ABSTRACT
Surprisingly, psychoanalysts have only during the past few years actively engaged in the on-going and very important controversial discussions on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is one of the most frequent diagnoses of children and adolescents. There also is a high comorbidity between ADHD and other psychopathologies, for example, depressions. Medical treatment has continously and dramatically increased since the 1990s. Lehmkuhl and Döpfner, two of the best-known contemporary empirical researchers into ADHD in Germany, refer to the guidelines of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. They appeal for a cautious professional approach to the diagnosis and an understanding of the pathogenesis of ADHD based on a 'biopsychosocial model'. Fonagy and Target consider the development of reflective or mentalization capacities to be a vital pillar of social cognitive competence in children, joining with the regulation of attention and emotion expression to enable the child to behave in developmentally appropriate, socialized ways.
