Cold Comfort: Mothers, Professionals, and Attention Deficit Disorder

Michael Ungar is an associate professor at the Maritime School of Social
Work, Dalhousie University, and a marriage and family therapist
specializing in work with high-risk youth. He is the author of Nurturing
Hidden Resilience in Troubled Youth.

This compelling and well-written book begins with an account of the
author’s own experiences as a mother of a child with AD(H)D. The
material that follows is based on qualitative interviews with mothers of
children in Canada and Britain who have this diagnosed disorder. As
Malacrida shows, AD(H)D, though common in North American children, is
far less often identified (or may be viewed entirely differently) on the
other side of the Atlantic.

Cold Comfort summarizes the literature on AD(H)D from American,
Canadian, and British sources, as well as the relationship between
professionals and mothers. If Malacrida has a bias, it is that
professionals have a long history of blaming mothers for the suspected
psychopathology and behavioural problems of their children. Drawing on
Foucault’s approach to discourse analysis and feminist discursive
ethnography, Malacrida uses interviews and document reviews to explore
the problem of AD(H)D and the relationship between mothers of these
children and professionals.

Malacrida lets her participants speak and “recognizes the importance
of women’s own interpretations” of the dilemmas they face. Many
British mothers express their frustration with getting their children
properly diagnosed with the disorder. In Canada, mothers worry about the
diagnosing and psychopathologizing of normative behaviour and reject
this labeling of their children. In either case, mothers are portrayed
as developing a number of strategies to resist the hegemony of the
medical system.

Though it began as a doctoral thesis, Malacrida’s work has been
adapted well and makes an enjoyable read while still capably exploring
the intersectionality between issues of gender and the marginalization
that results from differences in power between professional helpers and
those they serve. For those looking for an exemplar of consumer
discourses within health services, Cold Comfort works will be much
appreciated.