Maarten:

I was glad you responded quickly. I did that partly because you don't have much time left in this class and mostly because you seemed to be inclined to deny your anger and the seriousness of your situation. In my earlier post I wanted to confront you as seriously as I could so you would face the risks in such situations. Actually I was hoping that I wouldn't arouse the fairly intense anger that the medical professor had aroused. To be honest I rather expected the medical professor to report the confrontations you and he had and then recommend that your teaching professor and/or your department put you on probation until you learned to collaborate better (of course, one thing that would have stopped him from doing that was his own poorly controlled behavior).

Let's not worry about who was most at fault. And I have no idea the degree that Autism or Asperger's contributed to your emotional reactions in the research situation. Such diagnoses are hard to make and require an extensive history. However, I do think it is quite important that you benefit as much from this experience as possible. It was commendable and I was impressed with your statement that maybe you should ask for help from a psychologist. BTW university Counseling Centers usually provide an excellent service...and it is free. In the course of making the decision about getting help, I'd suggest that you keep a diary, recording your emotions (especially anger) every day. Be honest...this could help you assess the degree you are bothered by anger.

Now about your concern with mending fences. Your idea of avoiding direct contact sounds wise. There isn't much time until the Friday presentation. So, what about a brief handwritten letter which you hand carry to his office (to be sure he got it) but I'd avoid being there when he read it. If I were you, I'd be apologetic and leave him a phone number or email address where you will be easily available (in case he has ideas about how to finish up the project that you don't like). You might want to seek advice from the graduate student who followed your study about how to write the letter.

Since the medical professor is going to be there, I'd be prepared to respond to any critical comment he might make (such as making comments about having difficulty resolving disagreements between you and him.) You might even want to thank him for his efforts to help you with research in this area.

I wish you luck. May you continue to have relatively few stressful relationships in your life.

drclay