ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study of a patient named "Andrew". Andrew’s excited and distracted states have a quality of mania, perhaps partly functioning to avoid more depressive states of mind. He appears to act and speak without pausing to think. It is a natural tendency for people to attribute their internal state to external circumstances, to assume that the inner emotional state is a response to something external, and, thus, to “blame” that external factor or person. People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do this even more so than others. Memory is always somewhat unreliable, open to influence by a variety of factors, as highlighted in the debates concerning “ recovered memory” and “false memory” some years ago, and inaccuracies arising from deficits in “ source monitoring” can play a significant role.
