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Was Sherlock Holmes an aspie?

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TheBookkeeper
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18 Aug 2009, 4:18 am

Hm. I always thought he seemed a bit Aspergian to me... :mrgreen:

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sartresue
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21 Aug 2009, 5:13 pm

My dear Holmes topic

One of the best portrayals of Sherlock was by the late Jeremy Brett, who was diagnosed with BPD and possible OCD.


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ToadOfSteel
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02 Aug 2011, 10:47 am

A cracked.com article just mentioned this thread

http://www.cracked.com/article_19336_6- ... esses.html



chaotik_lord
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03 Aug 2011, 6:45 pm

Beat me to it on the Cracked article mention.

I swear there are at least a few other Holmes threads that they could have cited . . .



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03 Aug 2011, 7:26 pm

As it's already bumped, I suppose it would be okay to post in this thread.

Anyway, regarding the original question, Holmes could be an aspie, as:
- he is really good at picking out little details (except he can see the big picture, too)
- obsession with solving cases, and also with strange topics (knowledge of types of local dirt and fabric types, for instance)
- has a known relative that is even more autistic than he is: Mycroft Holmes (check out the wiki page)
- probably self-medicated for whatever he had (social anxiety issues?), due to vague drug references here and there
- not entirely independent lifestyle; the books reference the housekeeper at his set of flats, he may have had meals made for him as was the custom of lodging houses in those days
- direct and to the point in most of what he actually says to Watson

Contraindications:
- I don't recall him having that much difficulty talking to people to get information (whether or not he related to them is another story); he seemed to have social contacts (or maybe they were Watson's)
- I think he was able to quickly make changes to his plans, to hop into a train to go north to check out a crime scene spontaneously

Conclusion:
Sherlock = aspie? probably
Mycroft = aspie? much more likely



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04 Aug 2011, 3:25 pm

Just discovered this thanks to the Cracked article and couldn't let this little bit of idiocy slide...

Lode wrote:
Meh, this is quite frustrating.

He did not have autism or aspergers, because he did not have problems communicating. None. Just like Albert Einstein.

Also, he didn't look up dead celebrities and tried to relate to them out of insecurity. Which seems to be a 100% asperger trait. :roll:


You sir are a half-witt. Being socially ret*d IS NOT and Aspie trait. Sure we may have some issues communicating (blind spots, issues with reading body language, being a touch blunt, a lack of tolerance for those we regard as less intelligent, ect) but we have no problems communicating, in fact we are often better at communicating intellectual and academic concepts than most neurotypicals.

The fact of the matter is that when I was a kid I related better to adults than most of my peers.

If you have serious issues with communicating with your fellow human beings you aren't an Aspie, you have full blown Autism, so stop pretending to be one of us and go gibber in the corner with Rain Man...



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04 Aug 2011, 3:39 pm

dancing_penguin wrote:
Contraindications:
- I don't recall him having that much difficulty talking to people to get information (whether or not he related to them is another story); he seemed to have social contacts (or maybe they were Watson's)
- I think he was able to quickly make changes to his plans, to hop into a train to go north to check out a crime scene spontaneously


Again, Aspergers NOT Autism.

Neither of those traits are absent from ALL Aspies. It is a SPECTRUM disorder after all. In fact the first one usually infers Autism over Aspergers. Most Aspies are fully functioning, able to operate well enough in social situations. Sure we may sometime say the wrong things but Aspergers doesn't cause terminal shyness or make you babel like an idiot (it may stop you realizing that you are babbling or boring folks however)...

Interesting enough due to the fact that we don't naturally read body language many of us (myself for example) have taught ourselves to do so as an active skill rather than a passive one (I do still have a few blind spots) and ironically are better at reading people than most neurotypicals...



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04 Aug 2011, 4:14 pm

To quote myself from a recent topic:

Quote:
As a huge Holmes fan, I say: maybe. He lacks more AS traits than he possesses: he has no trouble making eye contact, he has no sensory issues, he has no difficulty communicating, he's typically aware of when he's saying something considered rude, he frequently uses sarcasm, he's very good at reading people, and he has no auditory processing problems. The only AS traits that apply are his obsessive interest in a narrow set of subjects, his disdain for social formalities, and his utter lack of interest in cases he finds boring. If he's on the spectrum at all, it's a very mild case.

However, it's Arthur Conan Doyle's stories I'm talking about. When it comes to portrayals in film and television, it varies. Jeremy Brett, Robert Downey, and Benedict Cumberbatch all seem to have given their versions of Holmes more identifiable AS traits. There's a terrific episode of the Brett series in which a woman asks him to kiss her, and he sincerely replies, "I don't know how." There's a scene in Downey's film that shows off his sensory overload problem, and Cumberbatch openly describes himself as a "high functioning sociopath" and is a train wreck when it comes to social interaction.



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05 Aug 2011, 12:56 pm

I think most of you are ignoring that he was a cokehead. Cocaine can mess up your behavior and interactions with other people.


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05 Aug 2011, 2:12 pm

Delirium wrote:
I think most of you are ignoring that he was a cokehead. Cocaine can mess up your behavior and interactions with other people.


He injected a %7 solution. It's not like he was snorting pure Columbian nose candy off a mirror. In his time period, it was the equivalent of having a stiff drink or two.



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06 Aug 2011, 3:26 am

And he stopped doing drugs later in the series.


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12 Aug 2011, 12:27 pm

Some very misinformed person writing a Cracked article referenced and linked to this thread. In this article he says Sherlock Holmes had Asperger's and calls it a mentall illness. http://www.cracked.com/article_19336_6- ... esses.html

I don't post here anymore, but I logged on just to mention this. I've contacted cracked, and I'm looking for the Contact info for the writers, Chris Radomile and Amanda Miller. It's offensive. They clearly did not research, and are putting out false and hurtful information about Asperger's Syndrome and the Autism Spectrum. The line where they say

"Before you skip down to the comments to submit your passionate defense of Holmes' mental state" Just reinforces the wrong information. The article simply put, is so inaccurate as to be laughable.

So, Chris Radomile, and Those who have found this via the link on the article, I leave you with this: Why does Cracked allow people who don't bother to do proper research to have articles on their website? Is this something you really want to support?

Edit: I contacted them by signing up to the forums, and messaging them there. Their usernames are Raddy and Gizma if you also would like to send a message.



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22 Sep 2011, 6:54 pm

A recent entry on Listverse also claims that Holmes had a 'mental illness'.

"Deep literary analysis of the character has suggested that aspects of his personality indicate mental illness, specifically Asperger’s syndrome, which would explain his intense, single-minded attention to detail and his introversion."

http://listverse.com/2011/09/18/top-10- ... -geniuses/



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22 Sep 2011, 7:36 pm

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character, composed of descriptive words on a page.

Isn't it enough to enjoy a good book without having to presume how mere words on a page might "think"? :roll:


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27 Sep 2011, 12:47 pm

Fnord wrote:
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character, composed of descriptive words on a page.

Isn't it enough to enjoy a good book without having to presume how mere words on a page might "think"? :roll:


This. He's a fictional character; speculating about his mental state is pointless.


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06 Oct 2011, 2:31 pm

i think he has many aspie traits and the thing people say is very aspie is the disability of not being able to read people but something people seem to forget is that many of us ( at least me ) have made a science of it and have thereby becomes better then many neurotypicals at reading people
and many also belive that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an aspie and that therefore many aspie traits are bestowed upon Sherlock Holmes
aided by the inspiration of one of his teathers Josef Bell