Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Thesis Format

Monograph

Degree

Master of Arts

Program

Theory and Criticism

Supervisor

Fielding, Helen A.

Abstract

This thesis uses a first-person critical phenomenology perspective to explore psy- disciplinary research into perceptual experiences of time and space in people with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Firstly, I argue that a ‘deficit’ model of ADHD leads researchers to assume that ‘normal’ temporal perception aligns with an objective temporal reality. Using Bergson’s concept of duration, I suggest that researchers’ assumptions about temporal norms reinforce questionable beliefs about ADHD’s construct validity. Secondly, I argue that the conceptual framework of cognitive-behavioural models of OCD limit models’ ability to explain spatial changes to compulsions over time. I use Merleau-Ponty’s account of bodily movement to sketch an alternative theory of compulsions as habits. Adopting interdisciplinary methods to explore different epistemo-metaphysical understandings of time and space can allow both psy-professionals and people with mental disorders to reflect on and reconsider the concepts and logics underlying causal models and their corresponding formulations of disabled subjectivity.

Summary for Lay Audience

This thesis explores psychological, psychiatric, and neuroscientific research on people with ADHD and OCD, focusing on biological and psychological theories that ‘explain’ the disorders’ causes. Mental disorders are not simple concepts: they are categories we construct out of multiple sources, including personal experiences of suffering, judgments by or about certain actions and beliefs, therapists’ work in trying to help people who are suffering, and scientific research about our different ways of experiencing and responding to the world. I am a person with ADHD and OCD, so I use different modes of investigation in my work than researchers do. I offer alternative ways of thinking about what ADHD and OCD are and how living with them affects the ways I think, feel, reason, move, speak, and conceptualize myself. In psy-research, ADHD is constructed as a disorder of temporal perception. I think there are assumptions researchers are making about what time is and how it should be perceived. I argue these assumptions are unwarranted, and they are reinforcing the unfounded belief that ADHD is solely biological, rather than being a social, psychological, and biological construct defined by differences in behaviour and thought. I speculate about using Bergson’s idea of duration to challenge normative assumptions about time and ADHD. In cognitive-behavioural (CB) research and therapy, OCD is constructed as a disorder defined by erroneous thoughts and beliefs. However, OCD has two parts: obsessions (cognition) and compulsions (behaviour). Compulsive movement is deeply tangled up in how people with OCD experience space, and there are ways compulsions can change over time that are not explainable by CB theory. I try to open up CB explanations by adapting Merleau-Ponty’s ways of thinking about the body and consciousness. Merleau-Ponty’s theory allows us to explain how the body can seem to ‘learn’ movements as habits and then express those habits without conscious intervention. Understanding compulsions as habitual movements would require CB theory to change the ways it defines behaviour and cognition, but it would allow us to account for some gaps in these explanations.

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