It is often said that autistic people lack empathy. Some autistic people are told that they can’t be autistic because they are too empathetic. Let’s explore what this means and why. To begin with, let’s define empathy.
‘Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.’
— Oxford Dictionary
Looking at this definition, we can be clear that someone not having empathy does not mean they aren’t kind, caring, thoughtful, or a good friend. It simply means they may struggle to understand someone else’s feelings. This does not mean they can’t be sympathetic.
‘Sympathy is feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune.’
— Oxford Dictionary
Something that always jumps out at me in this autism empathy debate, is what exactly are we arguing? I think that saying someone lacks empathy has connotations of them being cold and unkind. But MOST people, autistic or not, will have had times where they haven’t been able to experience empathy for someone because they have never been in a situation like that themselves. This does not mean they won’t have been kind and felt sad for them.
Lacking this empathy does not take away anything from your character. You can have sympathy, but not empathy. And this is where this debate gets complex.
I think that often, when critics say that autistic people lack empathy, what they are doing is saying that we are uncaring. That we can’t focus on anyone but ourselves. (Which at times we may struggle with for multiple reasons, but not because we are selfish or rude).
However, autistic people who do struggle with empathy are not bad people because of this. Being able to understand and share another’s feelings may be difficult for several reasons. One reason is alexithymia – the struggle of identifying and recognising emotions in yourself and others. It can be hard to interpret people’s facial expressions and subtle cues to understand that they are struggling, or feeling a particular way about something. Basically, picking up subtle emotional signals may be harder for some autistic people. If you can’t read the facial expression of another person, or label the emotion that they are experiencing, this is going to mean you struggle in understanding the other’s feelings. However, through conversation and communication, you may be able to understand more. BUT, alexithymia itself isn’t an inherent part of autism. It is not needed for diagnosis, though autistic individuals are much more likely to experience alexithymia compared to non-autistic individuals and it is linked to difficulty understanding emotions.
Some autistic people may be told that they lack empathy when they don’t, they simply express their reactions differently. An example of this is them feeling empathetic but not displaying this on their face the correct way, because facial expressions may not be automatic to them.
We must also look at the other side to this. Some autistic people experience empathy so intensely that it can be really overwhelming.
Imagine feeling the emotions of every single character on TV and everyone you speak to in your daily life with such intensity. Imagine what a rollercoaster of emotions that would be for you every single day. Imagine feeling grief, devastation and distress so intensely that it feels like you have lost someone yourself. It can be incredibly exhausting. Especially when it’s only a fictional character.
This is known as hyper-empathy. Even the thought of someone in pain or suffering can be overwhelmingly painful, emotionally and physically. It is very common for autistic people to have this hyper-empathy towards animals. This can cause meltdowns and be quite debilitating
Even where an autistic person struggles with cognitive empathy (understanding another’s thought processes and emotions), this affective empathy (feeling what another feels) may not be lacking.
To summarise, it is a myth that autistic people lack empathy. Because while some do, many don’t. It is also not a bad thing that some autistic people lack empathy. It does not reflect badly on their character.
