Rating: 
Summary: Scientific?
Review: I am surprised at the other reviews of this book. It starts with good insight into the feelings of someone with ADD, then it jumps to a pseudo-scientific explanation of the maternal figure not being involved with a child during a critical time of brain development. He belittles his patients who don't think this happened to them. If you don't buy his premise, you might as well not buy his book.
Rating: 
Summary: Applauding Gabor Mate
Review: I applaud Gabor Mate for the remarkable contribution he has made to the literature on Attention Deficit Disorder in his book Scattered. Due to both personal and professional interest, I have read and recommended many books and articles on this topic. I find that Scattered has become the first book I recommend to colleagues, clients and anyone interested in learning about, or ruling out ADD. Feedback is consistent with my own reaction--this is a comprehensive and insightful book--an easy, informative, valuable, read for professional and lay people. The role of biology/nature is described so well that the non-scientific reader gains a new level of understanding. When it comes to the role of nurture/environment--Mate truly shines-- capturing the experience of ADD with an insiders wisdom and a refreshing openess, bringing the reader understanding, comfort, hope and pathways to healing. The material on parenting (ADD and the child) is excellent---could be part of a parenting handbook. His writing on change and growth and his understanding of what causes adults to struggle have value across the board --whatever the issues are. One does not have to have, or work with ADD to enjoy and benefit from Scattered.
Rating:
Summary: A new perspective
Review: I found this book to be a much clearer description of my symptoms and behaviors than previous books I've read.Dr. Mate touches on areas that I have intuitively thought played a role in my behavior, that have not been discussed elsewhere. My wife thought he had written my biography. This book discusses a theory regarding the cause of ADD and
has provided me with the clearest explanation and understanding of my experiences with ADD that I have been able to find. I also found the discussions of motivation, self-esteem, and anxiety to be extremely helpful. This book will not provide the reader with all the solutions one might be looking for, but it may offer an explanation that one has not seen before.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for laying on Parent Guilt
Review: I have an ADHD child and I have always wondered WHY? Is it genetic since he does have at least an Uncle, an Aunt, two cousins and a Father with ADD or ADHD? Oh no it's not geenetic! but now I have the answer from Gabor Mate!! It is due to MY poor parenting skills! It is due to not providing a stable, loving home for this emotionally wounded child. Furthermore, if I only would satisfy this child's need for attention, his need for love and affection then everything would be OK AND his ADHD would very nicely disappear. Of course, Mate does not back up his opinions with facts other than his own childhood stories. No, I don't buy it, and I will not keep this ADHD book on my shelf. If you want a great book on how to help you work with, and parent an ADHD child read Barkley's Taking Charge of ADHD book.
Rating:
Summary: Kind and insightful
Review: I have read nearly everything out there on ADD, for many years. Many of my family members, as well as myself, have ADD. I have also researched all related subjects from neurology to chemistry to genetics. I must say this is the best book I've read on the subject. Instead of vaguely listing traits and behavioral/rienforcement "corrections", he delves deep into our emotions, deep into our past, and finds the keys to the behaviors. You will find the journey fascinating. He discovers the tie of inborn sensitivity to ADD, which was where my extensive research was leading me, also. He separates the negative issues from the positive ones in ADD for the purpose of reassuring us that to let go of the negative doesn't squash or choke the many positive aspects of a person with ADD. This book will help you forgive a loved one with ADD for being confusing and hurtful at times, and it will help you forgive yourself if you have ADD, with reality, not theory. This book is no fluff. Gabor Mate, (a person with ADD himself) understands ADD. I consider this a must-read.
Rating: 
Summary: Good description of ADD, but wrong focus on what causes it
Review: I just finished reading Dr. Mate's ideas on what causes ADD and what can be done about it. First, I'll say something good about the book. It has one of the best descriptions I've ever read on what it feels like to be ADD. His self-descriptions of how ADD affects him read very much like my own. The only reason I gave this book two stars is because of Dr. Mate's very adept description of what it's really like to have ADD. Now for the flip-side. While Dr. Mate' does give some credence to the genetics of ADD, he pretty much leaves the implications of this behind as he goes into a long description of failed or inadequate parental attachments being the primary reason for ADD symptomatology (as if the parents of ADD kids didn't feel guilty enough about passing on a genetic inheritance they most likely didn't know they had). Even if this was not the doctor's intent, it is so pervasive in this book that one cannot help but feel that if a child or an adult exhibits ADD symptoms, that there is "someone" to blame, not just for the genetic inheritance but for bad parenting. I cannot subscribe to Dr. Mate's theory; I had a good upbringing from two very caring parents. What I lacked, however (and this is one very glaring omission from Dr. Mate's book) was peer support. If a child's peers reject him/her consistently, it will make it much more difficult for that child to feel good about themselves in the long run. Low self-esteem seems to be a hallmark of ADD in both kids and adults, and I have a very hard time believing that it is caused solely by failed or inadequate parenting. Most school-age kids aren't around their parents all day; much of their day is spent dealing with peers. How can Dr. Mate' fail to overlook the influence that peers have on the development of a child's mind? In some cases, they have even more influence than parents. This can be easily seen in everyday events; even kids from "good" families can end up in trouble because of dysfunctional peer interaction and negative peer influence. Why Dr. Mate' says absolutely nothing about this possibly being a factor in the exacerbation of ADD problems is not clear to me. Another thing that bothered me about the book is his appeal to authority without citing the studies he's using to support his theories. Does Dr. Mate' believe his readers to be incapable of checking citations to the studies he's referring to, assuming they have indeed been published in peer-reviewed publications? I think that ADD is too complex a condition for anyone to say, "this is the cause of it, and not that". I believe that many factors play into the causes of ADD, the first one being genetics and the second major factor, as I see it, is how Western culture and societal standards do not readily or easily accomodate a person with ADD symptomatology. I suspect that if a society were to learn to embrace and encourage those who exihibit ADD traits- and there are many good traits, indeed- we would see ADD cease to become a pathology and a problem. As long as our schools continue to encourage rote memorization and regurgitation of facts to the exclusion of imbueing our kids with real thinking skills, we'll continue to have kids dropping through the cracks, not able to reach their full learning potential. Dr. Mate' does not have much to say about the fact that our educational system in North America is woefully inadequate to deal with the problems that ADD kids often have and this is a really unforgiveable omission, in my opinion. Let's just see how much self-esteem any kid has if they go through their school career, knowing they are smart, but not being able to show it in ways that our schools reward. I would recommend skipping this book, as there are so many other books on ADD that are far more helpful in their focus on what you can do to make yours, or your ADD child's, life more manageable.
Rating:
Summary: Is Scattered half-full, or half-empty?
Review: I must say that my opinion regarding Dr. Mate's "Scattered" is... well... "Scattered!" On the one hand, it contains some of the most eloquently poetic descriptions of A.D.D. I've ever seen (some of which come directly from Dr. Mate's patients). One need look no further than the chapter headings to see how beautifully the ambiguity of poetry describes the A.D.D.experience- headings like "So Much Soup and Garbage Can," "Forgetting to Remember the Future," "A Surrealistic Choreography," "Severed Thoughts and Flibbertigibbets," and "My Marshmallow Caught Fire." In fact, on page 43, Dr. Mate offers one of the most poignant metaphors for A.D.D. I've read, in his description of the trees on the shores of Vancouver Island. Passages like this one make "Scattered" a worthwhile book to own, and I've recommended it highly to several people on that basis alone. But while "Scattered" delivers in grand style on the promise of the first part of its title (i.e. "How A.D.D. Originates"), it fails to deliver consistently on the promise of its second (i.e. "What You Can Do About It"). This unrealized expectation is established by the last sentence of the very same page referenced above (p.43), which reads: "Fortunately, as we will see when we come to the chapters on the healing process in ADD, neurological and psychological maturation can take place at any time during the life cycle, even in late adulthood." As well-established as the author's intentions are for the remainder of the book, what unfortunately follows is heavily and disproportionately weighted more towards offering specific advice to parents of A.D.D. children than towards offering practical solutions for the A.D.D. adult. In my opinion, Dr. Mate's message would have been far better-served by either: 1. Presenting the material in a more cohesive and balanced fashion or, 2. Presenting the material through two different books, each geared towards a separate audience. It's not that the information itself is uninteresting or irrelevant, but that Dr. Mate so radically changes the focus of the discussion from addressing the needs of adults in general (Chapters 1 - 15) to exclusively addressing the needs of parents of A.D.D. children in particular (Chapters 16 - 24). The experience is not unlike someone at a party (who happens to have kids) speaking to you directly and then suddenly, without warning, turning their complete attention towards starting up a fresh conversation with someone else about mutual issues involving their children. This of course leaves you standing alone with a drink in your hand, anxiously waiting for the tray of finger sandwiches to make another round, while you wait for your former conversation partner to return and resume the discussion with you. When the author does finally broaden his scope to once again include a general adult audience (Chapter 25), he does so not by fulfilling the promise of "What You Can Do About It" for the A.D.D. adult (as he had in the previous section for parents), but by returning yet again to descriptions regarding the origins and nature of A.D.D., thus moving the focus back onto the first portion of the title. In fact, the "What You Can Do About it" section for Adult A.D.D. that eventually appears is limited to a mere 23 pages (in a book containing a total of 323)! I find particularly significant that while part V is entitled "The ADD Child and Healing," (indicating practical solutions for parents to healing the A.D.D. child), part VI is simply entitled "The ADD Adult." Adding to the level of frustration, these long-anticipated (though brief) 23 pages of practical solutions for the A.D.D. adult are joltingly interrupted by a very short chapter describing the relationship between the A.D.D. brain and addictions, once again describing the origins of the condition rather than offering solutions to it. Again, it is not the information itself (which is all certainly valuable), but the sometimes exclusionary way in which the information is presented, that I find to be most frustrating. If you are looking for poignant and poetic descriptions of the A.D.D. experience, then I highly recommend "Scattered." However, if you want a more balanced presentation of a variety of theories regarding the origins of A.D.D., as well as practical solutions geared towards the A.D.D. adult in particular, then I recommend "Out of the Fog," by Kevin Murphy and Suzanne Levert as a better choice. Dr. Mate is an extremely articulate writer, and his book is a worthy addition to any library of A.D.D. material. But from the standpoint of practical solutions, "Scattered" loses focus mid-way through, in that it attempts to address the needs of far-too-wide of an audience, thereby not only diluting the impact of its message, but also excluding a significant portion of readers in the process.
Rating:
Summary: Still learning after all these years
Review: I read this book when it first came out, I think my son was 5 at the time. I always kept the message, that the long term objective was not symptom control or even behavior control, but development. That is the book in a nutshell. Try to understand your child, and make his development as a human being the most important thing...it's extraordinarily hard and forces you to grow up as a parent and think of your child first. Common sense that is not so common. And it is NOT a quick solution. It was something my parents figured out a long time ago; when some of my friends wanted to run away because of mistreatment as teenagers, we always knew we had it too good. Understanding beats the hell out of beatings... Be forwarned, don't read this book unless you really want to be there for your child...We all are guilty of being human and making millions of mistakes, and most kids are easy to raise in compared to the "sensitive" child. This book just asks you to be compassionate. It is so hard, but so rewarding. Rose
Rating:
Summary: Lost Focus
Review: I'd have to agree with several of the other reviewers.
The book is good. Is has many funny and true to life scenes.
It has much practical advice. But. The theory of early childhood arrested development (though it
may have truth in it) did not have enough backing. I wanted
more proof more studies. As it is it's just another theory. Also the promised "What you can do about it" seemed lacking.
There was some there, but it seemed more oriented (at least
in the adult perspective) to handling and dealing with the
problem (all the info was useful and OK), but nothing about
reversing the theorized brain problems (which I was expecting). Also the book seemed to get long winded at times. I found
myself skimming the last half of several chapters after I
had read the same thing said a different way for the fourth
time. BUT Don't get me wrong. I like the book. If you are voraciously
reading through the ADHD literature (as I seem to be at the moment) then this is a worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: Lost Focus
Review: I'd have to agree with several of the other reviewers.
The book is good. Is has many funny and true to life scenes.
It has much practical advice. But. The theory of early childhood arrested development (though it
may have truth in it) did not have enough backing. I wanted
more proof more studies. As it is it's just another theory. Also the promised "What you can do about it" seemed lacking.
There was some there, but it seemed more oriented (at least
in the adult perspective) to handling and dealing with the
problem (all the info was useful and OK), but nothing about
reversing the theorized brain problems (which I was expecting). Also the book seemed to get long winded at times. I found
myself skimming the last half of several chapters after I
had read the same thing said a different way for the fourth
time. BUT Don't get me wrong. I like the book. If you are voraciously
reading through the ADHD literature (as I seem to be at the moment) then this is a worthwhile read.
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