It’s an oft-repeated and erroneous stereotype that autistic people lack empathy.
When I hear another iteration of this myth, I have an immediate, visceral reaction that combines impatience at its perpetuation with a keen understanding of its power to wreak havoc on the lives on autistic people. When it comes to our ability to find partners, to form friendships, to be welcomed in community, and to find work — particularly in the helping professions — this myth can have a devastating impact. It’s one of the main reasons that so many autistic people remain in the closet, living their entire lives in fear of exposure.
Ironically, in the face of the myth of nonexistent autistic empathy, I have an intensely empathetic response. I intuitively recognize the potential for harm and suffering to millions of people, and I feel grief, anger, and a powerful need to speak to the issue.
Once my anger and my adrenalin rush subside, I’m able to take a good long look at where the myth comes from. I find that it derives, in part, from an oversimplification of what empathy means. The popular media likes to disseminate oversimplifications of all kinds, and autistic people often find ourselves stereotyped in ways that would be impossible if we lived in a culture in which asking the right questions — and listening to the answers — were considered of any value.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in such a culture, and so, even as I write, I am aware that my impact is limited. The people who read these words, and who are inclined to reflect upon them, will come away understanding something new. Those who never read these words, or who read them and dismiss them for their own personal reasons — well, there is little I can do to change their minds.
All I can do is to speak my truth, as clearly as I can.
So let’s look at the question of empathy. There are three types: cognitive empathy, emotional/affective empathy, and expressed empathy.
Cognitive empathy
Cognitive empathy has to do with being able to visually and intuitively read subtle nonverbal signals in order to understand what is going on in the mind of another person. It includes being able to read facial expressions, body language, and the emotions communicated by the eyes.
In general, people all along the autism spectrum have difficulty with cognitive empathy based on visual nonverbals. I certainly do. I can read some nonverbals, but the more subtle ones elude me, except when they come from a) other people on the spectrum, whom I seem to have no trouble reading at all, or b) non-autistic people with whom I have a relatively long acquaintance. With someone I know well, I can see the subtle signals, because I’ve gone through a process of learning about the person and being able to associate the signals with the person’s emotions.
When relating to non-autistic people, my process isn’t intuitive, but after my 53 years on the planet, it has become quite reflexive. For example, I can read my husband’s nonverbal signals relatively well. We’ve known each other for over ten years, and he takes care to verbalize his feelings as much as he can. Both the extended time we’ve spent together and his ability to verbalize result in my increased capacity to link the signals with their source.
In other words, like many autistic people, I’ve grown and learned over the course of a lifetime.
Emotional/affective empathy
Emotional/affective empathy is entirely different from cognitive empathy. It is what most people consider true empathy.
Emotional/affective empathy has to do with the emotional response triggered in the face of the experience of another person. According to recent studies (such as Markram and Markram’s 2007 The Intense World Syndrome: An Alternative Hypothesis for Autism, and Adam Smith’s 2009 The Empathy Imbalance Hypothesis of Autism), autistic people have extremely high levels of emotional/affective empathy. In the online world, there is a veritable treasure trove of writing by autistic people and our loved ones that bears out the conclusions of both studies.
The Markram study and the Smith study reflect my experience far more accurately than say, the work of Simon Baron-Cohen, who has never given any credence to the idea that the emotional/affective empathy of autistic people might exceed that of others. How sensitive am I? If a person next to me is suffering, I feel it as though the suffering were mine. If the person next to me is joyful, I feel especially happy. If I see a film in which a person is being shot, I immediately imagine the bullets tearing into my own body. I have read story after story by autism parents who say that their children cry when they see scenes of animals suffering; others say that their children can always pick up on all the emotions in a room. I share these experiences.
I can feel absolutely drenched in the emotions of other people, even when people are not expressing their feelings directly, and I feel those emotions very intensely. I can walk into a crowded room and feel all the emotions of the people there; being so empathic can be absolutely overwhelming. From what I understand, most non-autistic people do not experience anything close to that kind of empathy, but it’s a common experience for those of us on the spectrum.
How can I pick up all those emotions in the absence of reading the nonverbal signals? On some level, I probably register all the visual nonverbals, but I can’t parse them individually or respond to them in the way that a non-autistic person would. In other words, I can literally see them all — and they have a clear emotional impact — but I can’t read them in real time.
I also have a kind of intuition, a sixth sense about people that can never be measured in any objective fashion. As I’ve learned from hard experience, the only time that my intuition fails me is when I ignore it.
I’m also coming to recognize that I use another sense, one that is hyperacute and entirely overlooked in studies of how autistic people perceive the world: my hearing. I can read the subtle details of vocal tones very, very well, especially when people are using vocal tones that don’t match the content of their words. If a person is upset or angry, but is using words that seek to mask it in some way, I can tell right away. It’s as though I am hearing strands of music that are out of harmony.
My experience as a musician, in which I feel myself inside the emotion of the music and feel the power of the music inside me, extends to hearing such signals as vocal tones, or the relative force with which someone brings his or her hand down on a table, or how quickly a person is walking, or with what determination an individual’s feet hit the floor. It’s an intuitive way for me to gauge what is going on in my environment, especially regarding the moods of other people. And because I don’t filter sound well, and have very little ability to put any sound in the background, I miss nothing when it comes to my auditory experience.
I am quite certain that my hearing enables me to read the subtleties of emotional states in other people, because when I go out into the world and prevent auditory overload by wearing earplugs, I avoid emotional overload as well. It’s a blessed relief to be able to go out into public and hold people’s emotions at a distance, let me tell you.
Expressed empathy
Expressed empathy has to do with responding to the feelings and thoughts of another person. Clearly, it’s not enough to feel empathy. It has to be expressed so that the other person knows that you understand and feel compassion.
This type of empathy is almost entirely a cultural construct. In some cultures, when you see a person in pain, you give a hug, or verbalize your concern, or invite the person to have a conversation. In other cultures, simply being a quiet, compassionate listener is considered appropriate.
Personally, I tread fairly carefully about how I express my empathy, because in a multicultural, neurodiverse society, I am sensitive to the fact that a response that might work for one person might not work for another. Given my own sensory and emotional sensitivities, I make no assumptions about what another person might need. So, for example, instead of rushing in and giving a person a hug, I will ask if the person would like a hug. This kind of concern, I think, shows a fairly sophisticated level of emotional empathy, although I admit that it will sometimes leave me stymied as to what to do, which is ultimately unhelpful to the person concerned.
In general, I tend toward the practical. I will begin by verbally acknowledging the other person’s feelings; I grew up when doing so was simply considered good manners, and being drilled in good manners as a child has greatly helped my level of conventional empathetic expression. But I feel most comfortable rolling up my sleeves and getting to work. Does the person need me to do some grocery shopping? Bring a meal over? Help with chores? Watch the kids? To me, words aren’t enough. They have to be followed up with action.
As far as conventional measures of expressed empathy go, I am fortunate in being verbal. For many autistic people who have difficulties with verbal communication, responding in culturally acceptable and conventionally understandable ways is impossible. And for autistic people who are even more sensitive than I am, there are limitations to being able to respond at all, because most environments generate such a high degree of emotional and sensory overload that withdrawal becomes a necessity.
And yet, if you pay attention, you will often find that autistic people express empathy in a myriad of ways, many of which are quite unexpected in any conventional sense but reflect true emotional understanding. For example, I recently read a piece by an autism parent who said that, though her child has difficulties with reading nonverbal cues and understanding social communication, he will come over to her when she is upset and say, “I love mama.” He knows what she is feeling, and he expresses his care and concern. It’s enough to melt your heart.
And of course, nonverbal autistic people who can express themselves in text often show great responsiveness to other people and a keen sensitivity to other people’s feelings.
One difficulty with much autism research is that it privileges conventional experiences and expressions of empathy, and considers non-normative expression an impairment. It begins with a definition of cognitive empathy as being able to visually parse nonverbal signals, rather than being able to hear signals, intuit them, or see them all at once; it defines emotional/affective empathy without the merest consciousness of the extreme levels of emotional sensitivity that many of us experience; and it uses culturally constructed norms of empathetic expression as a measure of what is true and right.
Of course, no test can measure the kind of emotional empathy that many autistics experience. I have started training as a personal care assistant to a child with multiple disabilities. What test can possibly measure the ways in which my heart and soul flow outward to him? What test can measure the level of attentiveness, of concern, of love that I feel for him? What test can pick up the sheer happiness it gives me to care for him? Who can measure how much I respect him, and how clearly I see the human soul inside him?
No test, no research, no science can prove love, or measure awareness, or gauge emotional sensitivity, especially when that sensitivity is literally off the charts. Unfortunately, in the absence of a scientific test, many “experts” spend no time at all listening to the experiences of the people they purport to understand. They listen to other professionals, they read medical journals, and they go to conferences, but how many of them listen to the life experiences of the people they’re researching? Not many. Those who do should be held up as role models.
And, unfortunately, too many lay people look to credentials as opposed to experience when it comes to understanding non-normative conditions. Recently, in response to one autistic person’s upset at mainstream theories of impaired autistic empathy, an autism parent said that the experts should know all about it, since they’ve been studying the issue for years. And those of us who have lived it for even longer? If we were talking about the difference between a non-Jewish scholar of Judaism and a practicing Jew, most people would say that the practicing Jew would be the expert on Judaism. And yet, autistic people are rarely accorded this level of respect.
A refusal to listen to our experiences and to be sensitive to the real-life consequences of pervasive stereotypes shows a problematic relationship with empathy, to put it mildly. In the midst of this lack of true autism awareness, any assertion that autistic people lack empathy is nothing less than a textbook case of the pot calling the kettle black.
© 2011 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
This is a fantastic post. Thankyou for sharing it.
I am exactly the same as you when it comes to the sounds people make. I can easily tell when people are being dishonest and insincere by the tone of their voice. This also extends to the sounds they make in general. I can tell who is walking around by the sound of their footsteps, for example, without having to see them, and other little things like that. Now I wonder if this is a common experience for autistic people.
I wonder, too, Jack. I have not encountered a great deal of research about how we hear vocal tones and other signals, since so many researchers privilege the visual and ignore our acute sensory experiences. However, because auditory processing disorder often goes hand-in-hand with Asperger’s, I think it’s likely that there is an upside to our auditory sensitivities when it comes to reading and understanding other people.
I am so excited to watch the next episode of Firefly with you, Mom. There’s one scene in particular that really relates to this post.
Oh, wow! Can’t wait!
Oh wow.. you put it brilliantly. More so how over whelming it can be in a crowd.. I’ve learned to block things out up to a point, but I personally struggle to hear people in a crowd. A room with loud music playing.. forget about hearing any conversations.
Have to agree, I do get very insulted when I read that I have no empathy due to my diagnoses. So wrong. And so wish people would talk to those who have to live with with the diagnoses instead of assuming by what they see.
I agree, Jack — it’s so important that people listen to our experiences. After all, how can anyone see what we actually experience inside, especially if we’re not putting out the signals they expect? Even for non-autistic people, it’s hardly a perfect science. After all, therapists don’t just sit and watch nonverbals all day. They listen to people talk.
Rachel, you have put into words (and far better than i could) exactly why it’s such total nonsense that we don’t have empathy. I have always felt such huge empathy, in the emotional/affective sense, often being overwhelmed by others’ emotions, or the ‘vibes’ in a room, to the extent i felt i was losing who ‘i’ was. But I’ve always struggled with that cognitive empathy, what i understand is called ‘mirroring’, or with practical expressions of sympathy. Like you, i always want to ‘do something’ to help make things better. It took me a long time to learn that sometimes just listening was the right thing to do.
And i couldn’t agree more, it often seems to me that many NTs do not have the empathy, not us!!
Hi Kiwipen,
One of the best things I ever learned about mirroring was a training in reflective listening that I took when I was working as a volunteer at a battered women’s shelter. We learned to verbally restate what a client had just said to us, so that she would know that she was being heard. It worked spectacularly well, particularly for women in abusive situations, whose entire lives were about not being listened to.
I took this training way back in the mid-80s, and it’s helped me tremendously in non-emergency situations ever since. When I feel at a loss for what to say, I can just mirror back what the person has said to me, or ask a question about it. You can’t do it endlessly, or it gets really annoying to people (!), but it’s a very good skill to have when a listening ear is what someone needs most.
Thank you so much for this post. You explained succinctly the difference between emotional and cognitive empathy. Unfortunately, many people do not have a nuanced approach to disabilities and neurological issues. They will only hear that we lack empathy and not differentiate between the two.
I really wish psychologists would’ve used another word to refer to our trouble with understanding social cues to alleviate misunderstanding by laymen. But the old canard of autistic people lacking empathy will remain because it gives people a justification to discriminate against and bully us.
I’ll tell you, thinking on that stereotype is terribly upsetting to me, because it results in so much misunderstanding and discrimination. Changing the terminology — and outright acknowledging that so many of us have an extreme amount of emotional empathy — would go a long way.
Can you imagine what would happen if autistic people were associated with an overabundance of emotional empathy? So many doors would open to us.
I agree with this post and with what the commenter Nirrti wrote. I am tired of being equated with sociopaths- people who REALLY don’t feel empathy. That’s what Simon Baron-Cohen, researcher and cousin of the comedian, seems to think. This whole empathy issue reminds me of the novel “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf. A shell-shocked veteran, Septimus Warren Smith, experiences sensory overload, and is panicking that he can’t feel anything. In one line, the novel deconstructs his fears: “He felt too much.” The issue with Smith, and people on the Spectrum is the opposite of the inability to feel, or empathize. It’s that we feel too much. Read the book!
Baron-Cohen seems to be clarifying (or changing?) his position on this. In his latest book, he draws a distinction between psychopaths (people with zero-negative empathy) and autistics (people with zero-positive empathy), and acknowledges that autistic people are no more prone to be cruel than anyone else. In fact, he acknowledges, we can have very strong moral codes and live life according to the “do unto others” philosophy.
Of course, he still says that we have “zero degrees of empathy,” which is absolutely incorrect, and no, it’s not nearly enough to tell the world that we’re not psychopaths. People need to know that many of us have empathy beyond what most people experience, and that we’re kind, compassionate, and loving. Period.
I’m very fortunate that, in my community, people are able to see me for who I am and don’t seem influenced by the stereotypes. I was open about the Asperger’s when I applied for my PCA job, and I got hired on the spot. Others are not nearly so lucky, and I’m always very mindful of that.
You’re right in pointing out the subtleties of SBC’s thought. I guess I was just in a white heat because that dude pisses me off. Oh, I forgot- I don’t have feelings…
PS: Love the new look of the blog.
I understand your feelings about SBC’s work. Much of it is very painful for me to read.
Thanks for the kudos on the new blog template! It was time for a change.
Thanks Rachel
I posted it.
http://www.facebook.com/EmpathyCenter
Empathy & Compassion http://bit.ly/dVWrff
Empathy & HealthCare http://bit.ly/hxdqCw
May I suggest a further resources to learn more about empathy and compassion.
The Center for Building a Culture of Empathy
The Culture of Empathy website is the largest internet portal for resources and information about the values of empathy and compassion. It contains articles, conferences, definitions, experts, history, interviews, videos, science and much more about empathy and compassion.
http://CultureOfEmpathy.com
Warmly
edwin
Thanks for posting my piece, Edwin, and for providing the links for my readers. I love what you’re doing with your site.
Helpful, challenging and insightful as always. Thank you.
Thank you, bbsmum. Always a pleasure to hear from you.
Pot calling the kettle black is definitely right! It’s incredibly hypocritical to judge another individual as incapable of feeling empathy without any effort to understand where that individual is coming from. Those with ASD spend so much time just trying to make sense of the behaviors and feelings of NT people, and then when these experts are presented with behavior and expressions of feelings THEY do not understand, they really do not try hard enough to empathize, themselves.
You present an interesting point about how you can recognize the subtle expressions of others on the spectrum. I have been beginning to wonder if even on the Cognitive Empathy level, the gap is not so wide between NT individuals and those on the spectrum. The fact that those who are more neurologically typical have such a hard time understanding the thoughts and feelings of people who are on the spectrum makes me wonder if the “advantage” in this area is just that there are more neurologically typical people on this planet, so their own cognitive empathy issues are masked.
I think you’re exactly right: people of similar minds and experiences understand one another well. You see it across all cultures; people within a group will always have an understanding of one another in a way that people outside the group cannot. The fact that there are more non-autistic people means that the majority gets to define its way of responding and understanding as normal. Minority people rarely get such a free pass.
Fabulous article Rachel! These myths and stereotypes that autistic people have no empathy have caused much damage. I am EXTREMELY empathic, it’s utterly hellish to live with as I am constantly flooded with such intense anguish and anxiety as I feel the pain of all living creatures so acutely. However many times I feel nothing but completely numb and I have realized this is a coping mechanism and a way to shield myself. I have noticed that autistic people tend to be either one extreme or the other, I know some autistic people who are also very empathic and others who have little empathy….but that doesn’t mean they don’t have ANY!!!
You’re absolutely right, Faery. I’ve worked with autistic young people who at first seem to have little empathy — until you realize that they’re blocking their emotional sensitivity in the same way that they block their sensory sensitivity. I find that I have to do the same at times; if I didn’t, it would be difficult to make my way through a day.
[...] difficult, often regardless of whether emotion is involved. Many people with autism report (here is one example) that they are in fact capable of recognising the emotions of others, but find it [...]
Thanks for posting this. My intense experience of other people’s emotions was one of the barriers to admitting that I was actually autistic. The intense world hypothesis was a huge eye-opener for me.
As for empathy, it seems to me that many of the autistic people I’ve come to know over the years are among the most compassionate people I have known. It always frustrates me to run into lay understanding of empathy coupled with statements that autistic people lack empathy.
I share your frustration, Lisa. It’s very hurtful to hear people say that we have no empathy when so many of us have so much of it.
[...] are based on a non-typical logic that goes against social norms. For more on that, check out Rachel’s post on it on Journeys With Autism and also take a gander at Autism and [...]
Thank you so much for the article on empathy. My “story” is similar to yours. I experience intense feelings of others. I miss a lot of non-verbal cues, or become confused when the verbal/tone of voice is at odds with the non-verbal and I have super-acute hearing. All that aside, this article has specifically helped me because I am in a 3 year study to be a Spiritual Director (one who accompanies another in their journey to a closer relationship with God), and it is understood that I will be able to empathetic with the person that I am accompanying, and yet, I questioned that ability in myself. Your article has clarified a number of issues for me. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
Hi Mary,
So glad to help.
I’ve known others who have trained to be Spiritual Directors. It’s quite a wonderful path. I hope your training continues to go well.
I’ve been trying to put together my personal response to this for a couple of weeks, as I didn’t want to make my article on Simon Baron Cohen’s book personal at all. I wrote in my article that people best empathise with those they identify with, and this has also definitely been true for me, although that doesn’t always mean people exactly like myself; one of the reasons I got so strongly involved in ME campaigning and blogging last year is because I identified with the experiences of some sufferers (including Lynn Gilderdale and another young person who had featured in a documentary in 1993) in hospital, which bore some similarity to what I’d been through at boarding school around the same time. I wasn’t ill, but had the experience of being taken from a normal family into a very hostile environment at a young age, and particularly facing hostility from adults and others who were much bigger than I was. Learning about what had happened to Lynn over the years was much more upsetting than things which have happened in my own family, even though I never knew Lynn.
I also find that I can much more readily empathise with someone who is in physical discomfort than in some kind of emotional grief – I recall that, a few years ago, I was walking with some of my family, including my younger sister and a much younger female cousin, who both said that they needed the bathroom and, of course, we were on an exposed hillside and there was nowhere for anyone to do that discreetly, let alone a girl. I remember feeling very concerned for both of them as there was going to be no opportunity to relieve themselves for two or three hours until we got back to town. However, when another cousin (that younger cousin’s sister) lost her husband very suddenly a few years ago, I was at something of a loss as to how to behave around her, and still am, really. Although I did feel sad and shocked (as he was only in his mid-30s), the intensity of others’ grief was somewhat alienating — that it caused some people to question whether there was a God, for example. I thought it was a huge overreaction, particularly as he had not suffered at all and the rest of the family were still together and their young daughter still had her mother and numerous others to look after her and fuss over her, but I couldn’t say so in the face of their grief.
I was very happy to find this as I am discovering symptoms of Aspeger’s in myself after learning that my 8 year old son has Asperger’s. Thank you for the breakdown in empathy, I can see I have problems expressing empathy. I try to navigate that area based on learned behaviour, because I know my kids and husband require me to show it.
I can relate to the EXTREME empathy I feel and am often overwhelmed with sadness about a news story, where there was someone killed, some injustice, etc. I find it very easy to relate, put myself in the shoes of someone suffering, so much so, that I can’t let go of that feeling of extreme sadness for days.
However, throw me into a situation where an acquaintance has lost their spouse, brother, etc….I feel the immense sadness and empathy, but feel so unequipped to help, to say anything of use, I am at a loss of how to act, what is expected, and I too prefer to help in tangible ways, ie. DROP OFF a loaf of banana bread and if I could just leave it on the porch and run, all the better. I am extremely uncomfortable around people who are grieving. I guess knowing myself, I probably would break down in tears in the midst of trying to comfort them. It’s like I feel too much.
It can be so emotionally draining to feel the weight of the world all the time. I feel so helpless as there is too much in this world that needs fixing, and all of it makes me sad. How can one turn that empathy off?
So I would have to agree, if I am on the spectrum, I think I have a issue with feeling to much, so much so, that it hurts.
I feel exactly the way you do when it comes to the whole “lack of empathy” stereotype. Not being able to read the signs of distress, is entirely different from not caring about distress. This is just so troubling.
What’s all the more flabbergasting is the myriad ways that the world at large shows a staggering lack of empathy towards those of us on the spectrum. Whether it’s firing someone because they don’t read people the way you expect they should, bullying and making fun of them in the workplace, or being completely blind to their distress, and judging the signs of that distress.
I try to be calm and patient, to realize the world doesn’t change in a day, but lately that’s gotten really hard for me. It’s appalling, really.
I agree, Lynne. Appalling is definitely the word to describe the situation. It’s very painful to me to see it continue.
I don’t believe I can hear subtle tones in people’s voices but I don’t know if thats related my occasional inability to say things in the right tone.
I think i certainly have the emotional/affective empathy. I always cry when Mufasa dies in the Lion King. I don’t know why. In other films as well, i feel the pain but i never feel it in war films or at least when people are getting shot, bombed etc.
I feel like I mirror people’s emotions. If people around me our happy, i am. Emotions for me are very intense. Although sometimes i feel very disconnected from the people around me, but usually when i do, i’m mentally questioning the emotions or the situation.
I particularly feel animal emotions, i think. I was at my cousin’s house and they introduced their dog that doesn’t like guys and it started really barking at my dad coz it was terrified and i receded and curled up into the sofa coz i was terrified and then the dog started taking a liking to me.
Have you ever wound up crying and you didn’t know why?