Hacker News Reader

Comment by neurotech1 | Hacker News Reader

One thing that annoys me is how often someone is portrayed in the media as borderline autistic, or having Aspergers.

Borderline Personality disorder or Narcissism would be closer to the mark.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism

When I worked around more therapists(I worked as a qEEG tech) it became apparent that some are the worst offenders when it comes to "inability to respect social norms"

View on HN

One thing that annoys me is internet comment threads speculating about the mental health of people the commenters have most likely never even met.

There was a psychiatrist that was hired by the US govt in WW2 to analyse Hitler.

Despite never having met him, and not being a military man, the psychiatrist (I forget his name) predicted Hitler's strategy for the rest of the war - and the eventual suicide, having brought Germany to ruin.

So it's not always necessary for an analyst - a good one that is, not an armchair amateur - to have met their subject in order to perform a successful analysis.

I had no idea the state of psychiatry in the 1940's was good enough to, for instance, predict a leader's strategies. I'd love to read more about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_C._Langer

Not that I disagree, but "inability to respect social norms" is basically part of the definition of Borderline Personality disorder or Narcissism, so saying as much is basically tautological.

Basically that's what he was saying: that Aspergers or borderline autistic are basically less accurate descriptions than BPD etc.

The "inability to respect social norms" is more an issue for the therapist than their supposedly Asperger's patients.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com