It's a totally coherent position to hold that the name 'ADHD' gestures at a real thing, but also reject the medicalization of that thing (or, more weakly, that that thing can/should be addressed solely medically). The predominance of the 'medical lens' in addressing cognitive differences is reflected in the language available for naming and describing those things, whether you actually agree with it or not.
The notion that ADHD 'really is' a neurological disorder and 'really isn't' anything else misunderstands the purpose of psychiatric diagnostic categories like ADHD in the first place. Psychiatrists and psychologists aren't in the business of ontology, and clinicians especially aren't.
Take it from someone who has it: this is a stupidly narrow way to think about ADHD.
You honestly could have fooled me. The amount of preaching, unfalsifiable theories and casuistry that goes on in the ADHD space is beyond the pale.
Executive function theory, delayed rewards theory, everywhere you go, when the axioms of the presenter changes, so does the "root cause" of ADHD change.
Granted it's common for these problems to pop up every where in online media the past five years or so...
... but when Law and Order SVU episodes from the 90s have more empirical cause-and-effect rigor to their detective stories than half the opinions-masquerading-as-theories in the ADHD space, then I find his skepticism understandable and I empathize with it.
I wish it were not true. I deeply, deeply crave a scientist in a lab coat to point to a chain of chemicals that describe the problem in concrete unarguable terms. The smoking gun, if you will. Something Feynman and Einstein (so to speak) could analyze, criticize and come up sucessfully defeated in attempting to prove the theory wrong, admitting the shown evidence and resulting theory is true.
We see instead research universities pouring money and big minds into Diffusion Tensor Imaging, doing hundreds/thousands of high resolution scans on kids' brains who obviously have ADHD and not only being unable to find the root cause of the problem, but they cannot even show a difference in the data that relates to ADHD at all.
Wtf is going on...
It is probably deeply impolite for me to say this, because I'm directly challenging your livelihood and it's 'more good' if I just ignore your website and move on.
To be clear, I don't work at Shimmer or any place centered on treating ADHD or helping people with it. Idek if Shimmer's services are useful.
I just want to push back on the notion that 'this is a neurological disorder' is the only acceptable or useful way to think about ADHD.
To your point, I think it's clear that the world hasn't really figured out what ADHD is yet. That is, we haven't figured out the best way to think or talk about it, let alone treat it.
That's why I think it's important to hold onto that label with a light touch, and an understanding that our conception of the problem is likely to change a lot in the future. The 'real core' that we do know about ADHD is in the common struggles of people, situated as they are, who have ADHD-like symptoms and experiences. Those are worth addressing with anything that helps, and if you have those struggles yourself you know you can't wait for an ideal 'final answer' from scientific or other authorities to try to improve your life.
All that said it's way easier to be comfortable with non-commercial, community-oriented efforts of people sharing their experiences and trying to figure out what works for them in an ad-hoc way. Companies offering solutions to people, especially people who fear that their ADHD-ish struggles might cost them their livelihood or are destabilizing their lives, do have to prove themselves trustworthy and effective somehow and there's a lot of room for scammy bullshit with something like this. I don't disagree with the skepticism so much as the scientism and medicalism.
The notion that ADHD 'really is' a neurological disorder and 'really isn't' anything else misunderstands the purpose of psychiatric diagnostic categories like ADHD in the first place. Psychiatrists and psychologists aren't in the business of ontology, and clinicians especially aren't.
Take it from someone who has it: this is a stupidly narrow way to think about ADHD.