4 ms·
You're right, there's nothing black and white about this introvert/extrovert business. At one extreme, there are highly extroverted people who simply can't ima
by kijin 15y ago
You're right, there's nothing black and white about this introvert/extrovert business.
At one extreme, there are highly extroverted people who simply can't imagine not interacting with hundreds of people on a regular basis. At the other extreme, there are people who actually suffer a medical condition known as autistic spectrum disorder (which itself contains a large gradient). Everything in between is a gradient. Psychiatrists still have no idea how to distinguish a person with mild Asperger's from a person who is simply introverted.
This, of course, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with taking a slice of the gradient and analyzing the hell out of it. Writing about a complicated topic always involves a certain amount of simplification and drawing lines where it's actually quite blurry. I've read articles that do this job much better than the link does, but this one isn't the worst, either.
- unimpressive 15y ago"Psychiatrists still have no idea how to distinguish a person with mild Asperger's from a person who is simply introverted." Classic rule of logical argument: Two things which are equal to one thing are equal to each other. Or rather: If "Introversion" and High Functioning Autism (HFA) both essentially meet the DSM guidelines for diagnosis, what difference is there besides how pop psychology abuses the concept?
- larve 15y agoI think the way to treat them. There are tons of illnesses or syndromes out there that have similar symptoms. Take stomach pain for example, or flu-like symptoms.
- kstenerud 15y ago"Psychiatrists still have no idea how to distinguish a person with mild Asperger's from a person who is simply introverted." Most psychiatrists still have no idea how to distinguish, but those few who actually study autism are very much able to tell the difference. Asperger's syndrome doesn't just affect how one interacts socially, although that is the most visible manifestation.