1. Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva was a Soviet child psychiatrist and the first psychiatrist to pathologize Autism Spectrum Disorder.
20 Facts About Grunya Sukhareva
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Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva was born to parents Chaim Faitelevich and Rakhila Iosifovna Sukhareva on November 11th, 1891 in Kyiv, Russian Empire.
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Grunya Sukhareva studied medicine at the Kyiv Medical Institute, and in 1915, earned her medical degree.
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Grunya Sukhareva then began working at the institute's epidemiological unit until 1917, when she started working as a licensed psychiatrist at the Kyiv Psychiatric Hospital until 1921.
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Grunya Sukhareva served as Head of the Defectology Department at the Institute of Mental Health of Children and Adolescents from 1919 until her departure in 1921.
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In 1921, Sukhareva moved to Moscow, where she was employed at the Psychoneurological Department for Children.
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At the Sanatorium School, Grunya Sukhareva conducted her groundbreaking research on autistic pathology in children through clinical observations of students under her care, which served as the foundation of her seminal 1925 publication regarding the pathology of the condition known today as Autism Spectrum Disorder.
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In 1928, Grunya Sukhareva worked as an Associate Professor at Moscow's first Medical Institute.
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In 1935, Grunya Sukhareva founded a Faculty of Pediatric Psychiatry in the Central Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education, where she served as Head of the Department until 1965.
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Grunya Sukhareva is credited by scholars as making observations that closely mirror the pathology of ASD as described by the DSM-V.
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Grunya Sukhareva expanded upon her discoveries in 1927 with the publication of her second work regarding manifestation of autistic pathology in young girls.
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Grunya Sukhareva frequently cited her professor, and head of the psychoneurological department at Moscow, Mikhail Osipovich Gurevich, as her primary mentor in her publications.
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Bleuler, frequently cited in Grunya Sukhareva's works, coined the term to encompass socially introverted or withdrawn behaviors that were typically linked to schizophrenic pathology at the time.
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Grunya Sukhareva initially used the term "schizoid psychopathy", but later replaced it with "autistic psychopathy" to describe the clinical picture of autism.
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The article was created almost two decades before the case reports of Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner, which were published while Grunya Sukhareva's pioneering work remained unnoticed.
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Grunya Sukhareva's name was transliterated as "Ssucharewa" when her papers appeared in Germany, and the autism researcher Hans Asperger might have chosen not to cite her work due to his documented cooperation with the Nazi Party and her Jewish heritage.
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Grunya Sukhareva believed that for personality disorders to appear in children and teenagers, a significant social factor was required.
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Grunya Sukhareva was a pioneer in using the method of suggestion, and fought for children's rights, stating that difficult children should not be sent to prisons, but to medical institutions.
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Grunya Sukhareva studied PTSD from war injuries sustained by children.
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In 1926 then 1927, Grunya Sukhareva described six boys and five girls, as having what is considered autism.