Hallowell is an alumnus of
Phillips Exeter Academy,
Harvard College and
Tulane University School of Medicine. He received a bachelor's degree in English from
Harvard College Hallowell completed his residency in adult and child psychiatry at
Harvard Medical School. Hallowell has been treating people of all ages with ADHD since 1981, and has stated that he has
dyslexia and ADHD, which is self-diagnosed. His approach to the condition uses a strength-based model—developed with
Driven to Distraction co-author Dr.
John Ratey—that is based on the tenets of
positive psychology and takes a more holistic view of ADHD, rather than seeing it purely as a disorder with negative symptoms. This model was new to the field. Using this treatment model, Hallowell founded the ADHD Hallowell Centers to support and treat people with ADHD. There are currently six locations in the United States, including New York City, Seattle and Boston. Hallowell states that there are four key aspects to treatment for ADHD: 1) learning as much as possible about the condition and understanding the specific symptoms that a person has; 2) getting a coach to help with the executive functioning type tasks that people with ADHD tend to struggle with; 3) lifestyle changes, including good nutrition, sleep and physical exercise; and 4) medication, if it is beneficial for the individual. Hallowell has stated that "the biggest problem we face is ignorance and stigma. The contentiousness around ADHD is simply rooted in ignorance." Hallowell believes the symptoms of ADHD are due to "biochemical differences in the brain" that lead to a "chemical imbalance", which can be treated with medication. On September 15, 2005, Hallowell said, "Whenever you get someone with ADHD diagnosed and treated successfully, everyone wins. Along with behavioral therapy, medication is good because it can improve adults' relationships, parenting skills, job performance, even their sex lives". In a 2013 interview, Hallowell said that, when used properly,
stimulant medication is safe and benefits patients with ADHD in 80% of cases. He said children as young as 4 years old can use it and that his oldest patient was 86 years old. Hallowell estimated that 15% of the population have ADHD. Hallowell believes that
Adderall and other stimulant drugs are safer than
aspirin. He also believes
Coffee is more toxic than
Adderall. In 2018, he said, "prisons are full of people with undiagnosed ADHD, as are the lines of the unemployed, the marginalized, the addicted and the depressed. ADHD can ruin a person's life, or hold them back from ever reaching their full potential". A study conducted in 2018 found that 25% of the prison population had undiagnosed ADHD. Hallowell supports the official and updated definition of ADHD developed by the DSM-5 Task Force. ADHD does not always include hyperactivity, and Hallowell says that this type, known as ADHD Inattentive Type, occurs frequently in women. In 2020, Hallowell said that the term
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a horrible term, and that "individuals with ADHD don't have a deficiency of attention, but an abundance of it." Hallowell claims that ADHD does not always include hyperactivity but can include an inability to follow through on assignments at work or at school, misplacing things, avoiding tasks or getting distracted easily. Hallowell also believes that hyperactivity can be a misleading symptom and can lead to individuals going undiagnosed in some cases. Hallowell and Ratey created a new term,
VAST (Variable Attention Stimulus Trait), to describe ADHD more effectively, and wrote about this extensively in their new book, published in January 2021.
VAST derives from the fact that people with ADHD are drawn to high stimulation situations and their attention varies based on the level of stimulation within the situation. In 2018, he was awarded the National Alliance on Mental Illness' Leader of Mental Health Awareness Award. Hallowell has been a podcast host since 2015. In October 2020, he began posting educational videos on TikTok. In October 2024, Hallowell was admonished by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine for making sexually inappropriate remarks towards a patient and his partner. Hallowell himself "admitted in a Consent Order that he directed two sexually inappropriate comments towards a patient and his partner. These comments were unrelated to treatment and shocked and offended the patient and his partner". == Books ==