Is ADHD reversible?
And why meditation is a core tool in my toolkit
Dr. Gabor Maté has some controversial opinions about ADHD.
He believes ADHD is not genetic. Rather, it's the result of multigenerational stress and disturbed social conditions in a stressed society.
Put simply, it's caused by our modern fragile environment.
Crucially, that means ADHD is reversible.
I think Dr. Maté is right.
The only way to reliably evidence a specific genetic contribution to ADHD is through molecular genetic studies. Since faster and cheaper whole genome scans have become available, the molecular genetic evidence has been accumulating. This increasingly large volume of ADHD genetic research is not showing any particular findings, whether in relation to abnormal genes or consistent genetic associations.
There is a common narrative in ADHD circles that it is genetic. These claims are not backed by solid science.
(just because you, your parents, and their parents had ADHD doesn’t automatically qualify it as genetic — this could be environmental too).
This is bad news for Big Pharma, whose main argument for the use of drugs is that it's a genetic disorder that must be medicated.
But Maté isn't entirely against medication. He says that in some very severe cases, for a very short time, it can help a lot.
His view hovers somewhere between the medical view, that ADHD must be medicated, and the anthropological view, that ADHD is caused solely by our modern fragile environment.
For years I believed the anthropological view. But as I continue to get deeper into meditation I realise that my past experiences were causing many of the negative behaviours associated with my ADHD.
As I release those past experiences, without judging them, I become ever more free. As a result, I am becoming ever more free from my ADHD.
Here's my view:
ADHD exists. I have it. It doesn't require medication but can sometimes benefit from it when skilfully applied. It's definitely a diagnosis that is being abused, like many. The symptoms are real, but they don't have to be permanent, and what is permanent can be helped and harnessed. Most of the time, lifestyle changes will make such enormous improvements that you're able to live very well. For people who have it more severely, deeper therapy (such as that delivered by Dr. Maté) can help enormously.
This is why I'm so bullish on meditation.
Which you can learn in my online latest online course — Master ADHD (Without Meds).
If you want to:
Master ADHD without meds
Break free from Big Pharma
Develop focus
Avoid emotional dysregulation
And build lasting habits…
…then this online course can show you how.
The course materials are yours to keep forever. This course is self-paced. Do it in your own time. Keep returning to the course for reminders.
Thoughts on ADHD coupled with bipolar? Recent diagnosis March 2025 for adhd then most recently, last week, din ding bipolar too Jemma 🙃
Super interesting. Thanks for sharing. You know so much, Joseph, and know your science. Have you ever come across someone called Loch Kelly? If not, he is a meditation teacher and Internal family systems practitioner. He got taught the Tibetan Buddhist direct pointing out instructions from the dzogchen/mahamudra (never too sure the differences between the two!) traditions many years ago (from a very well respected master, father of yongey mingyur rinpoche). Anyway, interestingly, Loch Kelly also has ADHD. But he often says that his meditation practices have "cured adhd" (although like you he has also used therapy, in this case ifs) to heal some inner children which make this meditation practice easier.
He has been in studies where advanced practitioners have mri scans etc to register brain activity. So he was studied while coming into awareness that is outside and within, working from heartmind without going up to thought. Rest is a quote verbatim from him:
From this non space dual mind that is aware of teh adhd mind as an object the effortless focus can focus without the midn wandering because you are not focusing from the samll mind. So much of what we are limited is this attempt to use attention, mental ideas of self, pay attention is our only strategy, we'll end up bankrupt, attention can't sustain itself. we run out of energy.
It is why i call it awake loving flow. cause when you get into this spacious feeling - very similar as flow state very similar to the optimal functioning from a flow state that is very similar to getting into activities that have to work without being in thimking mind(eg extreme skiing, professional sports, high level musicians in an orchestra) where you have to get into a flow and you go beyond the frontal lobe attentional executive function. It is called transient hypo frontalality"