Sherlock, and how he doesn't have Asperger's, even if Cumberbatch said he did.

[laurajv]

movies_michelle was talking about Sherlock (check out the post, there are some awesome fic recs in it!!), and reminded me of something beatrice_otter said about Sherlock not having an autism spectrum disorder, so I went to look up that post while my kid was napping and it was about something else, really, but it did remind me of a book I got on beatrice_otter's recommendation -- So Odd A Mixture-- which contains a really good overview of autism spectrum disorders for laypersons. So I looked that up, too. And then my response got really long and obnoxious, so I moved it over here.

Sherlock certainly has things that could be superficially viewed as Asperger's, but what strikes me about the portrayal (and about the character in general, from Doyle onwards) is that -- ok, so I think, when most people think about the Sherlock portrayal as one of Asperger's, they are thinking of what movies_michelle talks about: "social isolation, acute focus on specific things at a time, and inability to socialize on what is generally considered a normal level". While those certainly exist (in all versions of the character, I think), they exist in plenty of people who don't have Asperger's, too, but have completely different issues, or no diagnosable issues at all. It's *how* those things fit into something that makes them an autism spectrum disorder.

Anyway, "So Odd a Mixture" has a handy-dandy list of 9 areas of difficulty that you tend to see, to one degree or another, in people on the autism spectrum: theory of mind (understanding that others think differently from oneself, understanding motives of others, etc), central coherence (understanding what details are important and how they impact the whole), executive function (complex planning), cognitive shifting (ability to shift focus), language processing, dyspraxia (motor impairments), awareness of the unwritten rules of conversation, interpretaton of non-verbal cues from facial expression and gestures, and sensory sensitivities.

Of those, I can only really see Sherlock (in any incarnation, not just this one) of having issues with cognitive shifting (he tends to focus intently and may not pay attention to peripheral information, though "The Great Game" in BBC Sherlock might argue against difficulty in this area for that particular version of Sherlock Holmes) and sensory sensitivities (it's certainly one plausible explanation for the character's ongoing physical disdain for women, though of course homosexuality or asexuality are alternate explanations).

Of the others -- if he had serious difficulties in any of them, he couldn't do what he does. What he does displays a deep, well-managed, coherent understanding of human motivations and of how details impact the whole.

He's bad with certain emotions (not understanding how someone could still be upset about a death that occurred years ago), but he does understand emotions in general. Even if he doesn't experience certain emotions himself, which he might not, he is clearly aware that other people have them and what effects different emotions might be expected to have upon those people's behavior.

Mostly, how he reads to me is as a bright, callous individual who really doesn't care much about other people. He does not read to me as a sociopath, though sociopathy I'm more willing to buy for the length of a story than I am an autism spectrum disorder.

Comments

[lawless523]

I know this is long after the fact -- I was reading some of your fics, including your latest -- but hurrah for saying that the evidence for Sherlock (or any other version of Holmes) having Aspergers or a high-functioning autism spectrum disorder is weak. It's understandable, given his disregard of some social cues, why people might think the BBC version exhibits Asperger-like symptoms, but it's more of a handy label to throw on him than something truly revealing about the character. (As an aside, there is talk of eliminating Aspergers as a separate category in DSM-IV and replacing it with autism spectrum disorder, with what's currently called Aspergers being on the highest-functioning end of the spectrum. If that ever came to pass, there'd probably be less talk of him having an autism spectrum disorder.)

It's wonderful to use characters to explicate a little-known condition, but I only enjoy it if it's a reasonably plausible interpretation of the character. A version of Sherlock with autistic spectrum disorder would have a hard time convincing me unless it were presented as an AU, a "what if". On the other hand, ACD canon Holmes is the poster boy for asexuality, and BBC's Sherlock is probably intended to be asexual too, although that was clearer in the unaired pilot than in the actual first episode. It's at least a plausible interpretation of the character.

He doesn't strike me as a sociopath, either. I think he self-diagnosed and embraced the identity to keep people out of his way. He's arrogant and thinks a lot of himself; as the TV producer in the movie Broadcast News said when accused of enjoying being smarter than everyone else, it sucks to be the smartest person in a room. (That is probably not a direct quote.) Moriarty strikes me more as a psychopath than a sociopath.

Holmes (and possibly Sherlock) reads more as bipolar than anything else. Of course, we'll never really see it on the show because Sherlock lounging around doing nothing doesn't make for compelling TV, but the alternation between work and being bored seems to fit that as well or better than sociopathy. I can't really speak to NPD other than to say he seems more manic than delusional, and he admits that he sometimes errs -- in the case of his deductions about John's sister, he didn't expect to be 100% correct.

Sherlock definitely is meant to have a posh background, and Benedict Cumberbatch has an upper-class accent. I read his speech pattern as him attempting to keep whatever is spilling out of his brain under control and in some semblance of order, not as a monotone or flat voice.

It's a shame you got flamed for expressing an opinion in a reasoned and intelligent manner.

P.S. - I'm an Anglophile, not a Brit.