Sherlock Holmes Syndrome

(first written 2008, first posted on Facebook 4.5.11, updated 2012, 2016)

You see the problem is there’s this strange phenomenon of people liking mysteries and not wanting them explained.

In the world of mental health it often appears that someone in distress, does not want, nor responds to, either explicit explanation of their difficulties, or to training in techniques to relieve them. It’s even got to the point in our individualistic society where many will argue that there are no universal ways of understanding or helping - apart from the mysterious ‘love conquers all’!

(photo by Nick Hewling)

And the more knowledgeable person certainly doesn’t want to end up suffering the emotional isolation of what I call Sherlock Holmes Syndrome - of going to the trouble to explain (about inductive and deductive reasoning, how he built-up his library, apprenticed himself to learn about such things as horses and dogs, the logic of railway operations and timetabling, etc, etc) only for Watson to call it all inborn ‘talent’ and ‘genius‘, the police to call it ‘luck’, and the public ‘…well when you put it like Mr Holmes, I can see it really is so simple anyone could…’ It was others who set him apart. People fear something is lost in explanation when in fact the reverse is true - it only adds to the wonder of the world.

The wilful ignorance of those who see in others an inborn talent often drives those with such supposed abilities to distraction. The spectator at a golf tournament who said to Arnold Palmer - after he’d made a great shot - how lucky he was to have such a talent, got the reply: ‘Yes, it’s crazy, the more I practice the luckier I get! In traditional craftsmanship, ten thousand hours is the ‘rule of thumb’ for mastering a complex skill set - the point at which practice, becomes ‘seamless’ and the outsider cannot see ‘how it’s done’.

In the context of mental health, explanation leading to instruction, demonstration and practice meets additional resistance because the very subject is the inadequacy of early emotional learning from parents, other adults, siblings and peers. A large part of emotional learning is of course all about sexual intimacy, and here the Holmes analogy is useful again.

Dr Watson a believer in the mystery of love, as much as non-explainable 'genius', offers us this in, A Scandal in Bohemia: 'It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one in particular, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but reasonable balanced mind, but as a lover he would have put himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer - excellent for drawing a veil from men's motives and passions.'

Now we know that such a lack of emotion would have been impossible - modern opinion  divides two ways; either towards some effortful suppression or towards an autistic spectrum, even the sociopathic! It doesn't occur to Watson that Holmes might have applied the same methods to learning about sex and love as he did to everything else. If that were true, then his pursuit of excellence would have led to his rejection by almost all in Victorian society. (It is perhaps worth remembering that it is only points of similarity between people which attract.)

(All of the above refers to the character of Sherlock Holmes originally offered us by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.)

It is nice to see that some of the themes above have been highlighted by Elementary, the contemporary take on Holmes from CBS.

HOLMES:  It has its costs.
WATSON:  What does?
HOLMES:  Learning to see the puzzle in everything. They’re everywhere, once you start looking it’s impossible to stop. It just so happens that people and all the deceits and delusions which inform everything they do, tend to be the most fascinating puzzle of all. Of course they don’t always appreciate being seen as such.
WATSON:  Seems like a lonely way to live.
HOLMES:  As I said it has its costs.

(photo by Nick Hewling)

HOLMES:  ..the things that I do, the things that you care about, you think I do them because I’m a good person, I do them because it would hurt too much not to.
AGATHA:  Because you are a good person.
HOLMES:  No, it hurts Agatha. All of this, everything I see, everything I hear, touch and smell. The conclusions I’m able to draw, the things that are revealed to me, the ugliness. My work focuses me, it helps. You say I am using my gifts, I say I am just treating them…

(Elementary, created by Robert Doherty for CBS.)