In the case of “compulsive daydreaming”, those affected sometimes lose themselves in fantasies for hours, neglect important tasks and find it difficult to concentrate – so much so that this causes problems in everyday life. Patients are often diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but this does not necessarily help them. Maladaptive daydreaming (MD), as the phenomenon is also known, has not yet been recognized as an official psychiatric diagnosis, although many experts advocate it. Among them is the psychologist Nirit Soffer-Dudek from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Together with her team, she investigated whether MD could underlie some ADHD diagnoses. The researchers published their results in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
The working group examined 83 adults with ADHD, among other things, for inattention, depression, but also compulsive daydreaming. Approximately 20 percent of them met the proposed diagnostic criteria for MD. According to the authors, the fact that most “daydreamers” are diagnosed with ADHD, but only one in five of the ADHD patients has MD, speaks for the existence of a separate group. They also had significantly higher rates of depression, loneliness, and low self-esteem than people with ADHD who did not meet the MD criteria.
For those affected, the typical ADHD problems are, so to speak, side effects of excessive escape into fantasy worlds. Once this is recognized, the rampant imagination should be the focus of your treatment. “Our results suggest that there is a subgroup of people with ADHD who would benefit more from an MD diagnosis,” Soffer-Dudek summarizes her study.