The DSM-V (APA, 2013) currently presents Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by hyperactivity, impulsivity and difficulty in paying attention that must be present in more than one setting. In the last years, ADHD has changed from a rather unknown childhood disorder to one of the most controversial psychiatric diagnosis ever given to children or young people. As the experts, families and teachers speak on behalf of the potential or actual ADHD patients, their silence is quite disturbing. The lack of studies about what do children and young people diagnosed with ADHD think about their lives and their diagnoses called our attention and made us start this research.

In dealing with such a controversial subject, we could not pretend to have a sort of neutral or independent approach. We decided to investigate about the young people’s discourse on ADHD from a constructionist approach (Atkinson and Gregory, 2008). Therefore, we considered ADHD as a reality that has been socially and discursive constructed. So, our research is not about denying or confirming the very ADHD existence, but rather studying how it is constructed and legitimised through discourse (Bailey, 2014).

Foucault’s works on mental health present the disorders as a cultural production that starts with a social uneasiness towards some people’s behaviour and ends up with a categorisation through diagnoses. Through sharing the status of the medical diseases, mental disorders completely lose their questioning power. The children and young people diagnosed with ADHD most of the time represent a challenge to their schools, parents and teachers (Bailey, 2014). Moreover, ADHD prevalence rates increase has raised questions about the role of the school in this trend (Bailey, 2010). As many parents search for an ADHD diagnosis after being advised by school and as children are often set free of medication during weekends (Martins, Tramontina, Polanczyk, Eizirik, Swanson and Rohde, 2004) and hollidays, ADHD may be considered as a school disorder, one that is much more evident in formal education contexts than other environments.   

Nevertheless, the current scientific discourse about the biological causes of ADHD may contribute to a social attitude towards ADHD that does not blame anyone, school, parents or kids (Lakoff, 2000) and lay all the responsibility in its biological causes and medical treatment. Foucault’s work on the medicalization of society (Foucault, 1984, 1996, 2000, 2005) analyses the medical discourse as a power discourse that is part of the normalisation and control of the individual and social bodies. Following Foucault’s critical point of view, authors such as Timimi (2010) talk today about the pathologization of childhood. Thus, the medical discourse and practice are colonising and incorporating social life’s problems that were regulated by families, schools and other institutions in the past (Illich, 1975, Conrad, 1982; Foucault, 1984, 1996).

In this context, the children and young people diagnosed with ADHD grow up listening to the established medical discourse about ADHD, its symptoms and ultimately, about themselves. Harwood (2009) says that the children and young people construct their own discourse and may see themselves as “sick” or “problematical” since there is an interrelation among the truth, the power relations and the self. Foucault (1996) reminds us that although the subject constitutes him or herself in an active way through his or her practices, they are not made up by the subject, they are models found in his culture, his society and social group. They are proposed, suggested and imposed by them to him or her. Thus, a child or young person would build his or her own discourse through the group’s expectations and descriptions. 

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