By Paul Sinclair, Managing Director of Mind Matters. One of fewer than 200 Compassionate Inquiry practitioners certified by Dr Gabor Maté, working primarily with high achievers on trauma, addiction, and the patterns beneath both.
In this piece: why ADHD may be a coping strategy rather than a disorder, what Gabor Maté and Eckhart Tolle have in common, the childhood stress pattern underneath most adult ADHD, what the Malta medication question reveals about the bigger picture, and what healing looks like when fixing focus is not the goal.
Table Of Contents:
- Is ADHD a Disorder, or a Coping Mechanism?
- Gabor Maté and the Stress Response Theory of ADHD
- Why Staying Present Is Like Hugging a Cactus
- Adult ADHD: Carrying Childhood Trauma in Style
- The Malta Question: Medicating the Canary
- What Healing Actually Looks Like
- Frequently Asked Questions About ADHD and Trauma
There is something exceptionally British about how we politely tiptoe around discomfort, like a piss puddle in a pristine hallway. And so it is with ADHD, a label tossed about like confetti at a diagnosis parade. The world claps and says Ah, that explains it. Now take these pills and get on with it. But what if, and do hold your tea for this one, ADHD is not a disorder at all? What if it is a perfectly sensible, if slightly chaotic, coping mechanism developed by a child whose reality was more kettle-boil stress than teddy-bear picnic?
Is ADHD a Disorder, or a Coping Mechanism?
Let us start with a familiar face in the world of compassion and curiosity, Dr Gabor Maté, the Canadian physician and trauma expert who developed Compassionate Inquiry. Dr Maté, bless his beautifully furrowed brow, does not see ADHD as a genetic fault line ready to rupture; he looks beyond the chaos of scattered thoughts and half-finished to-do lists and sees a survival strategy.
Gabor Maté and the Stress Response Theory of ADHD
In his book Scattered Minds, he suggests that ADHD is a response to stress, a way for a child to mentally escape a situation that is too overwhelming to sit still through. The child, unable to change the reality, changes their attention. They scatter it. Like breadcrumbs in a forest. Except there is no gingerbread house at the end, just adulthood with a half-finished CV and a cupboard full of forgotten hobbies.
As a child, I had what would now be diagnosed as severe ADHD. Back then, though, it was called being a little shit. No clinical language, no gentle interventions. Just labels flung with the force of frustration. I was not medicated, thank whatever higher power you prefer, but I was punished. The family environment I grew up in was toxic, unpredictable and often violent. If I cannot run away and fight back, the only option left is to disassociate and scatter my attention. Because the only other option is madness. Desperate for relief, the mind flees the moment and flings into fantasy, daydreams, and distractions. It becomes a master of escape. A ninja of avoidance.
Why Staying Present Is Like Hugging a Cactus
Now this is where our spiritual mate, Eckhart Tolle, the spiritual teacher and author of The Power of Now, wanders in, probably barefoot and beaming. Ever the minimalist mystic, Tolle has made a tidy living reminding us that the present moment is all there is. Be here now, he says, while most of us wonder where we left our socks and whether we locked the front door. ADHD, through this lens, becomes the very embodiment of resistance to the now. Not by choice, mind you, but out of a deeply entrenched habit formed in response to a now that was once intolerable. When the present moment meant emotional pain, disapproval, neglect or even just the buzzing anxiety of a stressed parent, it became necessary to leave it. Not physically, of course, but attentively. Hence, the mind goes skipping down a thousand alleyways of thought, each more irrelevant than the last, because staying put is like hugging a cactus.
Combine these two views, and suddenly, ADHD stops looking like a mental malfunction and starts to resemble an act of brilliance. Pain avoidance dressed as forgetfulness. Emotional radar cloaked as restlessness. An internal alert system that says danger when the external world says sit still and behave. It is a bit like having a smoke alarm that goes off not just for fires but also for burnt toast, emotional tension, and memories of that time you were left outside the supermarket for too long. It is not broken, just hyper-vigilant.
So, if ADHD is a coping strategy, what are we coping with? That is where things get interesting. We are talking about a culture that rewards performance over presence, compliance over curiosity. Childhoods steeped in stress are not always dramatic, but often subtle. A parent too distracted to notice, a teacher too busy to listen, a world too loud to hear a quiet need. The child learns that their inner world is not the priority. So they disassociate, not with intent but out of necessity. Attention is a currency, and they start spending it elsewhere.
Adult ADHD: Carrying Childhood Trauma in Style
And so we grow up, or at least we try. We find ourselves in adult bodies with childlike attention, or so it seems. But really, we are just carrying our trauma in style. We label it ADHD and call it a problem. But is it? Or is it a beautifully maladaptive way of protecting the tender core that once felt too exposed? We chase dopamine like it is the last biscuit on the plate, not because we are thrill-seeking lunatics but because it gives us a momentary sense of aliveness. A fleeting taste of presence. Tolle would approve if he were not so zen about everything.
Of course, the modern world is a playground for ADHD. Notifications ping like impatient toddlers. Multitasking is praised as a virtue. Focus is fragmented by design. We are overstimulated and undernourished. No wonder our minds race like caffeinated squirrels. But this is not just biology on the blink. It is our response to an environment that keeps pushing us out of the now. Healing, then, is not just about fixing attention but restoring safety. Making the present moment feel like home rather than a place to escape.
The Malta Question: Medicating the Canary
But instead of asking what happened to the child, we often ask what is wrong with them. Cue the prescription pad. And here comes the uncomfortable bit, so grip your mug firmly. We medicate ADHD with a pharmaceutical cousin of crystal meth. Yes, you heard that right. Amphetamines. We give children drugs that, if sold behind a pub, would land you in a very different kind of institution. And we do it with the best intentions, to help them focus, to help them fit in. But what if the child is not the one who needs fixing? What if the child is the canary in the gold mine, wheezing in the fumes of a toxic environment?
Take Malta, for example. A sun-drenched island paradise where, in my years of clinical work here, I have watched children medicated in droves, often before anyone bothers to ask what these children are responding to. Parents, acting out of concern and cultural pressure, turn to medication, not realising they are treating the symptom rather than the source. The child becomes the problem, rather than the whistleblower. The small soul is raising the alarm that something in their world is not right.
We are so eager to put a lid on discomfort, to smooth over the cracks with chemical glue, that we forget the cracks are trying to show us something. ADHD, in many cases, is a child screaming silently for connection, for safety, for presence. And we answer back with pills. It is not about being anti-medication entirely. For some, these drugs are a lifeline. But when the default setting becomes ‘medicate first, understand later’, we have lost the plot.
What Healing Actually Looks Like
At Mind Matters, here in Malta, where I live and work, and through the lens of Compassionate Inquiry, the approach I trained in directly under Gabor Maté, this is the lens I bring into my practice. ADHD is not something I try to fix, but something I help people understand. Together, we explore the story beneath the symptoms. We get curious, slow down, and most of all, create safety. Because no amount of focus hacks will work, if your nervous system still thinks it is under threat. I offer a space where your mind can come home to itself, gently, without judgment. This is not about control. It is about compassion. Fundamental transformation starts when we stop trying to be normal and start getting real.
So, what do you do with all this? First, stop pathologising yourself. You are not broken. You are responding exactly as you were wired to, given the circumstances. Honour that. Second, I want to get curious, not in the googling symptoms at 2 am, but in the quiet, self-inquisitive manner that asks what happened rather than what is wrong. Third, find practices that anchor you. This is where Tolle comes in with his deep breaths and kind eyes. Stillness is not easy for a mind that learned to flee, but it is possible. Presence is a muscle. Start small. A sip of tea without checking your phone. A walk without a podcast. A conversation where you actually listen instead of waiting to speak.
And maybe we do not need to cure ADHD at all. Maybe we need to honour it, thank it for its protection, and gently teach it that the war is over, that this moment is safe—or at least safer than it used to be. And if it is not, then that, too, is worth noticing. Because presence does not mean pretending, it means showing up, even when it is uncomfortable, especially then.
In the end, perhaps ADHD is less about disorder and more about disconnection, from self, from safety, from the now. Healing is about reconnection. And that, dear reader, is a lifelong practice. No pills required. Just patience, presence and the occasional ironic chuckle when you realise you have once again left your keys in the fridge. Carry on.
If any of this sounds like your own weather, book a conversation with me. We will not start with focus hacks. We will start with what your attention has been trying to tell you.
Frequently Asked Questions About ADHD and Trauma
Is ADHD really a disorder, or a coping mechanism?
ADHD can be read as a coping strategy, a child’s mind learning to scatter its attention to escape a reality that felt unbearable at the time. This is Dr Gabor Maté’s framing in Scattered Minds, and it matches what I see in clients every week. The adaptation kept them safe in childhood. In adulthood it mostly keeps them exhausted. If that sounds like your experience, get in touch. We can start with a conversation.
What does Gabor Maté say about ADHD?
Dr Gabor Maté argues that ADHD is a response to early-life stress, not a genetic fault. Scattered attention is a survival strategy. When a small child cannot physically escape a stressful environment, their mind learns to scatter its attention instead. That pattern, useful then, hardens into what we later call ADHD. I trained directly in this lineage under Gabor Maté. If it resonates, let us have a conversation.
Is ADHD linked to childhood trauma?
In the framing I work with, yes. The kind of trauma that drives ADHD is rarely dramatic. More often it is chronic, low-grade stress. A parent too distracted, a home too unpredictable, a world too loud. The child cannot change the environment, so they change their attention. They scatter it. The Personal Resilience Indicator surfaces these patterns directly. A starting point if you want one.
Should children be medicated for ADHD?
This is not a question I can answer for anyone else’s child. For some children, medication is a genuine lifeline. For many, it is not. The concern is when medication becomes the default before anyone asks what the child is responding to. If the environment is the problem, medication treats the whistleblower rather than the leak. Always speak with a qualified clinician before any decision about medication.
Can adults recover from ADHD without medication?
Recovery here does not mean eliminating the pattern. It means changing your relationship with it, so the nervous system stops treating the present as a threat. The work is slow, somatic, and relational. It is not a set of focus hacks. For some people medication remains part of the picture. For others it eventually becomes unnecessary. If that is the kind of work you are ready for, book a conversation with me.
References
- Maté, G. (1999). Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder. Vintage Canada.
- Tolle, E. (1997). The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Namaste Publishing.
Paul Sinclair
Paul, Managing Director at Mind Matters, specialises in mental health, trauma, and psychedelic-assisted therapy. He has trained under Dr. Gabor Maté, a renowned expert in trauma and addiction, and has also undergone extensive training in psychedelic-assisted therapy. Paul's diverse background as an elite military unit member, top athlete, and successful entrepreneur informs his unique approach to transforming ingrained patterns of thought and behaviour. He has trained thousands of individuals, and over 20,000 development and mental health professionals follow his teachings on LinkedIn. Paul believes in the power of resilience and personal transformation, drawing from his journey to inspire and guide his clients.
