I have found that having been able to help autistic children was God’s hidden blessing of my academic career. As I look back over some 40 years, helping others has been a spirit-lifting experience. I am truly grateful to all my patients as they made me realize that working as a physician was a not a job but a vocation; a calling that I wanted to fulfill as strongly in my first day of practice as in my last. As years passed, every day was different, and every complaint had to be viewed individually. Indeed, I went to work every day to see what I could learn from my patients. I am honored in this regard to write a series of books that I thought would help pass the baton to the next generation.
The first book in this series deals with controversies in the history of autism. These controversies are the subject of passionate debate. For the most part these issues have been debated for decades, and despite any recent developments, will continue to inspire controversy in years to come. Disagreements in this regard are not meant to be debunked but rather appraised from different perspectives.
The title of the first book is “Talking about autism: Down the rabbit hole of historical controversies” published by Life and Learn in July 2023. This is a short book, some 140 pages long, written in vignette style. Each vignette deals with a concise problem that provides the vivid description of the author or a contributor. It is currently being sold in paperback by Amazon for only $8.99 and the Kindle edition for $2.49. This is not a book for those who are content with superficial truths; rather, it is aimed at those who are willing to dig deeper and engage with the complex and often uncomfortable realities that lie beneath the surface. Among the subjects discussed in this book are: Who takes the credit for having first described autism? What was the role of the Third Reich in the history of autism? How did schizophrenia and autism become diagnostically entangled?
Other books soon to follow in this series will deal with symptoms, theories of causation, and treatments. I am hoping that the comprehensive gathering of information in this series will provide the reader with a better perspective on autism and an integrated pathway to better care for the health needs of this population of patients.
Cortical Chauvinism 
I found that in the Soviet Union, for whatever reason, there was vast research into schizophrenia. It took me some time to discover that childhood schizophrenia can process and develop very slowly, or more abruptly. Anyway, elite psychiatrists connected the autism in childhood schizophrenia to the non-unity of «self» and disassociation of the ego. You will already know this but, of course, psychologists differed as to whether autism is a symptom of a fractured personality, or the focal point of the disorder. Personally, I felt my own withdrawel from around aged two, may well have been the symptom as Bleuler theorised. That is, a disassociated perception of the surrounding world caused a withdrawel into inner reality. I specialise in schizophrenia because I think it helps to understand how autism differs.
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The subject of autism is fascinating beyond the pressing clinical perspective. It seems to me autism has various causes and the term can cover a wide range of conditions. What’s especially interesting is the information processing aspect of autism, which I found to be very distinct. For decades, there’s been a divide in psychology as to the actual intelligence of some autistm affected people. Wing and Van Krevelin felt their patients just rote-learned information, yet lacking deeper understanding. Suhareva and Asperger stressed aspects of giftedness. Myself, I concluded the true picture lies somewhere in the middle.
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