my example that I often bring for this one is reading. you know Reading is my special interest. i read 69 books last year and books the year before.
00:39:55
Speaker
whilst doing all my research and all my business and everything else. and i read I've read eight books this year already. That's atypical, but I will choose to read instead of watching telly.
00:40:06
Speaker
And so that acute passion and enthusiasm has the potential to be incredibly beneficial, incredibly strength-based if it's something that in some way enriches your life.
00:40:20
Speaker
Now, I say enriches your life not just beyond the it's nice to do. Yeah. Because, of course, it's it's lovely and it rich enriches your life doing the thing you love.
00:40:32
Speaker
But if the thing you love is also pivots and tangential to something beneficial to your life in a more wider context, it's an incredible strength in that setting.
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah, and and it's always it's often difficult, isn't it? to the The dilemma is whether to encourage somebody who's got a passion for one thing onto something, maybe nudge them into something a little bit more...
00:40:57
Speaker
pretty productive in inverted commas and whether that's actually something that we have any right to do and also whether we're importing our own notions of what is productive and what is not productive so you mentioned books and and obviously I'm i'm all well not obviously but I am all for books I'm pro books but I think you know there is an idea that reading is more productive than yeah great good for you there are two unreadable books for you listeners um you know But if if your passion is playing video games, that is often frowned upon more.
00:41:36
Speaker
um And i don't want I wonder about that sometimes because there are some... kind of almost sort of semi-moral judgments on particular passions and particular interests more than more than others.
00:41:50
Speaker
yeah And so I don't know what if you what what what you think about that, and to what extent we are kind of importing... um societal judgment. I mean, i umm i'm i'm so back of my mind, I'm thinking of the fact that when novels came out, there was a moral panic about their negative effect on the yeah young people's um young people' psyche and having all these pale young ladies who were reading novels all the time rather than going out.
00:42:15
Speaker
um that was That was a genuine moral panic at the time. So anyway what I don't know what you think about all of that. I've got two thoughts on that. One, I love you've brought up video games because that was my special interest in kind of has been very prevalent in my life, my you know, my entire life. When I was a teen, I was in a world top 50 World of Warcraft gig, gig, um, clan.
00:42:36
Speaker
So I, on one character, I had 262 days played on a single character across, I think it was about over like eight years, nine years or so.
00:42:47
Speaker
So people would say, oh God, what a complete waste of time. What an absolute or terrible waste of potential. And for me, I loved it. I loved every second of it. i I had very little connection in the educational system. I talked about you know my educational journey being traumatic and there was solace and safety in these online spaces.
00:43:09
Speaker
There was connection in those online spaces. I learned a lot about how the auction houses worked and how was sort of trade works and and and how to connect and communicate with people of all ages across the world and getting together three times a week at the same time every night to do something for three to four hours raid and in the game like that was there was a lot of skills and I think we minimize a lot of the skills that are actually being developed in things like ah video games or what or other adjacent hobbies um
00:43:43
Speaker
Because there are some benefits and strengths that can come from that. That's one of my points. My other point is I also completely agree with you on the whole moral judgment on certain things being of value and not of value.
00:43:56
Speaker
And we don't need to look much further than how people talk about autism. We talk about autism as those who are high, well, we see this, no, I don't talk about it at this way. We see people high functioning versus low functioning.
00:44:07
Speaker
What makes someone low functioning? They can't work. they They struggle. They may not have a relationship. So they don't contribute to society in the way that we have deemed as an appropriate way to contribute to society.
00:44:20
Speaker
You're high functioning if you've got a job and if you've and if you've got a partner or a house. It doesn't matter how much you struggle. It doesn't matter how hard your life is. You are high functioning because you have something that we as society deem as valuable.
00:44:33
Speaker
And I completely disagree with that. You know, this idea of people being low functioning who bring so much joy and wonder into their families and to those around them who are happy and and create art that makes people feel something.
00:44:48
Speaker
but we label them as low functioning, high needs. And it and it it just, it's never sat right with me because people function differently at different times of their lives in different ways.
00:44:59
Speaker
And who gets to decide what functioning is? Yeah. Yeah. um Who gets to decide what's a hobby that's good enough? Yeah. So maybe that's a good segue speaking of to our next question and in terms of,
00:45:15
Speaker
Yes. Go on. So what does this mean? Sorry, it's my part now. It's all right. So what does this mean for ADHD people themselves?
Future Directions and Educational Challenges
00:45:25
Speaker
I think for ADHD themselves, there's a couple of things to think about. One is to actually believe a little bit more strongly that positives exist.
00:45:40
Speaker
There's one thing that there is evidence to suggest that there are positive ways in which to see this difference, see this condition and to see the traits where something that might be a real challenge for you in one context in a different context might be beneficial to you.
00:45:59
Speaker
I was doing some training in a drug and alcohol service recently, last week, and was talking about, you know, they're talking about their their young teenage dealers with ADHD. And I was saying, well, you know dealing drugs has some incredible skills and entrepreneurial skills attached to it and some social skills.
00:46:18
Speaker
So in that context, we we say this is a you know it a terrible thing and we shouldn't be doing it. And again, I'm not i am in no way saying that people should deal drugs. I mean, very good for maths. Very good for maths. Again, some of the maths we can do with drugs is that the average drug dealer in the UK earns less than minimum wage if you do it by hourly wage.
00:46:36
Speaker
So like that's that's that's something that is often depressing to hear for people who are currently dealing. But But suffice to say, there are some real skills in there. So it's not that your ADHD impulsivity and and all of those things that have led you into a position where maybe things are a bit grim and a bit negative.
00:46:53
Speaker
It's not that it's all bad. It's that maybe we need to recontextualize, change environments, change situations. And that problem in that context might become a strength in another context.
00:47:05
Speaker
Yeah. The idea of hyperactivity is a problem. Well, who's it a problem for? Because for the majority of people, hyperactivity is a problem for everyone else. It's you are frustrating. You are irritating. You annoy me. You're too loud.
00:47:19
Speaker
Well, that's, i mean, part of it, I often say, well, that's their problem. and Because when you have multiple people with ADHD in the room together and everyone's loud and fast and talking at a million miles an hour and going on five different tangents, it's not a problem in that context a lot of the time.
00:47:35
Speaker
And when you're in the swimming pool and you're Michael Phelps and you're swimming the hell for leather, hyperactivity is actually not a problem in that context. It's quite beneficial in that context.
00:47:45
Speaker
when I talk after the lunch break and I've already been talking for four hours and I'm still full of beans, what a wonderful strength in that context, but not as much when i get home from work and my wife's really tired and I'm just constantly talking about books like so it's about i think for ADHD people research like this and talk around positives helps us to reframe some of our experiences and and hopefully give some hope that's a big thing for me is is to have hope that one it's not all bad and it was getting better and it can get better
00:48:22
Speaker
And where would people with ADHD access your work and have a look at what you've found? So this current project is not currently published because we are we in absolute ADHD fashion.
00:48:37
Speaker
We did two, about a year and a half of work, did it all up. And then my PhD got really busy. Laura changed jobs and we never published it. We never fully wrote it up.
00:48:48
Speaker
So we have all the data. We have all of it unanalyzed. We have all, we have... unbelievable amounts of information and we never fully wrote it up we are currently as i said updating to 2025 with a larger team of all adhd academics um and we are hoping to be publishing or at least submitting for publication later this year the back end of this year um To find information of mine, and I attempt to publish all of my like my research open access.
00:49:21
Speaker
So I've got a couple of papers currently in for review right now. But if you look at drtomnicholson.com or and search me on Google Scholar, you'll see a couple of papers ah or just ping me an email.
00:49:34
Speaker
and and I'll tell you about stuff. Yeah, you certainly will. I think one of the things that we realise academia and literature and research can be so inaccessible for so many people.
00:49:49
Speaker
But one of the things I learned very quickly is that if you just email the writers of papers... They're really keen to have you read it. They're really keen to talk about it because they've spent a lot of time on it. Yeah, no, that's one and that's the foundation of kind of how this podcast in a way is the researchers' willingness to discuss their work but for no for no money from some random guy from Oxford, near Oxford.
00:50:12
Speaker
And his daughter. And his daughter. here. You are here. and I did have one more thing that I wanted to say, actually, because we talked about what this means for ADHD people and hope. And it just it does bring me back to, obviously, i bang on about this all the time because it's you know, at an experience I really really relate to. But when we talk about structures that ADHD people really struggle in, I always think about school.
00:50:34
Speaker
And I always think about exams. And i always think about, you know, being forced to do all this stuff you don't want to do. And it is really, I think it's really important, especially that we get this out to young people. specifically, yeah you know, all the different ways that this can aid them, specifically, like the special interests, like, you know, later on in their lives.
00:50:53
Speaker
Because I think a lot of ADHD people do lose hope and give up yeah because they think, you know. i think particularly of the first few years of secondary school, I think they're almost the worst bit where you have like 10 different subjects you're forced to do and you've got all of this organisational weight and things have become incredibly difficult.
00:51:11
Speaker
complex socially. And you have to remember which books to put in your bag in the morning and which ones to take out of your bag in the morning. you You're only allowed to do maths at 10 o'clock on a Tuesday. If you really like maths, you can't do it at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday because at 11 o'clock, that's when you've got to do history.
00:51:25
Speaker
And if you can't do history at 2pm, because that's when you're doing English. So even if you are interested deeply in a subject, you are only a allowed to do it at certain times in certain situations and and you're not allowed to do it at other times.
00:51:37
Speaker
And so we also, the system demolishes the Passion and and things like mind-wandering and artistry and creativity and comedy, as we talked about, are in no way celebrated across the entire educational journey. Comedy comedy is not, is frowned, is actively frowned upon, I believe, in classrooms.
00:52:00
Speaker
you know Shall we go to our last question? Our last question is, what's your next question? what's What's coming up for you in the future?
00:52:10
Speaker
So in relation to this project, obviously it is what's changed and how what does it look like until 2025. and Other things that I'm kind of looking at at the moment, I've got a project on...
00:52:26
Speaker
Well, I've got some papers in looking at the benefits of the neurodiversity paradigm and the medical paradigm and how we can have a nuanced perspective across both sides. What can those in the neurodiversity world learn from the medical paradigm? What can those from the medical paradigm learn from the neurodiversity world?
00:52:44
Speaker
because having and completely talking about Are you talking about the way that ADHD is viewed as like a sickness? Is that... yeah Yeah, so it's the obviously the medical paradigm saying that ADHD is an objective impairment, neurocognitive disability, and and we're seeing a lot of rejection and a wholehearted rejection of that sort of paradigm from the neurodiversity world but often that but proves untenable for individuals how can you have this paradigm and then medicate symptoms how how can you like sort of theoretically and conceptually hold those two situations what about those with the biggest impairments how can we have a neurodiversity paradigm for them um and so i'm the paper looking at a more nuanced perspective that interweaves both of these topics because what we're seeing a lot is
00:53:33
Speaker
they're not men are talking to each other and we're seeing polarization and i think we need less polarization in society certainly generally yeah given this week um and mean randomly i'm also i help run clubhouse gaming which is the biggest adult board gaming group in the northeast and i'm doing some research on how
00:53:55
Speaker
How are you seeing autistic adults explore board gaming and use social deduction games to develop skills? I love social deduction games. And you love board games. love, I'm an absolute test. That's his thing.
00:54:08
Speaker
It's his thing. I have, I'm going to tilt my camera, but I see seven games on those shelves just over there. He's got a dice tray behind him on the camera. didn't really wonder that. But I don't know because ah I've seen a lot of women use those to store like, don't know, like rings and accessories.
00:54:23
Speaker
and So I don't know if it's just one of those. Well, okay. Well, one day we'll we'll sit down and have a game together. That would be amazing. Absolutely. Come up. Blood on the Clock Tower is a big one I'm interested in and how Blood on the Clock Tower can is is played differently by neurodivergent versus non-neurodivergent individuals.
00:54:42
Speaker
How do we approach these games? So just to explain to that the listeners, most of whom don't know what blood Blood on the Clock Tower is, it's a social deduction game where you each take on roles. And it's, yeah, I mean, if think of the traitors only dialed up to...
00:54:58
Speaker
11. The Traitors, but every single person has a special ability. No, The Traitors is great TV show. It's not a great social deduction game. that That's my position on it Yeah, I 100% agree. When you've played a lot of social deduction games, The Traitors is basic at best. I'm totally useless.
00:55:17
Speaker
and All right. Anyway, so that I just sort of think, I think there might be a nice place to stop really um talking about games and talking about um positivity and how... been talking about positivity the whole time. Yeah, know, know, I know.
00:55:31
Speaker
Was there anything else you wanted to to to cover, Tess? Not particularly. Okay, so Tom... Anything that you wanted to cover, Tom? Yeah. Don't ask me a question like that. I could talk all day. So I'm going to say no. But I love talking about anything ADHD.
00:55:48
Speaker
Again, it's one of my passions. a Just trying to make the world a better place every day. Aww. Yeah. And we will will bring you back and talk but talk to you about Blood on the Clock Tower when you when you've done some more work on that, because that's fascinating, a really fascinating piece of work.
00:56:04
Speaker
All right. Well, we'll stop there because we've we're we're nearly at an hour. And i know that our ah our listeners, well you know, I try and pass package it so it's plausibly within two commutes for people.
00:56:14
Speaker
um So, all right. Thank you very much for joining us, Tom Nicholson. Oh, and obviously you're on social media. You alluded to that. So people just search you up on whatever. It's very fragmented landscape these days. So we'll try and find as many as your of your your tags as we can and share them. Absolutely. It's Dr. Tom Nicholson on everything. So at Dr. Tom Nicholson for Instagram, drtomnicholson.com and hi Dr. Tom Nicholson on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's the best place to potentially...
00:56:42
Speaker
get a reply offers. I'll be honest. Okay, cool. All right. Thank you very much, Dr. Tom Nicholson, who's got the strong brand, strong brand. All right. See you later.
00:56:52
Speaker
ah Okay, we're back. That was Tom Nicholson. I really enjoyed this interview. Yeah. I came out of it. I was like, what a great guy. Yeah. Do you think he's a bit inspirational?
00:57:03
Speaker
um ah Yeah. That's kind of a leading question. am I going to say? No. I think he's inspirational. Yeah, sure. That's a fair point. yeah Okay. Well, anyway, so what do we have to say to our lovely listeners? ah Join the Facebook group. Join the Facebook group, which is growing. Kind of 200 odd people now. And ah could you also tell people about the podcast?
00:57:27
Speaker
We're hoping that this gives, you know, the kind of doing a live show and stuff gives us a bit of a bump. We really want people to hear the cop podcast, not because we have designs on a career in internet. But because we think what we say is what the people who come on the podcast say is important.
00:57:46
Speaker
We've got some really good guests lined up, so please stay subscribed. That's exciting. that's it, I think. That's it? Yeah. That's it. That's it.
00:57:57
Speaker
That's it. Goodbye. Goodbye.