Re:"Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder
by ctdonath on Wednesday September 12, 2012 @04:42PM
(#4513093)
Indeed, it does improve the story by not just leaving you with a niggling sense that something is wrong with each character, but instead opens the realization that each is, in fact, a textbook-perfect example of that wrongness - dissected, analyzed, quantified and classified as such. It's a great improvement for those of us hyperanalytical geeks now inclined to re-watch the 4-hour director's cut with the DSM IV list in hand and finding every instance where each defining point is exemplified. (And then go meta by wondering where in the DSM IV such a hyperanalytical geek is so categorized.)
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Re:"Watchmen" As a Primer on Mental Disorder
by derleth on Wednesday September 12, 2012 @11:47PM
(#4514699)
> where in the DSM IV such a hyperanalytical geek is so categorized
I think we're often put under Asperger Syndrome (AS) (also called Asperger Disorder, Asperger's Syndrome, ass-burgers, and My God He's A Weirdo), which falls under either Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD).
AS is often considered to overlap with High-Functioning Autism (ASD without mental retardation) and, in fact, a change being considered for DSM-V would eliminate AS entirely and lump us in under ASD, which would be rated on a severity scale.
That said, the diagnostic criteria for all of those diagnoses are a bit more involved than 'is a hyperanalytical geek'.