Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It

by Gabor Maté

At one time or another, every infant or young child feels frustration and psychological pain. Episodic experiences of a distressing nature do not induce dissociation, but chronic distress does—the distress of the sensitive infant with unsatisfied attunement needs, for example. The infant has to dissociate chronic emotional pain from consciousness for two reasons. First, it is too overwhelming for his fragile nervous system. He simply cannot exist in what we might call a state of chronic negative arousal, with adrenaline and other stress hormones pumping through his veins all the time. It is physiologically too toxic. He has to block it out. Second, if the parent’s anxiety is the source of the infant’s distress, the infant unconsciously senses that fully expressing his own emotional turmoil will only heighten that anxiety. His distress would then be aggravated—a vicious cycle he can escape by tuning out. The survival value of all psychological defenses is relatively short-lived. Sooner or later dissociation becomes a hindrance, interferes with life and slows psychological growth. The tuned-out individual has difficulty learning from experience and is hampered in making contact with others. The inner retreat from psychological reality means that he may never learn to cope with emotional setbacks in a creative and positive way. We may compare any psychological defense to a heavy fur coat a man in a cold northern climate puts on to keep from freezing. Wearing the fur coat save...