Exploring ADHD through a Phenomenological Lens

Despite its pervasive impact on everyday being-in-the-world, adult ADHD remains largely unexplored in phenomenological psychopathology. This paper argues that pronounced forms of adult ADHD can be described as involving an impairment of “natural self-evidence” (Blankenburg), that is, a weakening of the taken-for-granted anchoring in an intersubjectively constituted lifeworld. Drawing on clinical and experimental research along­side first-person and second-person reports, I develop a phenomenological description of ADHD-related alterations of attention and affectivity, impaired emotional self-regulation, and executive dysfunctions. On this basis, I show how these disturbances disrupt or hinder habitual cooperation with others—affective attunement, temporal synchronisation, and shared planning—thereby affecting the constitution of practical normality in everyday life. The paper concludes by outlining directions of future research in a phenomenology of ADHD and its potential contributions to psychopathological description and the diagnostic understanding of adult presentations.