The expansion of the diagnostic category of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and its controversies is investigated. Since the 1980s, the ADHD diagnosis has been interpreted as a neuropsychiatric dysfunction that appears in childhood and persists into adulthood. ADHD diagnosis is described by international medical authorities as a public health issue. Although ADHD medical and biological legitimacy has been claimed by neuropsychiatric discourse, the diagnosis has been largely polemical. Among the critical aspects of ADHD diagnosis, current essay discusses the fragile frontiers that ADHD maintains with the functions and dysfunctions of attention and its optimization. How may one differentiate the symptoms of an attention disorder from complaints made by individuals who are looking for attentive optimization? Certain ethic issues that have to be considered in the ADHD clinic are suggested.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; optimization; neuroethic