Hyper focus
The term hyperfocus or hyperfocusing refers to a special state of high concentration . With attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) it can often be observed that those affected can devote themselves to particularly interesting tasks extremely intensively and persistently.
description
While ADHD sufferers usually have severe problems keeping their focus on a topic persistently, when they are motivated to do something , on the contrary, they can develop a flow- like, extreme focus on a topic that enables them to do it a lot to penetrate quickly, to include details mentioned in the margin and to work intensively on the topic for a long time without a break. The motivation itself cannot be influenced by the person concerned.
Hyperfocus has great advantages when those affected have to work on a topic independently; in a course situation, however, their almost monological explanations and frequent interim questions on aspects of the topic, the connection of which is not necessarily apparent to other participants, are often disruptive for fellow students and teachers .
Another problem is that those affected cannot direct the hyperfocus; This shows, for example in school , the image of a student who obviously has great problems coping with the topic, but suddenly shows a high level of efficiency . This often leads to misunderstandings among unenlightened people - "If he wants, he can!" Is a common sentence in assessments of ADHD sufferers - or to antipathy , which an ADHD sufferer often perceives because of his or her hypersensitivity . This can contribute to the typical integration disorders of ADHD sufferers and trigger reactive depression as a concomitant disease.
Affected people hide the environment and forget about time during the hyperfocusing state. As a result, the person concerned runs the risk of neglecting social contacts and family, for example.
A person affected who can assess which topics he can hyperfocus on can take this into account when choosing a career . This explains the high rate of self-employment among people with ADHD; especially because those affected can also design their work environment flexibly here. The possibility of dedicating oneself to activities that correspond to one's own interests (one's own hyperfocus) and, on the other hand, of assigning activities that lie outside of one's own area of attention to employees, enables correspondingly active ADHD sufferers to compensate for their own deficits and thus a successful professional practice. The particular success in concentrating on one's own abilities often helps to compensate for the remaining deficits of emotional dysregulation.
Web links
- Hyperfocus with documentation of scientific explanatory approaches on ADHDpedia
Individual evidence
- ^ Johanna Krause , Klaus-Henning Krause : ADHD in adulthood . 3rd complete act. and exp. Edition. Schattauer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-7945-2533-1 , p. 64.
- ↑ Mandy Roy: ADHD has many faces: clinical symptoms and diagnostics . In: Martin D. Ohlmeier, Mandy Roy (Hrsg.): ADHD in adults - a life in extremes . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-17-021068-4 , pp. 36-64, here p. 39.