Psychiatric Arrogance and Ignorance - from the horse's mouth

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Severe depression can lead to someone being jobless, friendless and spiritless without autism being involved.
It's just as much an assumption for B19 to label him autistic than it is for the psychiatrist to label him schizophrenic.

I don't mean to be horrible.
Maybe I am, but it's what I see.
Sorry, B19.

He presented with the following signs and symptoms:

Couldn't make eye contact
Monotone voice
Depression
Gifted in science to an exceptional degree but unable to cope with the pressures of success
Unable to make friends/no friends
Unable to emotionally modulate
Anxiety
Unable to perform self care (burnout? executive dysfunction?)

These are quite strong indications to possible AS, and he had no real symptoms of delusional thinking at all.

He was very quickly designated to a diagnosis that fitted the psychiatrist's prejudices, not what the client was telling him. Then the psychiatrist, corrected of his pre-judgment by the man's family, went on to mistake a co-condition/symptom as if it were the total diagnosis, in a very self-congratulatory and boasting way. Having delivered two misdiagnoses, he probably went on to miss the big picture afterward too.

The client was not at the centre of this horrible example, the ego of the psychiatrist was.

He may well be autistic, we don't know.
We also don't know what happened in subsequent visits.

I don't think Carl is a real person. Too much info was given out to trace. 45 years old in 2012 would mean he was born around 1967. So there's a name, year of birth, location (Baltimore) and nominated for a Nobel Prize. That makes the Carl in the story too easy to recognize. Especially by those who know him or know about him.

Sounds like the typical arrogance that seems to come with a lot of professionals to me.

From my experience of life people who avoid eye contact are usually on the autistic spectrum. There are also victims of sexual abuse for example but generally autistic people avoid eye contact more than any other kind of person.

Also the monotone voice is another giveaway autistic symptom. Most depressed people still maintain ordinary vocal range.

I think you were right b19 to contact the psychiatrist. It seems odd and ignorant he didn't even mention it could have been Asperger's or autism that Carl had.

I think that B19 is jumping to conclusions about him jumping to conclusions. The story coulda happened in the pre internet Nineties. The narrator may have meant to go down to the library and look him up in "Who's Who in Physics" next day, but just left all of that crap out just make his anecdote into a tighter fable with a tighter point.

Though I must admit that (paradoxically) I maybe overcompensating for my own prejudice against psychiatrists.

My parents sent me to one for a couple or three years back in the Sixties when I was in grade school. Nothing bad resulted, but he was just comically worthless, and seeing him was just a total waist of time. Later therapists they sent me to, with only the less prestigious "psychologist" as job titles, were more effective.

It would make more sense now if the story took place back in the 1990's or in the 1980's. I don't know how old the doctor is and how long he had been practicing and when he graduated. B19 would be too hard on the guy if the Carl story happened that long ago.

Also I still would have no way of looking this Carl person up based on the given information.