HELP! How could I share a useful discovery?

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I am Aspie. Diagnosed. Like many Aspies, I have a very high IQ and high capacity of concentration on a rational or scientific subject. And like many Aspies (and other autistics) I am totally stupid (IQ ≈ 25) socially.

Being interested in Nature (which I LOVE! ) and in the human mind, I studied physics (and became a physicist) and psychosociology and psychopathology (and did some post-doc courses in it).

Then I met some people who were sexually abused when a therapist directed me to an anonymous fraternity for abused persons ("anonymous" like the Alcoholics Anonymous) because I have been abused when child. There I met people with irrational behavior I could not explain. This triggered my curiosity. I remembered everything they said, how they said it, then tried to make sense of it later when I was alone. I took written notes, I played with objects to illustrate their intention, anger, need for love and fear of it, etc… And I came to the conclusion that psychologists are wrong thinking their "state" as a post-traumatic stress state or disorder. It was obvious to me their "sate" is no a "state", but a dynamic.

And, when you mention "dynamic" to a physicist, he thinks "vectors". It then became obvious to me that the influences, the anger held back, the multiple questionings on the meaning of love, the need to make sense of things that don't ; all these act like forces on the victim not only at the moment of abuse but for years and, in most cases, for life. This is not a state : this is a constant interchange within the person, constant conflicts, constant ACTION, a constant search for an unstable equilibrium. The last thing it is is static!. This is not a state.

Seeing the proceedings in their minds, their lives, the complex interactions with their milieu as an exchange of influences that can be illustrated as vectors was a revelation to me. Not only could I understand them now : I could even predict them! Since some asked me to be their sponsor (advisor, counselor) I used that vision to act upon them as a therapist. The result was that many commented that with me they had in a few months results they had not through years (or decades) of professional therapies of various kinds. I discussed my approach with a few psychologists and psychotherapists at the university, but talking mathematics to them is like speaking Chinese to a cat. So two of them proposed case studies to me : they described a case from one of their patients and asked me how I would proceed. Instead of explaining them the why and the dynamics, I described them therapeutic techniques proposing "Try this". Like a turn-the-crank solution. They unlocked cases they could not unlock for months at first try!! ! They commented that I should publish that method, that I should teach it etc.

And right here is THE problem. I am about just apt to communicate with new people as a cat is apt at playing Beethoven! Those two therapists left this university and I am left with no one to talk to. I have no contact left at the university. When I try to make contact with anyone the answer is infallibly "Sorry I'm busy now", or "You should talk to this to doctor So-and-so" who refers me to Dr Somebody who refers me to Dr Seomone who refers me to doctor So-and-so...

Anyone could propose means to talk to strangers when you are autistic? I would really love to share this discovery. Not to make a career with it : I am 74 years old. Nor to get rich with it. Just not to bring this discovery in my tomb. Just to contribute to the recovery and mental health and happiness of thousands and maybe millions of people should this approach be known and taught.

So ...HELP PLEASE!! !

I don’t have any advice on approaching people, I’m terrible at it. Have you thought of writing out your method in a book or an article. I’d be interested in reading it. It reminds me a bit of stuck energy causing diseases in Chinese medicine. I love our systematizing brains and reading about everyone’s discoveries.

Write a paper, don't present it. That distance from audience should make your position easier.

Unfortunately, this is a paradigm shifting theory that crosses discipline boundaries, which makes your job harder and your reception less welcoming. You will need to find the right publication to approach with your theory. Less well established journals, that tend to accept unusual or controversial findings, would probably be a good place to start. You might also pen both a technical paper and a lay book.

You simply can't, at your age, with your reservations about public address, expect this to go a great distance in your lifetime. But you can at least put it in as intelligible a form as possible.

At some point, you might take an individual or small group from psychopathology disciplines who wants to work on these principles and co-author any results.

Good luck! You didn't provide enough detail to convince me of anything, but it does interest me, and I hope you will return to let us know what is going on.

As I told you in a PM (which you have not replied to), any real academic would already know that the best way to share any "useful discovery" is to write it up in a research paper with a premise, procedure, data, and conclusions. Then you would submit the paper to a relevant professional peer-review journal. Be sure to include references to previous and parallel research, and make certain to mention the names of any prominent researchers who are even peripherally associated with your research.

Then you wait.

Good luck.

-Fnord-

First of all I apologize to all who answered me for not coming back sooner. I have three pleas for my defense. 1° I have been sick (heart, veins and arteries problems) and I slept slept slept. And my doctor insisted that when I am not sleeping I get out and walk, move, get the old tictac pumping. 2° Having less time, I was busy trying to cope with what had not bee done. But a serious problem has been 3° attracted by lower prices, I moved my telephone and Internet services to Distributel. I has problem after problem. I could not connect to the Internet for over a week. I call technical support but they did not seem to know much better than I. Finally they sent me a new modem and it works a little better but I still have a lot of trouble.
So please, pardon me for not coming back sooner.

Thanks for your suggestion leahbear. Actually, you are not the first to propose this idea. I did start the process many times. And I stopped for various reasons. On is that I did not know whether I should write for the scientific community the way Fnord proposes or write in a way accessible to Mr and Mrs Everybody. Another reason is that this approach has many ramifications, many applications : it can be applied in personal therapy, un group therapy, it can be used to study abuse and oppression in groups, between a parson and a group, between groups (like employer-union conflicts), in legislation and forensic studies, in economy and econometry, in politics (of course!), in marketing but mostly in ethics. So, when I start describing something, it is first simple describing what is a specific vector ; but when coming to applications I get all entangled because there is too much to say all in the same chapter. It is like wanting to write about physics : saying this is the study of matter, energy time and space is easy, but then describing how and why these apply to mechanics, optics, cosmology, nuclear, electronics, quanta… On get lost!! !

That's part of the problem. Another part is that my notes are scattered all over my files. Notes on a same subject can be found in notes about many applications. It is like writing a phone directory in alphabetical order of the names, of the city city, of the district, profession, religion, age… So I could bring them together and and classify them in a sequential order. But should I??? The discoveries, the observations, the simulations and the ideas did not come in a sequential mode. For instance, the first vectors I thought of were of course the vectors of contagion by which this pathology is transferred from one person to another. Then I compared them to clinical observations. These made me see the reactions of the patients to the vectorial therapeutic techniques and how the other types of vectors reacted. But in the process, this clarified and modified the notions about the vectors of contagion. This new view brought change to the therapeutic techniques which in turn… In short : a sequential description of my work may be useful for a biography, but not for a description or vulgarization.


There is effectively a resemblance with stuck energy, energy motion within the individual (or group), conflicting energies… About my systematizing brain, it is a normal product of decades in physics… LOL!
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Excellent idea! This allows me to write drafts which I can change. The change can be another documents. Like "Vectors Version 1", Vectors V2" then V3 etc. Since a basic notion can be applied in many domains, I can scatter in the drafts, then use these drafts as preambles un the various domains. For instance, the conflicts between the pressure from contagion vectors and the homeostatic (stability) tendency of a person can cause instabilities which we observe easily in the victims of abuse, and can be expressed in equations pertaining to the stability of feedback systems (laplacian systems and oscillators). But these same vectors operate similarly in economy! So the same draft could be used in the section about personal psychotherapy and (with minor changes) in the section about economy.


True and false. Working in cooperation with someone actually motivates me a great lot. So much, in fact, that working alone demotivates me. Furthermore, working in cooperation, two heads are not twice better than one but five times or more, due to the "brainstorm" effect. This term nominates the interaction of the two which priduces ideas and conclusions that no one would have procuced alone.


Yes I've seen that. I applied for a PhD thesis and I was answered "This is a very interesting research project. Unfortunately most of it is out of my field of competence. So I could not help you for it. Why don't you see doctor So-and-So?" Doctor So-and-So felt inundated so he refered me to doctor Watsisname. Who refered me to doctor Smith. Who refered me to doctor So-and-So… So I think I may not do one publication, but many, dedicated to the various domains. May God (or Mother Nature) lend me life cause this is enough to keep me busy 'till I am 110 y.o.


I will probably follow your advice above first : write it (or write them) then… "we'll cross the bridge when we've reached the river".


Yes. In fact, I think my work is a paradigm shifting approach as you mentioned above and it will be the seed for others to continue. Writing this reminds me of Einstein's publications on Relativity and the photoelectric effect : it started something and researchers are still developing it and discovering things, both fundamental and applied.


Working I a team is my dream! Gathering this team, or rather learning how to gather people, is the main subject of my opening post and of this topic. THIS is my weak point. If I fail, it would be exactly there!


Sorry… I can't write 300 pages of description and equations in an opening post… ☹

I sure will!
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Sorry. I explain above why I did not reply sooner. However since you repeat it here, your PM is not P anymore so I will answer it here.
any real academic would already know that the best way to share any "useful discovery" is to write it up in a research paper with a premise, procedure, data, and conclusions. Then you would submit the paper to a relevant professional peer-review journal. Be sure to include references to previous and parallel research, and make certain to mention the names of any prominent researchers who are even peripherally associated with your research. [/quote]I am simple not ready for that, Fnord. For many reasons disclosed above. Furthermore, as mentioned in my OP, all the contacts I had left the university and, not being registered in any program (as a free student and autonomous researcher) I have to establish contacts first, which I am totally dumb at.


Thanks. I'll need it!

You've come to the wrong place for that!

I've been trying to convey to people here for more than 5 years how I manage to successfully treat my ASD symptoms and live, work, and play in the social world so that it can help others do the same.. but they are not interested in learning & call me insane for it.

Your best bet is to contact similar people to the professors you communicated with before, because they will understand both what you're telling them & your motivations. Can you contact the ones the believed in your methods and ask them for referrals to who you might further this idea with if they've now moved on/retired? (on a similar note, I've switched gears to contacting doctors myself, because they have a clue what I'm talking about.)

I have been wrestling with a similar problem for years. I can write anything from a sentence to an essay revealing a common pattern in almost every group conflict, but only one person seems to have not dismissed it as offensive. Presumably, they don't want to see how they use "their side" unfairly.
Anyway, that leaves me with no target audience to write for. In writer's parlance, I can't "choose a voice."
In today's volatile info stew, where almost anything can go viral, I wonder if you should try explaining your method to a camera for YouTube. You might imagine a young apprentice with the right interests but little training. When I see an equation, I know that it is an elegantly simple way of expressing a relationship, but if I have not had recent practice with the coding, it is like looking at sheet music to me. So, you have to give a synopsis of what it says in words.
There have been many therapies that the originator could not pass on - a list of prerequisites in math, etc, would help your students. Given the time constraints, any rough organization you can give your notes would probably help a researcher, and not be wasted for your own progress.