Amy Twilegar
My name is Amy Twilegar; I am the proud author of Psychology Within the Context of Psychiatry: Closing the Translational Gap. In this book, I relay a strong message that addresses the construct of adult ADHD. Through rigorous research analyses, I address the need for revisionary change in thinking about the disorder, as it is rigidly confined to measures focusing on childhood behavior to dictate the age of onset, as limited in its assessments. I strongly paint a clear picture of how and why this attentional dysfunction may result from childhood abuse, contending the need for re-evaluation for abused children to develop late onset of ADHD, should abuse be re-experienced in later years. The nervous system activation with prolonged, sustained abuse can take a toll on perceptual factors, shaping the early brain. Growing up in fear, therefore, may set the stage for later developmental consequences in attentional network systems and may have lifelong effects. Development is highly emphasized in this book to explain how and why these fear-based and helpless factors experienced in the early years may predispose anxiety and maladaptive coping mechanisms, leading to later demise. The purpose of this book is to highlight the need to re-conceptualize diagnoses in early adulthood to consider childhood abuse as a salient factor for the later development of ADHD. Changing these criteria measures to include childhood abuse as a high-risk factor for the development of ADHD in young adulthood is the main message I present. Backed by extensive research findings, I put the pieces together to explain how and why these diagnostic measures need to change. This isn’t the end of the story. The compelling evidence through scientific analyses is further re-examined when it comes to common misdiagnoses in adulthood without childhood records, to reveal an undeniable overture when it comes to brain system functioning. In my second book, Translational Developmental Psychobiology, the contention
for changing the books when it comes to diagnostic assessment measures explores the neuroanatomical and neurochemical changes that occur in the developing brain. The helpless, abused child and their relative stress response mechanisms through prolonged exposure to abusive environments delve deeper into how these early experiences help to shape their reactive trends. Should these issues re-occur in later years, despite resilience in adolescence, the attention spirals toward internalized distress again, at the time brain maturational processes solidify for self-regulation of emotion patterns, and history repeats itself. However, should these maladaptive patterns re-emerge in young adulthood years, these reactive tendencies now become crystallized, and without childhood records of pre-existing ADHD-like symptoms, late-onset development of ADHD is not considered. Instead, it is labeled as depression. The diagnostic criteria measures need to change, as the research shows that depressed individuals do not respond to the treatment that people with adult ADHD do, and vice versa. This goes into further examining the brain system mechanisms as a result of cognitive development; behavior is related to learning, and you learn from your experiences. Although it is unconventional to go against the grain, I present in my work the impacts of early abuse on developmental systems, and how the diagnostic assessment measures are too rigidly confined. The chronic stress response from inescapable early abuse thus sets the stage for developmental patterns, which can be learned in the early years. Thereby, the criteria measures insisting ADHD must be present in childhood and must not be comorbid with anxiety is readily refuted and addressed; through a systematic presentation of research studies to support the arguments made, my work sheds new light on the need for a paradigm shift in the way we think about adult ADHD.
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