Autism and Empathy
A popular misconception regarding Autistic individuals is that they lack or do not have empathy.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, autistic people do have empathy and they have a very specific structure to their empathic communication that differs from what we understand as neuro-typical empathy.
In this newsletter I am going to draw out some elements of autistic empathy and show that while it differs from neurotypical empathy, it can be very effective means of communicating empathy particularly between two neuro-divergent individuals.
We can learn much from the way autistic individuals’ exhibit empathy that can be extremely useful for neuro-typical people as well.
Empathy is defined as the capacity to share and understand the feelings another person. We can break empathy down into two components
Cognitive (Thought) Empathy
- Refers to the capacity to understand what the other person may be thinking in a given situation
Affective (Feeling) Empathy
- Refers to the capacity to understand what the other person may be feeling in a given situation
Neurotypical Empathy
The conventional form of neurotypical empathy can be said to involve having the capacity to put oneself into the shoes of another person by imagining what that person was or is feeling and thinking in a certain situation and then communicating that understanding verbally to the other person.
Distressing experience is related by an individual —–> the neurotypical person display presence—-> shows they understand by communicating what they imagine the other person thought in the situation they described (i.e. I can imagine you thought you may die)—-> shows they understand by communicating what they imagine the other person felt in the situation described (i.e. I can imagine you must have felt very afraid)
Autistic Empathy
Autistic individuals on the other may have a higher degree of affective empathy to the point of experiencing a “vibe” or emotional energy when they are around other people. They can often sense the emotional atmosphere around another person or people and often take on these feelings in themselves. This can often lead them to becoming quite distressed at times when they pick up this emotional energy or “vibes” from the environment and the people in it.
The following structure may explain how empathy in autistic individuals is expressed
Distressing experience is related by an individual—-> the autistic individual displays presence—-> then the autistic person relates a story of their own that share similarities with the story that was shared—-> lastly the autistic individual shares how they dealt with the issue/challenge in there story and shares a potential solution with the individual concerned
Take Home Message
- Do accept that autistic individuals have empathy and display it in a different manner
- Do try to be understanding if an autistic person becomes overwhelmed by your feelings
- Do not judge autistic people as unemphatic if they do not convey empathy in a neurotypical fashion
- Be open to experiencing empathy in a variety of ways
By: Kevin Naidu (Clinical Psychologist): South Africa
