Michael Fitzgerald (psychiatrist)
Michael Fitzgerald is the first professor of child and adolescent psychiatry in Ireland specialising in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). He has a large number of peer-reviewed publications and has written, co-written and co-edited 32 books, including Japanese and Polish translations. Simon Baron-Cohen of the University of Cambridge described one of Fitzgerald's books as "the best book on autism", and described Fitzgerald as an "exceptional scholar".
He has diagnosed over 3,000 persons with ASD. His other major research contribution is in the area of epidemiology of child and adolescent psychiatry in Ireland. He has been involved in research collaboration in 18 countries and in initiating master's degree programs at Irish universities.
He has lectured extensively throughout the world including in London at the Royal Society, British Academy, and the British Library and also in New York, Buenos Aires, Tbilisi, Melbourne and many European countries as well as in China, Malaysia, Korea, and Hawaii.
Fitzgerald's psychobiographical and psychohistorical works that contain speculative, retrospective diagnoses of ASD in numerous historical figures have been criticized by Sabina Dosani as "fudged pseudoscience"[1] and by Mark Osteen as "frankly absurd", in reference to Fitzgerald's speculative diagnoses of ASD in W. B. Yeats and Adolf Hitler.[2]
Views on autism
Nick Fleming The Daily Telegraph, Fitzgerald's views on autism:
"Psychiatric disorders can also have positive dimensions. I'm arguing the genes for autism/Asperger's, and creativity are essentially the same. We don't know which genes they are yet or how many there are, but we are talking about multiple genes of small effect. Every case is unique because people have varying numbers of the genes involved. These produce people who are highly focused, don't fit into the school system, and who often have poor social relationships and eye contact. They can be quite paranoid and oppositional, and usually highly moral and ethical. They can persist with a topic for 20–30 years without being distracted by what other people think. And they can produce in one lifetime the work of three or four other people."[3]
In 2004's Autism and Creativity: Is There a Link Between Autism in Men and Exceptional Ability?,[4] Fitzgerald says that Lewis Carroll, Éamon de Valera, Sir Keith Joseph, Ramanujan, Ludwig Wittgenstein and W.B. Yeats may have been autistic.
In 2005's The Genesis of Artistic Creativity: Asperger's Syndrome and the Arts,[5] he identifies the following historical figures as possibly having been autistic:
- Writers – Hans Christian Andersen, Lewis Carroll, Bruce Chatwin, Arthur Conan Doyle, Herman Melville, George Orwell, Jonathan Swift and William Butler Yeats.
- Philosophers – A.J. Ayer, Baruch de Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, Simone Weil, and Ludwig Wittgenstein[6]
- Musicians – Béla Bartók, Ludwig van Beethoven, Glenn Gould, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Erik Satie.
- Artists – Vincent van Gogh, L.S. Lowry, Jack B. Yeats and Andy Warhol.
In 2006's Unstoppable Brilliance: Irish Geniuses and Asperger's Syndrome,[7] he discusses Daisy Bates, Samuel Beckett, Robert Boyle, Éamon de Valera, Robert Emmet, William Rowan Hamilton, James Joyce, Padraig Pearse and W.B. Yeats.
Speculation about diagnoses in historical individuals is, by necessity, based on behaviour as reported by others and anecdotal evidence rather than any clinical observation of the individual. Retrospective diagnoses are often controversial (Oliver Sacks wrote that many of these claims seem "very thin at best",[8] and Fred Volkmar of the Yale Child Study Center has remarked that "there is unfortunately a sort of cottage industry of finding that everyone has Asperger's".[9])
Selected publications
Single authored books
- Autism and Creativity: Is there a link between autism in men and exceptional ability? Brunner Routledge: New York. 2004. ISBN 978-1583912133.
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Creativity, Novelty Seeking and Risk. Nova Science Publishers Inc. New York. 2009. ISBN 978-1604568554.
- Young, Violent & Dangerous to Know. Nova Science Publishers Inc.: New York. 2010. ISBN 978-1608769520.
- The Link between Asperger Syndrome and Scientific, Artistic, and Political Creativity: Eleven Case Studies. Edwin Mellen Press: New York. 2014. ISBN 978-0-7734-0907-1.
- The Mind of the Artist: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, Asperger Syndrome & Depression. Nova Science Publishers Inc.: New York. 2015. ISBN 978-1-63463-573-8.
Other books
- Unstoppable Brilliance. Liberties Press: Dublin. Co- Author: Walker A., Fitzgerald M. 2014. ISBN 978-1905483280.
References
- ↑ Dosani, Sabina. "Autism and Creativity: Is There a Link between Autism in Men and Exceptional Ability?". BJPsych. Retrieved 2011-08-04.
- ↑ Osteen, Mark (2007). "Autism and Representation: A Comprehensive Introduction" (PDF). Autism and Representation. New York: Routledge. p. 12. ISBN 0415956447.
- ↑ Fleming, Nic (21 February 2008). "Albert Einstein 'found genius through autism'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
- ↑ Fitzgerald, Michael (2004). Autism and creativity: is there a link between autism in men and exceptional ability?. East Sussex: Brunner-Routledge. ISBN 1-58391-213-4.
- ↑ Fitzgerald, Michael (2005). The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger's syndrome and the arts. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN 1-84310-334-6.
- ↑ Fitzgerald, M. "Did Ludwig Wittgenstein have Asperger's syndrome?", European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, volume 9, number 1, pp. 61–65. doi:10.1007/s007870050117
- ↑ Walker, Antoinette; Michael Fitzgerald (2006). Unstoppable Brilliance: Irish Geniuses and Asperger's Syndrome. Liberties Press. ISBN 1-905483-03-1.
- ↑ Sacks O (2001). "Henry Cavendish: an early case of Asperger's syndrome?". Neurology. 57 (7): 1347. doi:10.1212/wnl.57.7.1347. PMID 11591871. Archived from the original on 1 September 2007. Retrieved 28 June 2007.
- ↑ Goode, Erica (9 October 2001). "CASES; A Disorder Far Beyond Eccentricity". New York Times. Retrieved 26 November 2007.