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ASD, theory of mind, empathy

"It seems obvious that autistic people can often empathize beautifully with other autistic/neurodivergent/marginalized people, but can struggle with neurotypical people who have differing values and priorities, which can be more socially or emotionally based. It is also clear that neurotypical people have no clue what autistic people value and prioritize and hence the problem arises. Due to autistic people being in the minority, they are more likely to be considered wrong/cold/harsh etc. than simply different. In my experience, there is judgement from both sides about what matters and what doesn’t emotionally and it seems tough for either party to see the other perspective." - Sarah Hendrickx

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Empathy is an incredibly complicated area of study, and it’s important to distinguish between the different types:

- emotional empathy - cognitive empathy - compassionate empathy.

Emotional empathy

Emotional empathy (also known as affective empathy) is when we can sense what another being is feeling (I’m including the animals in this too, not just people). I cannot watch an advert on television which features animal cruelty in any way, I will literally start crying hysterically because the idea of a beautiful creature being tortured is abhorrent to me. In fact, a former client of mine once described how she would always buy the battered old tins of soup in a supermarket nobody wanted because she felt sorry for them (I know exactly what she means). The majority of clients I work with often describe having hyper-empathy (too much empathy), which can make life very painful to navigate. For them, they are like a sponge to other people’s negative emotions and vibes. They can walk into a room feeling perfectly happy and then suddenly develop a deep melancholy. What is happening in that kind of situation is that the crowd has infected them in a kind of psychic contagion probably as a result of our heightened exteroception response.

Cognitive empathy

Cognitive empathy on the other hand is the way in which we figure out what another person is thinking or feeling. This may (or may not!) be difficult for us due to the differences in perception described in this chapter. Neurotypical people often talk their way vaguely around a subject avoiding the direct point as if that’s rude. Instead we are expected to infer meaning, which can feel like a bloody minefield when there could be a thousand variables to choose from! This is often the type of empathy we have most difficulty with, but I feel it’s important to stress that we can work on this with a little practice. During my time at university we were required to do various exercises in learning to build empathy, and believe me when I say some of the trainee counsellors on our course were absolutely rubbish at empathizing! I try to put myself in the shoes of another person as if I were a character in a film – What might they be going through? How would they react? and so on. These days in my sessions it’s as if I hear the client narrate their own story which I watch on a kind of TV screen in my mind and immerse myself into the plot. I think back to my early life and realize I was probably not very good at this aspect of empathy at all. I was always saying the ‘wrong thing’ and being told off for responding in an ‘impolite’ way. I also can’t help but wonder if that’s why eye-contact can feel too much for those of us who are hyper-empathic, it’s like we see too much in another person’s eyes and can’t cope with the intensity of feeling.

Compassionate empathy

Finally, compassionate empathy is about how we offer support to another person who might need our help. When neurodivergent individuals see someone who is upset we may want to offer our support by sharing a similar experience (trying to find mutual connection), being logical about the problem (trying to find a practical solution) and potentially avoiding physical touch such as hugs, hand-holding or arm-stroking (because we might not like it if someone did that to us). Heartbreakingly this can often be misconstrued as not caring – we are wrongfully accused of making it about us (egotistical), being bad listeners (‘I don’t want your advice I just want to vent!!’) and cold (‘What’s wrong with you? Normal people would want to comfort someone who’s upset!’). The idea that autistic people don’t have empathy is very upsetting to me. Like everyone else on the planet, our ability to feel empathy will fall somewhere on a spectrum (there are plenty of neurotypical people who don’t experience empathy either, but rather than berate them we tend to elect them instead.)

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Going back to Dr. Milton’s point about the double empathy problem, you can really start to see that whilst some of us may struggle to read the thoughts and feelings of others, most neurotypical people also struggle to read the thoughts and feelings of us! Why are we the ones expected to fit in with everyone else? Wouldn’t it be better if when Aunt Patricia starts yelling at you, ‘Uncle Roderick has just died and you haven’t given me so much as a hug!’ that we feel confident to assert ourselves and respond, ‘Actually, I’m not the sort of person who enjoys hugging but that doesn’t mean I don’t care, and I’d be happy to help you sort out his things when you’re ready.’

Assumptions are typically made in the absence of clear communication and maybe part of our journey is to educate others about our autistic ways rather than presume they’ll just know. Sir Simon Baron-Cohen (cousin of Sacha/Ali G) declared that autism was an ‘empathy disorder’ (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright 2004), which sadly paved the way for an unintended legacy of pain and misunderstanding.

Far be it from me to argue with Cambridge University’s Autistic Research Centre Director (who am I kidding, here we go…), but as a neurodivergent person and someone with the incredible privilege of peering deep into the psyches of other autistic people (not just observing them in well-designed research studies), I simply cannot relate to his perspective. I am yet to meet an autistic person who wasn’t deeply concerned about hurting other people’s feelings. In fact, as a group we are recognized for our sense of fairness, morality and justice. If we didn’t have empathy, then possessing those positive traits would make no logical sense (we’d all be sociopaths). Of course, empathy and the way we communicate it may certainly fall on a continuum, but isn’t that the same for all humans?

Much of Baron-Cohen’s work is built around his ‘extreme male brain’ theory of autism (that we experience the world through a male lens and prefer stereotypically male topics) (Baron-Cohen 2002). But this is commonly disputed within both the neurodivergent and research communities over claims of neurosexism and misinterpreting biological data. In a nutshell, Baron-Cohen hypothesizes that these sex differences exist on a scale where at one end there is ‘female’ (empathy brains) and at the other end ‘male’ (systemizing brains). I am saying no more on this topic other than the fact I am a highly sensitive, socially aware, nurturing and empathic female with a love of a tidy spice jar cupboard. Make of that what you will. Baron-Cohen has made it quite clear through the media that his research is often taken out of context and that involving the autistic community in his work is very important to him. But repairing that broken trust and challenging entrenched public perceptions of autism seems a tricky undertaking. Stereotypes don’t vanish overnight, particularly when clickbait headings aren’t all that exciting.

If we are considered to have difficulties with ‘theory of mind’ (the ability to read or predict another person’s internal state such as their thoughts and feelings), well, it works both ways, pal!

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