Was the 1980s too turbulent a decade for Asperger Syndrome?

Picture this. Government retraining scheme (carried out by a local government agency), approx 1989. I had some issues with another trainee.  Someone got sent round to ask me a few questions, which I answered quite honestly and politely, although I was just a bit stressed out by the slightly mysterious and secretive approach. The lady was just tagged as some sort of therapist who acted as a contractor to the agency over certain work legislation compliance. My guess is she was an occupational therapist, but I don't think she ever even bothered to ID herself. "Well, I think I know what your problem is", she said in a rather unsympathetic manner. There was a long pause during which I was actively waiting for her to tell me her notion. I had some suspicions myself at the time that I might be bipolar (manic depressive, as they said in those days, since I had worked with a highly intelligent manic depressive during the 70s, and even knew his psycho-therapist and psycho-analyst.) She never told me.The area I then lived was not exactly a hotbed of Thatcherism, but having lived through the extreme paranoia of the Miner's Strike, it was definitely a time when employees of such places as Job Centres and Retraining Agencies stopped voicing their slightly socialist leanings and started keeping their thoughts to themselves as a means to keep their precious jobs. And things have only got worse since. Yes, turbulent times for over 30 years now. And I suspect that the NHS is soon going to be put in a position where it gives very little support for people on the spectrum. Austerity!

I would love to be able to read her report to the agency. Having honoured her contractor's remit, she obviously felt it was way too risky for her to do something generous like even provide her interviewee with some subtle hints as to what might be ailing him, and how he might begin to do something about it. This was the era when frontlinecivil servants and their agents stopped doing anything that might actually help their minor stakeholders, and started fearing the unholy alliance of biassed senior civil servants and their acquisitive friends in politics.

I would love to be able to read her report to the agency. Having honoured her contractor's remit, she obviously felt it was way too risky for her to do something generous like even provide her interviewee with some subtle hints as to what might be ailing him, and how he might begin to do something about it. This was the era when frontlinecivil servants and their agents stopped doing anything that might actually help their minor stakeholders, and started fearing the unholy alliance of biassed senior civil servants and their acquisitive friends in politics.