Neurodivergence: ADHD as an adult, as a woman, and in the workplace
The title already contains five key pieces of information:
1.) Neurodivergence: What falls under the term neurodivergent?
The concept of neurodiversity includes, among other things, autism, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyscalculia, dyslexia, dyspraxia, synaesthesia, bipolar disorder, and giftedness.
2.) ADHD: What subtypes/types of ADHD are there?
There are three main types of ADHD, which are categorised according to behavioural symptoms: the predominantly inattentive type, the predominantly impulsive–hyperactive type, and the combined type, which shows symptoms of both of the first two types.
Impulsive / hyperactive ADHD type
This type of ADHD is the least common. It occurs most frequently in boys and adult men. People with the impulsive/hyperactive type of ADHD often fidget, feel a constant urge to move, and frequently experience inner restlessness.
This type of ADHD is also characterised by impulsivity, which leads those affected to act without thinking things through beforehand. For example, they may finish other people’s sentences or blurt out answers to questions before they have even been fully asked.
Symptoms of this impulsive/hyperactive type of ADHD include:
- Lack of self-control
- Difficulty remaining seated in one place
- Frequent fidgeting
- Interrupting or intruding into other people’s activities and conversations
- Outbursts of anger
- Difficulty waiting one’s turn
Inattentive ADHD type
ADHD generally occurs about twice as often in boys as in girls. However, the inattentive type of ADHD is diagnosed more frequently in girls and is also more common in older children and adults.
People with this type of ADHD show symptoms indicating that they struggle to concentrate properly. Unlike impulsive/hyperactive ADHD, individuals with inattentive ADHD do not display signs of hyperactivity or impulsivity. Instead, the main symptoms of this type are:
- Being easily distracted
- Aversion to tasks that require sustained mental effort, such as schoolwork
- Fixation on activities that do not require sustained mental effort, such as watching television
- Forgetfulness
- Organisational difficulties
- Careless mistakes
Combined ADHD type
The combined type is the most common form of ADHD. People with this condition experience a combination of symptoms seen in both the inattentive and the impulsive–hyperactive types of ADHD. This means that an individual with this type shows symptoms of impulsivity and hyperactivity as well as inattention, including:
- A short attention span
- Being easily distracted
- Forgetfulness
- Frequently interrupting others
- Often acting without thinking
- Talking excessively
- Excessive fidgeting
- Frequently losing things
3.) Adults: What symptoms do adults with ADHD have?
The symptoms already emerge from point two. It becomes slightly more medical at this stage: https://causeresearch.com/adsadhs-bei-erwachsenen/
4.) Women: Do women have different ADHD symptoms than men?
Source: Excerpt from Lisa Vogel’s book “Hirngespinste”:
Lisa Vogel: The core symptoms in diagnostics are divided into three categories. First, there is attention deficit — this includes everything related to concentration and the ability to focus on one thing. Then there is impulsivity and hyperactivity. When people think of impulsivity, they often initially associate it with anger and emotional outbursts. That is true to a certain extent. However, it is also very much related to a low tolerance for frustration.
Or an inability to wait.
For example, when I buy a gift for someone, I find it hard to wait before giving it to them. Everything I want has to happen immediately. Many women do not readily identify with hyperactivity. However, when you ask more closely, it becomes clear that for most of them the hyperactivity primarily takes place in their mind. Twenty-five thoughts are running at the same time, jumping from one thing to the next. For the vast majority of people I know who say they are not actually hyperactive, the hyperactivity still shows itself externally: in the form of picking at the cuticles or biting their fingernails. Hyperactivity can also manifest in this way when someone constantly tries to suppress it.
There are also several other symptoms that do not fit neatly into any of these categories, yet occur frequently: difficulties with organisation, starting tasks, or maintaining order. In addition, a poor sense of time or difficulties with decision-making can also be symptoms of ADHD.
5.) Work: Working with ADHD. What should be considered?
Comment by Gregor Schäfer:
You can already see from this headline alone how much potential the topic of ADHD holds — even before breaking it down further into “adult ADHD”, “ADHD in women”, or “adult female ADHD”.
Now let us add one more dimension: the workplace. In other words, “adult women with ADHD at work”. How does this manifest? What can be done? And so on.
At this point, when giving advice to employers, I would not want to differentiate between women and men in the first instance when it comes to work. Many employers are not even aware that some of their employees are neurodivergent — whether this involves bipolar disorder, narcissism, ADHD, or borderline personality traits. All of these exist in different expressions and styles.
What most managers are familiar with is depression. However, they often do not know whether it results from one of the conditions mentioned above. And that makes a significant difference.
When we speak of hyperfocus or of an overvalued idea, when is it which?
For the employer, what ultimately matters is the result, and they therefore often cannot act effectively because they do not know the underlying causes of certain employee behaviours. It makes a difference whether someone is depressed due to narcissism (F60.8), ADHD (F90), or PTSD (F43), as each would lead to very specific recommendations on how to support an employee in achieving good results for the company.
CEOs then come to me for team-building, motivation, and analysis — always with the aim of improving results through harmony and structure within the team. Communication seminars are easy: the four-ears model is presented, communication styles are explained, factual and emotional levels are discussed, and various team-building games are carried out. These are forms of symptom management that last for a while.
The more demanding and longer path would be individual profiling of a single employee. This may require a greater investment, but it is also by far the more promising approach.
This leads to highly individualised solutions.
For example, an employee who becomes quickly overstimulated in an office with several colleagues and constant phone calls due to neurodivergence can become far more productive when allowed to work from home.
There are also adjustment points within areas of responsibility that need to be fine-tuned in order to enable an employee to deliver peak performance in their specific role. If these are incorrectly set, performance losses occur. Even boreout is a concept many managers are unfamiliar with. (See here:https://causeresearch.com/bore-out-was-unternehmer-tun-koennen/ )
Especially for employers, I would like to initiate a moment of reflection here:
Precisely because neurodivergent traits have long been viewed as illnesses — and in some cases still are — it is all the more important to highlight the very specific strengths that accompany these characteristics. People with ADHD as well as autistic people — contrary to the stereotypes commonly portrayed in the media — often display a pronounced level of empathy, honesty, loyalty, reliability, and a strong sense of justice. They reflect deeply and sense when group dynamics are not functioning well. They are capable of acquiring knowledge very quickly and recalling it spontaneously. In addition, they tend to work with great commitment and motivation, with a high awareness of quality and a great deal of creativity. Through their different perception of the external world, they often develop entirely new ideas and concepts.
