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In the context of promoting well-being, it is necessary to understand the cognitive process that we go through to derive meaning from our experiences. Self-help is usually designed to help people understand these processes and engage in them in healthier, more efficient ways. However, for young adults with ADHD, a lot of self-help endeavors aren’t conducive to the ways that they approach the process of meaning-making. One specific aspect of this process is the function of narrative and autobiographical memory. As someone with ADHD comes to understand themselves, their life, and their experiences, it is easy to develop a negative outlook on their ability or competence. Existing within a society that values productivity and academic achievement, people with ADHD often find themselves feeling less than adequate. Once in this mindset, the probability of recalling memories from a negative perspective increases. However, using the knowledge we have about memory and its different systems, we can shed light on its powerful relationship with self-efficacy, goal-setting, and motivation in order to promote healthy remembering.

In the words of psychologist Jerome Bruner, the process of meaning-making through “narrative interpretation is, it seems to me, one of the crowning achievements of human development” (Bruner, 1990). He’s right, our ability to make sense of our lives and the world around us is an incredible feat! Powered by our cognitive and neurological functioning, we can create a remarkable internal representation of the self. Through our experiences and interactions, we continuously add new information to our arsenal of what makes us who we are. Psychologist Martin Conway identified this concept as the “working self,” an ever-changing view of who we are that can adapt from situation to situation. The working self is situated within a larger framework that Conway identifies as the Self Memory System (SMS), which integrates autobiographical memory with the goals of the working self (Conway & Playdell-Pierce, 2000). Through this framework, Conway outlines how the working self acts as a control center for retrieving memories as they relate to the present task at hand. When cued by the environment, we engage in this process of memory retrieval that actively constructs memories as they are accessed through our complex neural networks (Conway & Playdell-Pierce, 2000). Something important to note about this is that it is a self-modulated process, meaning it is not immune to our personal bias of our self-view. This is important because “the self, and especially the current goals of the self, function as control processes that modulate the construction of memories” (Conway & Playdell-Pierce, 2000). When reflecting on significant experiences that are tied to our sense of self, the lens through which we engage in remembering has implications for current goals, self-attributions, and mental health.

So, what do the functions of the Self Memory System have to do with ADHD? Well, we know that there are significant implications of the SMS and the ongoing creation of our personal narratives. From the perspective of ADHD, the narrative created for oneself is often centered around feelings of being deficient, unable, unreliable, etc (Cogger, 2021). People often experience negative evaluations from parents and teachers, and receive negative judgments from peers as well. By the time people with ADHD are entering adulthood, they often feel very misunderstood because of a lifetime of inaccurate evaluations being made by themselves and others about their ability or competence (Krueger & Kendall, 2001).

These self-evaluations have significant weight and are important to consider in the context of memory. When we engage in recollection, there are two qualities of memories that are needed for proper meaning-making: coherence and correspondence (Conway & Loveday, 2015). When a memory has high levels of coherence, it means that it aligns with one’s sense of self and life story. When a memory has high levels of correspondence, it aligns with reality or what actually happened. Correspondence has more to do with actual memory accuracy while coherence has to do with how much that memory makes sense in the context of someone’s own life. Surprisingly, research has found that correspondence isn’t actually as important as one may think (Conway & Loveday, 2015). It’s coherence that really makes a difference for wellbeing during the process of remembering. One of the challenges that young adults with ADHD face is that memories of being labeled as dumb, lazy, or deficient often don’t align with their sense of self, which indicates low coherence (Cogger, 2021). Doubt in oneself often leads to thoughts like “I know I’m a good student, I just lost track of time. So, am I really a good student?” or “I know I’m a reliable friend, I just forgot to respond to their text. Wait, am I actually a reliable friend?” These thought patterns can be distressing and can lead to distrusting your own identity or feeling like you don’t truly know yourself. All of these feelings contribute to young adults not believing in themselves and their capabilities. Additionally, these feelings are often exacerbated when individuals are placed in negative or high-stress situations.

When considering the ways in which young adults with ADHD engage in the process of meaning-making through the SMS, environmental factors are an active component in levels of well-being. The “person-situation” perspective takes into account the behaviors or tendencies of the individual in conjunction with the environment they are in (Walton & Wilson, 2018). The interaction between these two things is what leads to negative beliefs about oneself, which feeds right back into the person’s behaviors or tendencies. This cycle is difficult to break and easily becomes self-defeating, which leads to decreased motivation, negative self-talk, and maladaptive behaviors (Walton & Wilson, 2018). This brings us to the concept of motivation. When people have low self-efficacy, meaning they don’t believe they will succeed at a certain thing they are trying to achieve, their motivation to set and work towards their goals declines (Bandura & Cervone, 1983). Self-determination theory suggests that humans are naturally inclined to actively seek meaning with a curious, self-motivated mindset (Kleinknecht, 2021). This is called the “natural state”. For a lot of people with ADHD, however, they might be pushed into a passive state. In this state, motivation stops coming from within and starts coming from environmental factors. This can look like only completing schoolwork because of pressure from parents or teachers, forgetting to do the dishes that have been there for days until your roommate points it out, or even not maintaining proper personal hygiene until it’s required for an important meeting or social interaction. When in a passive state, the quality of someone’s motivation shifts from being autonomous, or intrinsic, to controlled or extrinsic (Kleinknecht, 2021). When this happens, it usually takes some sort of intervention, like therapy or self-help, to get back to a state of optimal functioning.

There are three personal needs that should be met to get back to that natural state of motivation: autonomy needs, relatedness needs, and competence needs (Kleinknecht, 2021). For the purpose of this paper, competence needs are the focus point. The need to feel competent is essentially the need for high levels of self-efficacy. In order to be motivated to complete a goal, you have to feel like you have the ability to follow through. This is one of the pressure points for wise interventions and self-help literature. When someone engages in activities that work to improve levels of self-efficacy, they can start to work their way back to a natural state of motivation.

Another pressure point for wise interventions is the need for coherence. As previously mentioned, coherence is extremely important for developing positive meaning from experience and a healthy sense of self. When both the need for coherence and the need for competence are met, there is hope for recursive change in the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors of young adults with ADHD. With the help of wise interventions, young people can help themselves to engage in a self-enhancing cycle, rather than a self-defeating one.  This self-enhancing cycle is established and reinforced through the functioning of the Self-Memory System. As one begins to engage in purposeful behavior changes, a shift in perspective will follow. As new experiences are integrated into the Self-Memory System, the influence of motivation and reflection continue the recursive cycle of changed meanings and altered behaviors.

So, what can be done to help people get there? There are many ways to alter meaning-making, but one of the most powerful and influential aspects of the process is language. It undermines all of our thoughts, behaviors, and social interactions and has a key role in the functioning of the self memory system. Looking ahead, wise interventions that utilize the functionality of language have promising results for improved outcomes and overall well-being.