Have you heard of "Divergent Thinking?"

[kseniiaadhd]

Hello! I am new here, and I have a question.

When I was a child, I was diagnosed with Divergent Thinking, which I was told was a variation of ADHD (paraphrasing), because I could focus on certain things I liked, such as reading books.

I’ve never found information about this disorder name, nor about the symptoms it would present. I was diagnosed with Adult ADHD in October 2013, but I still wonder about this previous diagnosis, and if anyone (especially the experts here) have heard of it. Thanks!

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[Patte Rosebank]

@Kseniiaadhd, I googled it.  It’s not so much a disorder, as a difference.

Most people’s brains are driven by what’s important, but the ADHD brain is driven by what’s interesting. So, Divergent Thinking is the ADDer’s natural way of doing things…just investigating whatever’s interesting.

It’s like we have an internet brain that can jump anywhere, while neuro-typicals have a reel-to-reel tape brain that has to go through the data in sequence. We both go through the data, but in very different ways.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=”divergent+thinking”

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[kc5jck]

I looked up “divergent thinking” in Wikipedia and agree with Larynxa that it is more of a difference, I would say a good difference.  What you describe,  “I could focus on certain things I liked, such as reading books” sounds more like hyperfocussing which is the ADHD trait of being unable to shift your attention when you should.

I would say, after reading Wiki, that divergent thinking is something I commonly do when approaching a problem.  That is, I think of several different solutions or approaches to a problem, then pick the best and go from there.  Perhaps it is because of my math/computer science background, or perhaps it is the reason for my choosing math/computer science in school.  I think you should count it a definite plus, as long as you don’t get eaten while considering your options.  🙂

If you were “diagnosed” with “divergent thinking”, I suspect the person doing so didn’t really know what they were doing.  Not surprising if this took place 10-15 years ago or more since much of the information and knowledge about ADHD at that time was lacking in fact as we know today.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Ten years ago, a new psychologist said I had “histrionic tendencies”. In other words, a knack for storytelling.

I felt so sorry for that psychologist, because she saw it as a disorder, but I saw it as “I’m a writer-performer!”, which is exactly what I wanted to be, ever since I read “The Story Girl”, when I was a kid.

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