Author advises against medication and talk therapy to treat ADHD.
By: Sue Burghard Brooks
For 25 years of her life, Amy E. Stein battled an invisible demon that robbed her of her ability to concentrate. As early as age 2, while living in Princeton, she had her mother convinced by her actions that Amy suffered from what doctors then referred to as "difficult child syndrome."
"Apparently, I slept four hours and terrorized (my parents) for 20," says Ms. Stein.
As she grew older, and the family moved to Hamilton, things got worse. Calls from exasperated teachers were regularly made to her frustrated and perplexed parents, and detentions were commonplace.
"I was talking all the time, I lacked organizational skills and I always rebelled," she admits.
Despite her difficulties focusing and concentrating, and the depression she was experiencing, Ms. Stein continued her education, earning a degree in psychology with a minor in professional writing from The College of New Jersey. She pushed herself to pursue a master’s degree, dropping out of two graduate schools and exploring career opportunities before deciding on social work at Rutgers University.
"My depression got even worse while at Rutgers. I hit rock bottom," she reveals. She even envisioned suicide.
When Ms. Stein hit 25, her younger brother and sister were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a disorder of the central nervous system characterized by disturbances in the areas of attention, impulsiveness and hyperactivity. She was urged to seek testing, and an educational diagnostician pronounced that she had "a classic textbook case" of ADHD.
At last, the demon had a name.
What transpired over the next five years was a period of enlightenment for Ms. Stein, who eventually earned an MSW from Rutgers in 1999. Over time, she discarded the classic textbook treatment for ADHD, Ritalin and psychotherapy "both of which failed me miserably," she says and embarked on a journey to find other solutions and treatments.
Ms. Stein, now 31 and living in Upper Bucks, Pa., candidly chronicles her struggles with ADHD and offers the alternative holistic approaches she’s found to improve the lives of people diagnosed with it in Fragments: Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder (The Haworth Press, 2003). An interview she heard on NPR radio, proposing that ADHD was "a hoax," propelled her to fulfill a lifelong dream of writing a book.
Whereas the criteria of ADHD served to explain her behavior, she notes that it did not offer any pragmatic solutions or "antidotes" other then medication and traditional psychotherapy.
"Medication served to merely mask my symptoms and psychotherapy encouraged me to wallow in my problems," Ms. Stein asserts.
She contends that Ritalin and other psychoactive drugs are "a bandage, a quick fix. In our society, we seek to satisfy our needs immediately, regardless of the consequences, and drugs offer that possibility." Ms. Stein acknowledges that those in the medical profession may refute what she presents in her book.
"We are a society of convenience," she says. "What I’m talking about is time-consuming."
Ms. Stein recently had a lecture/booksigning event at Barnes & Noble in Princeton that drew nearly 40 attendees including those with ADHD and parents of children with ADHD on the evening of a combined snow and ice storm. The bookstore’s community relations manager, Nancy Nicholson, says that there’s a significant interest in books about ADHD.
"A lot of my interaction with the general public leads me to believe that many people in the community either have children on medication (for ADHD) or are exploring if other therapies would help their children," Ms. Nicholson says.
Research indicates that approximately two to five percent of school-age children are diagnosed with ADHD. Ms. Stein maintains that teachers today are not educated or trained to provide necessary accommodations for these students.
"A student diagnosed with ADHD faces being defeated, alienated and stripped of any self-esteem by his or her experiences in the educational system and it may take years to mend the damage done," she writes. "This population is at two to three times greater risk for school failure than their peers, over one-third do not complete high school and 20 percent are at increased risk for substance abuse."
Experiential or hands-on interactive learning, Ms. Stein argues, is the key to engaging the mind of a student with ADHD contrary to today’s educational system, which she feels promotes "passive learning."
This revelation occurred during a summer internship that Ms. Stein had in her late 20s on a nature preserve. Wading into a lake, using a water ecology kit to test for pH, dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide, she noticed a heightened awareness.
"Concepts clicked for the first time, and suddenly it made sense … Engaged in hands-on, interactive activity, my mind did not wander and I made theoretical connections. Had visual and experiential learning been integrated into school, this may have saved me the interminable frustration and depression I battled throughout adolescence because of learning difficulties," she concludes.
Lou and Peg Beyrouty of Robbinsville, who attended Ms. Stein’s book signing and whose 15-year-old daughter has ADHD, agree, noting, "We see how hands-on programs are helping our daughter organize her life."
Another internship at an alternative school in Morganville further shaped Ms. Stein’s theories. There, she counseled "hard-core, inner-city ghetto kids," age 9 to 19, who had ADHD, were bipolar, schizophrenic or had borderline personalities.
"Traditional group and individual cognitive therapy was a failure. The kids did not want to talk." Instead, she says, they resorted to yelling obscenities and throwing things. An article she read in Teaching Tolerance magazine about therapeutic gardening prompted her to start a school garden with her students.
The first day, 12 students spent three hours working on the garden. "The transformation of the kids was magical," Ms. Stein recalls. "Students who never talked before started talking and smiled. There was an immediate improvement in self-esteem." The experience motivated her to become deeply involved in organic farming and a vocal proponent for environmental education.
Other activities Ms. Stein recommends to bring about positive change in those diagnosed with ADHD include instilling a sense of community, nature and spirituality; nurturing creativity; promoting exercise; educating people about the correlation between diet and behavior, and providing vocational direction with an emphasis on experiential careers and education.
Ms. Stein encourages meditation, yoga, tai chi, art, poetry, music and organic farming/food. She also proposes sample agricultural and ecology curricula for high school students as well as a curriculum to integrate agriculture, horticulture and environmental concepts with art. Resources for further exploration are included.
Ms. Stein, who just completed an interim position as an environmental educator at Stony Brook Millstone Watershed in Pennington, is now seeking opportunities to continue her pursuit to integrate agriculture and art, hopefully in the context of a farm. She plans to write a second book focusing on nature as experiential therapy.
"I feel really positive about my book," Ms. Stein declares. "I hope a lot of doors will open as a result of it, and that a lot will evolve."
Ms. Stein’s undergraduate advisor and writing professor at The College of New Jersey, Kim Pearson, concurs. Ms. Pearson, who was named "New Jersey Professor of the Year" in 2000 and who also spoke at Ms. Stein’s Barnes & Noble event, says, "I think Amy’s work will contribute to conversations that need to go on in schools and communities, and will raise important questions with educators and policymakers."