Why is ADHD Considered a Disorder?

In this commentary, I lay out the criteria developed by Jerome Wakefield for defining a mental disorder as a disorder. It is based on his concept that disorders are harmful dysfunctions. So two criteria must be met for something to be a mental disorder: (1) there must be compelling evidence that there is a dysfunction in a mental mechanism universal to humans, and (2) this dysfunction us of a sufficient severity to cause harm to the individual, suc as through increase mortality risk, increased risk for morbidity, or increased risk for impairment in major life activity domains. ADHD handily meets Wakefield’s definition of a harmful dysfunction and so is a disorder.

References
Wakefield, J. C. The concept of mental disorder: Diagnostic implications of the harmful dysfunction analysis. World Psychiatry, 2007, 6(3), 149-156.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

Wakefield, J. C. The concept of a mental disorder: On the boundary between biological facts and social values. American Psychologist, 1992, 47(3), 373-388.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-2...

Wakefield, J. C. (1992). Disorder as harmful dysfunction: A conceptual critique of DSM-III-R's definition of mental disorder. Psychological Review, 99(2), 232–247.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.99....

Wakefield, J. C. (1999). Evolutionary versus prototype analyses of the concept of disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108(3), 374–399. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.108...