The media report that the surprise singing star, Susan Boyle has been treated for her depression by being diagnosed as having Asberger’s Sydrome.
As far as I know, however, Asberger’s does not have a mechanism or a very 
precise definition.
Susan Boyle emerged as a star singer in 2009 when she appeared on “Britain’s Got Talent.” Despite an appearance that was .. well more like Kathy Bates than what is expected of a beautiful female voice, the 52-year-old has became the first British female artist to have a number one album in the U.K. and the U.S. simultaneously.
The media was obsessed with the rise to stardom of a less than pretty female and stories about her suggested there was, well something wrong. Was the lady retarded? “Some articles have said I have brain damage,” she acknowledged in an interview with The Guardian.
The a doctor discovered her IQ was above average .Instead of being defective “I have Asperger’s,” Boyle calmly explained about the disorder that mainly affects people’s social interaction and communication skills.
“I have always known that I have had an unfair label put upon me,” Boyle continued. “Asperger’s doesn’t define me. It’s a condition that I have to live with and work through, but I feel more relaxed about myself. People will have a greater understanding of who I am and why I do the things I do.”
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/susan-boyle-has-aspergers-2013-12#ixzz2mwvmHopz
Why does she feel better?
Would the paranoid neurotic gun nuts feel better if they had a diagnosis? Would this stop them from shooting people? I am serious about this question, I have known paranoid psychotics who knew their diagnosis all too well and actually sought help from drugs and therapy. In one case, the sick person was a doctor I knew whose partners watched over him, always worried that he would break. I became friendly with this man and learned that for him Jesus was an actual talking partner. The ability to use a fantasy as a treatment for his paranoia was amazing, though I feel his colleagues did the right things when they insisted on retirement!
I have also (sadly) known people with paranoid neurosis. These people are much more scary than psychotics necause part of their defense mechanism is to deny their illness.
One person I know, a business man, has been told by his wife and by a psychiatrist that he needs help. I have watched this person come all too close to violence … more than once prompting others to call the police or demand separation from him. When asked about therapy, besides denial, this person claims that his business would be ruined if others knew he was seeing a psychiatrist. His illness is not the kind that would prevent him from getting a gun in the USA.
I imagine that having a diagnosis of Asperger’s is a lot better than a diagnosis of paranoid neurosis. Ms. Boyles story makes me happy. Perhaps seeking help is more acceptable in the arts than it is in the business world but I am very glad she is getting help!.
I hope you are a better pathologist than you are a psychiatrist – the term “paranoid neurosis” was dropped from the psychiatrist’s bible (the DSM) two editions ago.
Interesting response to a post about how our society uses diagnostic terms.
Changes in terms used by the DSM have nothing to do with the issue here. Pathologic defense mechanism are very, very real. While I do not follow the DMA classification politics, at a guess they decided to rename paranoid neurosis to make a clear distinction between paranoid psychosis, a form of schizophrenia, and paranoid neurosis. The distinction is important because schizophrenia is more amenable to drugs.
Assuming you are concerned with the issue of paranoid neurosis in my family, the problem there is the presence of fantasies … not psychotic hallucinations but factually incorrect obsessions driven by neurotic defense mechanisms. For example, as I have written, there is an obsession amongst my siblings that I raised my brother. He tells stories about this .. my teaching him Latin and photography … and then uses these fantasies to create an obviously oedipal conflict. These stories never happened because I left home when he was 7 years old. Similarly, there is an obsession about other people st4ealing things from him or about my wanting to write bad things abut my father’s role n Buchenwald.
All of this is easy to see as creating an image worthy of demonization … the good parent turned into Lucifer.
Goodness gracious, what an unexpected and vituperative tirade! I never mentioned your family and yet you generate a response in which you ramble on for paragraph after paragraph about your perceptions (or misperceptions?) of what’s going on in your family — information that clearly is personal and doesn’t belong in any public forum. Actually, buddy, it clearly appears from your rambling and incoherent response that it is YOU who is in need of psychiatric intervention.