I've done a lot of research on psychology-related things and have specifically learned about Asperger's and Socipathy/Psychopathology. Sociopathy is not a common term used by mainstream psychology and neither is "psychopath". The most common related disorder is "anti social personality disorder. These terms do have characteristics made into a form of a checklist in which were created by Dr. Hare, one of the leading researchers of "psychopathology" and the like. In his books he describes plenty of sociopaths and his encounters with them and although Sherlock may sound partially like this in his gestures or himself as a whole, it just doesn't quite fit. Individuals of society often get Asperger's and sociopathy confused with each other because they indeed both have some similar characteristics such as lacking empathy and possibly antisocial behaviours. If Sherlock had never of mentioned being a sociopath, the thought would have never come to my mind. With Asperger's, one might consistently fail to make or persist friendships or avoid seeking shared enjoyments with others. Sociopaths on the other hand tend to care little about their friendships or use others for their own personal gain. "Aspie"s are also usually preoccupied with a small number of interests, but are particularly very knowledgeable in those subjects. They may also use a different variety of uncommon words in place in common words and tend to speak more formally. And as I think everyone here has already said or understands, Asperger's is a type of autism, and that their empathy and emotions are limited. They can often continue to keep talking and rambe off on something and not even notice the other person's body language/facial expression, so as a result they don't usually know when someone is getting bored in a conversation. Though, while typing that a particular scene came to mind; When Sherlock and John are talking during the (if I remember correctly) The Blind Banker episode. Sherlock says, "Will caring about them help save them?" John replies with no, and Sherlock states he will not continue to make that mistake. He asks John if this is news to him and he says no. Sherlock is looking at John and says, "I've disappointed you." So in a sense, Sherlock could easily read John's emotion here, which as to someone with Asperger's might not have done so. In my opinion, Sherlock cares about the people who are very close to him, whereas a sociopath usually tends to see no point in friendships other than to use them for some sort of gain for themselves and may even purposely and knowingly intend to inflict emotional/physical pain and distress upon the other. Someone with Asperger's would most likely not do this on purpose, but may unknowingly do so because they simply do not understand the effect of what they've said or done.

The only thing that contradicts Sherlock having Asperger's Syndrome is being able to read people so well. Autism/Asperger's is based in a scale, unlike sociopathy, which is based on characteristics and personality traits. It's possible that Sherlock is just somewhere in between low and the middle of the scale.
This article [here] is quite an interesting read with reliable information. Here is a quote from it;

The confusion between autism and sociopathy lets people like Sherlock be maligned as lacking conscience and compassion, even when they actually have a keen sense of morality. Sherlock and other people with autistic traits do not always demonstrate empathy in the ways that society expects, yet they may still care deeply for others. People with ASDs, not sociopaths, stay “on the side of the angels" and sacrifice their reputations for their friends. While many people cannot distinguish between autism and sociopathy, people creating autistic or sociopathic television characters should understand the difference.

Sam wrote:

Again, I hope they shed more light on this in Season 3, even if brief again. John also says Sherlock is the most "human" person he's ever known (*tear*), which I can see exactly what he means.

I hope they do, too.

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

...I know John is a doctor, but his field of work was more along the lines of pulling shrapnel out of wounded soldier's legs than mental health.

We actually don't know what John's specialty was before he joined up. I read a fan fic the other day where his specialty had been pediatrics.  I think that's a stretch, lol.... akin to them saying he'd been an obstetrician or a gynecologist or a psychiatrist.  Surgery or emergency medicine would have made him well-suited to being an Army doc on the front. Oh, well. Interesting to think about.

Thanks for posting. I've waded through each one in turn and it has helped to iron out some of the queries I had...a bit. Incidentally I've been treated at Broomfield Hospital, which is mentioned on John's CV, following a nasty dog bite. Those surgeons are very skilled I can tell you.

Wow, that's amazing...I've always known I was different too and I certainly found another different partner.
We both sit and yell at the TV that Sherlock is right and the rest of the world is crazy!

Hi Sherli,

You didn't miss anything. I was throwing this in as a new idea. Sorry about not giving more info - I ran out of time last night.

INTJ is one of the 16 different Myers-Briggs Personality types - basically it's a way of describing different personalities. It was invented as a way of helping people find the right job (and is still often used for this) but it's also very useful in helping to understand yourself and why you are the way you are. It also clarifies why and how other people are different and helps you to realise (as John would say) "it's all fine". Of course, nobody fits exactly into a box. The scheme works by looking at four basic ways of relating to the world and where you sit on the scale from one extreme to the other. Some people come out as clearly one type, others relate well to two or more types, sometimes depending on the situation or their mood. I've used INTx to cover two closely related types: INTJ and INTP.

Here's the wikipedia page for INTJ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTJ. The descriptions of the letters are not particularly informative but I think you'll see what I mean about Sherlock as a potential INTJ when you read the Characteristics section. I certainly think Benedict plays him as one.

Aurora wrote:

I'm missing some of the most important symptoms such as difficulty looking at faces, obsessive interests, noise sensitivity. Sherlock seems to be missing these too. To be honest, to me Sherlock seems pretty normal - far more so than many people I meet.   

I agree with what you said, Aurora, except this part. I think Sherlock definitely has obsessive interests. The other two we can't really tell because it's not as if we live with him. I say that it could go either way. It would probably be immediately evident if one was having a conversation with him, but because we just see him on a screen, with cuts to the other speaker, it's hard to tell. I'd also like to point out that many adults with mild Aspergers--particularly those around Sherlock's age (I'm assuming mid-70s because of Benedict Cumberbatch's birthdate)--were never diagnosed and therefore learned to cope with their symptoms on their own. Both the eye contact and the noises could fall under this umbrella. Failure to make eye contact is viewed negatively in society and is easily identified, so many learn to do it all on their own.

Hi Susi, thanks for the encouragement.

Hi Smoggy_London_Air, we might be meaning different things by "obsessive interests". Certainly he gets completely absorbed in whatever his current project/case is, but once it is solved he seems perfectly able to move on to something else (or get bored). For example, he must have put a lot of time and effort into the tobacco ash monograph, but once it was written other things caught his interest (eg Henry Fishguard) - he wasn't still continually obsessing over tobacco (except at times over the lack thereof  ). By "obsessive interests", I was meaning a specific interest which completely absorbs the person's life. For instance, I've known a couple of autistic boys/men whose interest is trains - that is the only thing they are interested in and the only thing they can talk about - and it's always been that way. By the way, I definitely don't want to imply that having or not having any of these characteristics proves whether someone has or doesn't have Aspergers/Autism - just using my own experience as an illustration. 

I completely agree that people with Aspergers can learn the social skills that don't come naturally to them. So can INTJs . Really, it's the same as saying people with very outgoing personalities who love to talk can learn to stop and listen to other people. It takes work and practice but you do it because you care. Sherlock's only just reaching the stage of realising that he is hurting people and he doesn't want to (based on what was said in the interviews re the Christmas scene).

I guess I'm just trying to suggest that maybe Sherlock doesn't have a syndrome or condition or actually anything "wrong" with him at all... That people like him are just part of the diversity in human nature that is needed to make the world go round. You may not run into us as often as other personality types - we tend to be hiding in universities trying to cure cancer or create new technologies - but we don't have a illness or condition that needs to be fixed - actually, you'd be pretty lost without us. 

On the subject of obsessive interests, they can change and morph for many people, whether they are Aspies or what John Elder Robison calls "Proto-Aspergians," which are possibly synonymous with the Meyers-Briggs INTJ/Ps of the world. What you're describing is what I think is called "trainspotting" (correct me if I'm wrong) and it's a very obvious, stereotypical manifestation of a tendency to obsess and, in fact, has entered the vernacular in that form. Sherlock is obsessed with his work in general, and while this may not seem out of the ordinary for people who are, like many people on this forum, INT-whatevers, the idea of someone focusing so much on their work and eschewing any social contact for the love of the same is considered very unusual. Not bad, just unusual.

As far as using eye contact and social skills, I don't mean so much as a common courtesy to other people as much as I mean as simple survival skills. In today's workforce (which, admittedly, Sherlock is only dubiously part of) these are skills that you simply can't get a job without. It's not a matter of "people won't like me if I don't make eye contact" it's a matter of "I'm going to be jobless if I don't learn this". Much of it, in my opinion, is subconscious, or is forced upon people by their parents. "Look me in the eye!" is the title of a well-known memoir about Aspergers, and is the common mantra of people close to someone with undiagnosed Aspergers. Simple INTJ/Ps are inherently born with conversational skills, the ability to make eye-contact, and the ability to pick up on social cues, (they're just introverts who prefer not to) so by the time you're Sherlock's age the real difference in this area is whether you had to learn it at one point or not, and no one who hasn't known you your whole life knows the difference. So I suppose what I said earlier isn't true: it's not because of the film format that we can't tell if Sherlock is an Aspie, it's because we meet him at the age of 34 and not 12.

Having Aspergers doesn't mean there's something wrong with anyone, particularly if they use it in a positive way like Sherlock and, to give real-life examples, John Elder Robison, Albert Einstein (who is simply suspected of having the syndrome), and others. Aspergers is really just a label that identifies people with these stronger introverted traits. I agree that the introverted people of the world are very important, especially because I'm one of them, but that doesn't mean that these people can't be on the Autism spectrum. Many of them are, and that doesn't change anything about them other than the label.

Hi Smoggy_London_Air, thanks so much for what you've written. Reading it made me realise I needed to do some more research what Aspergers really is. Looking at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome), it seems the professionals aren't all that sure either. It appears there are some people diagnosed as having Aspergers who are significantly affected by it and others who experience less severe symptoms and are able to overcome them.  It's so difficult when there appears to be a continuous spectrum from people who everyone would consider normal (read extroverts), through introverts, very focussed introverts (INTs), people with Aspergers, high functioning autistics and those with severe autism. When you're diagnosing based on symptoms it must be so subjective where you place someone... I'd heard before about there being neurological differences between "normal" people and those with Aspergers (talked about in the Mechanism section and also alluded to under Causes). That's what I'm meaning when I used the term "Aspergers": someone with these specific differences in brain structure or function. Of course, most people are diagnosed on the basis of their symptoms rather than from a brain scan. I think this is what's worrying me: some of these characteristics may be symptoms of an underlying neurological condition or they may just be personality traits. When you say "Aspergers" are you meaning people with the given characteristics (regardless of whether there's brain changes behind it)? Your comment: "Aspergers is really just a label that identifies people with these stronger introverted traits." makes me think we might be using slightly different definitions. I'm not great at expressing myself in writing - I hope you can understand what I mean. If we take "Aspergers" to simply mean "more introverted" then I agree with all you are saying.

Hi Davina,

Temple Grandin is a brilliant woman. I saw a documentary on her life a couple of years ago. Well worth seeing if you get the chance. She has amazing insight into how both animals and people work - I learnt a lot from it.