“Mum, do I have the ADHD?” my eight-year-old asked me recently, delighted at the very idea. It’s a sign of the times — kids are comparing notes on neurodivergence at the dinner table, and adults are doing the same on social media.
ADHD diagnoses have exploded in recent years [1,2], leading many Australians to ask: is ADHD over diagnosed as part of an online trend, or catching up after years of being underdiagnosed?
I had the chance to put these questions to Dr. Kieran Kennedy — a leading psychiatrist who works with ADHD every day — to get some real answers.
There are a number of health professionals who can help with ADHD, but who does what?
What is the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?
"A psychologist is someone who specialises in talk-based therapy and other therapeutic treatments, to really guide us through mental health struggles," Dr. Kennedy explains.
"For a clinically registered psychologist in Australia, these people have gone through significant tertiary education training, and have specific expertise to help assess, diagnose and treat mental health."
"A psychiatrist, such as myself, is a medical doctor who's been through medical school to then move on to specialise in mental health."
"It's best to think of a psychiatrist as being someone who can assess and diagnose complex psychiatric and mental health conditions and struggles, but then also prescribe medication."
For those seeking an ADHD diagnosis or treatment: Dr Kennedy says having a chat with your GP is the best place to start. In Australia, General Practitioners can help, as well as identify the right type of specialist to support you, provide a referral, and possibly arrange a mental health care plan for you, to help reduce costs.
Is the explosion in ADHD diagnoses a response to modern life?
Dr. Kennedy is quick to shut down the idea that ADHD has come out of nowhere.
“The main thing I want to make very clear to people is there is not a new or sudden explosion of ADHD being created in society or for people,” he says.
“Far and away, the evidence that we have shows that the increase in diagnoses of ADHD is down to people now recognising symptoms, seeking assessment, and getting a diagnosis for something that has always been there, not something that has just emerged.”
Why are so many women only diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood?
Dr. Kennedy explains that ADHD has a significant history of being underdiagnosed — especially in girls and women.
“Old diagnostic criteria heavily favoured hyperactive and impulsive symptoms,” he says.
“Our modern concept of ADHD is now much more able to capture the experience that girls, women, and many adults have, which is often not those very external hyperactive signs, it might be more internal, inattentive symptoms.”
With so much online attention, could people be self-diagnosing ADHD incorrectly?
Dr. Kennedy shares this concern.
“Assessment and diagnosis for ADHD is complex,” he says.
“It needs to be very detailed, and we need to make sure things like anxiety, depression, other struggles aren’t inadvertently being pulled into an ADHD-based lens.”
This is why a proper mental health assessment is required for diagnosis, and Dr Kennedy is firm that ADHD itself is not a trend.
“It’s not some fad people are jumping on. It’s something that is very real and has always been there, but medicine is finally, thank God, catching up to actually support people that have the condition.”
It feels like everyone’s attention is fried lately. How do you know if it’s ADHD or just... life?
To answer this one, Dr. Kennedy pulled out a prop: a jar of clear water. He explained that the water can easily represent the mind’s capacity to focus — clear when nothing is there clouding it, but getting murkier each time you add something new in, whether or not you have ADHD.
“If we add a little drop of food colouring, we can see that the water starts to change colour pretty quickly, and that might represent a few weeks or a month of really poor sleep,” Dr Kennedy says.
“If we add on some significant work stress or a relationship struggle, that can also start to really cloud the water in terms of how much our brain can manage things and focus.”
“There’s some good evidence now that scrolling [on your phone], having these really short two, three-second bits of information and then moving on — there is some evidence that that can reduce our capacity in the short term to focus our mind and stick to tasks.”
For women, hormonal changes are another factor to consider. “There’s now a lot of research to show that for women in particular, even hormone-based changes around the menstrual cycle, perimenopause, menopause — whether we have ADHD or not — these can also cause significant shifts in how we focus and manage our attention.”
The bottom line
ADHD hasn’t randomly spiked out of nowhere, rather the opposite: it’s been significantly underdiagnosed for decades due to incomplete diagnostic criteria. Thanks to updated medical research, we’re finally better at recognising it.
But not every foggy, distracted week means ADHD; sometimes it’s sleep, stress, scrolling or hormones clouding the water instead. If you’re concerned, start with your GP and seek out a proper mental health assessment with a psychiatrist or psychologist — not a checklist or three-second video from social media.
1. ABC News | ADHD rates in adults are skyrocketing — but by how much depends where you live - ABC News
2. Sage Journals | Patterns of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder medicine use in the era of new non-stimulant medicines: A population-based study among Australian children and adults (2013–2020)