Famous aspies

Post Reply New Topic

Some people say that Ayrton Senna might have been an Aspie, we'll never know now of course.

certainly buddhist monasteries would have been/are havens for Aspies. ...

I second many names mentioned here, or actually all that I know well enough, including Buddha and the claim , and that many religious leaders might have been on the spectrum (see also Neuro-religion).

Some Scientists get less mentioned in Asperger lists: (behavioral) economists and psychologists.

1. Sigmund and Anna Freud with their research interests and approach, in particular when younger.
-- Sigmund with his crazy neuroanatomic beginnings, i.e. his concern for the neurologic system of eels and for body functions, the surgeries on Emma Eckstein s nose and on his eldest daughter s womb in order to cure them from hystery (I know: he and Fließ took cocaine at that time, but still ...), his own psychic and sexual problems, his insecurity whether the reports of sexual abuse of his patients were to be considered fact or fiction.
-- Anna Freud s emotional immaturity and her asexuality, her craving for "absolute authority" as a child psychoanalyst or for the parent who has main custody.
-- Grandson painter Lucian Freud seems to have displayed pretty pronounced Aspergergian traits, the biographer and two kids are convinced he was on the spectrum.
-- There are a lot of typical Aspie quirks all other the family, for example a keen interest in time tables and trains of one of Freud s sons. (See Eva Weisweiler s family biography for more)
-- Sigmund prevents his future wife in a letter that, like in her family, there is a tendency for "neurasthenia" in his father s family (I interpret "neurasthenia" as something being pretty much like an equivalent of "autism spectrum disorder" today).

2. Jean Piaget: his very early zoologic interests and in building gadgets, says of his mother that she was highly neurotic and that this spurred his interest in the normal development of a child, his approach in research; patient of the hysteric psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein.

3. B. F. Skinner: early interest in building gadgets and devices, later the operant conditioning chamber, the baby box which he created because of his first daughter, the pigeon missile device, and the novel Walden II. All are very Aspergian ideas.

4. The authors of IQ testing: Binet is described as a loner and precoce child, the idea of testing IQ, how the test turned out. (It was his collaboration with Binet that kicked of Piaget s own research.)

5. Erich Fromm said that he had been highly neurotic as an adolescent and young man, that he had been having no vital relationship to is patients for the first years, and had been observing the rules of psychoanalysis dogmatically.

6. Alice Miller and her son Martin: what she says about her emotional life when younger, what he says about her as a mother, what both say about his mental problems etc.

7. Adam Smith: his distinction between emotions of others that can be understood and emotions which can normally not be understood in his "Theory of Moral Sentiment". Some people who have studied the sources have come to the conclusion that his pronounced social awkwardness and pecularities in communication could be possibly explained by autism.

8. Nobel price winner and behavioral economist Vernon Smith: has outed himself as Asperger. (interesting interview and statement of his wife).

9. Nobel price winner in economics and game theorist John Nash (Beautiful Mind): is only handled as schizophrenic, but as always with schizophrenia, an underlying ASD is likely. (interesting is also the interview with his son, an mathematician went schizo, too)

See also the "post-autistic economy" movement.

There are many more.

Bill Gaines.

What makes anybody think Bill Gaines was an Aspie?

Never heard of him/her.

The portrayal of Niki Lauda in the Ron Howard movie "Rush" was suggestive of Aspergers.