Empathy and ASD

[LadyBird84]

What is your experience? Do you distinguish between reading/recognising/identifying emotions and being able to understand them when someone tells you what they are feeling?

(I hope I understood your questions correctly.)

People that I know very well; I'll be able to tell what they are feeling most of the time. For instance, I will have an idea whether it's angry/sad/happy/scared, but sometimes I can't figure it out. When my partner is tired he gets quiet but when he's sad he gets quiet too so if this happens I have to check with him (or hug him and he'll start talking and I'll figure it out).

People that I don't know, I usually have no idea unless their emotions are to the extreme (either positive or negative) and they're maybe crying or something.

I watch a lot of TV series and I feel like this helped on the subject. Like I'll know the story line and from there I can tell what a person must be feeling and I can see different ways of that state being portrayed on different shows or in different episodes. It's a lot more difficult in real life though.

The understanding of others' emotions.. If it's something has happened to me or some variation of it has, then I feel I can understand. But sometimes things are so far away from me that I need to have them explained.. For instance, my partner suffers a lot from anxiety and that is not something I know personally. If he explains it I will understand the mechanics of it, but not really what it's like for him.

My partner usually can't tell how I'm feeling either, so it does keep things kind of equal.

 

[Pinkie B]

What does that mean?

DEFINITION [Surprise-hate]: When you're going along about your day thinking everything is dandy and then all of a sudden everybody hates you and you have no idea why and they won't tell you either.

Great points. I've often wondered about the true ability of anyone to have cognitive empathy. I think it's an abstraction people would like to attain to, but can't actually do much in reality. I mean, if people were so good at it, we wouldn't have the massive political discord we have now, would we?

I've never heard of the distinction between affective and cognitive empathy. I am overly empathetic to people, but I think only cognitively so? I often get caught up in missing the point and making people upset with me in real-time.

...and not to change the subject to the taboo of politics, but I'm pretty sure the problems go a lot deeper than the ability to empathize. You have to also *want* to in order to do any good in the world...

 

[Clueless in Canada]

(I hope I understood your questions correctly.)

People that I know very well; I'll be able to tell what they are feeling most of the time. For instance, I will have an idea whether it's angry/sad/happy/scared, but sometimes I can't figure it out. When my partner is tired he gets quiet but when he's sad he gets quiet too so if this happens I have to check with him (or hug him and he'll start talking and I'll figure it out).

People that I don't know, I usually have no idea unless their emotions are to the extreme (either positive or negative) and they're maybe crying or something.

I watch a lot of TV series and I feel like this helped on the subject. Like I'll know the story line and from there I can tell what a person must be feeling and I can see different ways of that state being portrayed on different shows or in different episodes. It's a lot more difficult in real life though.

The understanding of others' emotions.. If it's something has happened to me or some variation of it has, then I feel I can understand. But sometimes things are so far away from me that I need to have them explained.. For instance, my partner suffers a lot from anxiety and that is not something I know personally. If he explains it I will understand the mechanics of it, but not really what it's like for him.

My partner usually can't tell how I'm feeling either, so it does keep things kind of equal.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Your description pretty much fits for me too.

 

[Rasputin]

I found a really good discussion of three types of empathy, Affective Empathy, Cognitive Empathy, and Compassionate Empathy.

Autistic people & empathy: what’s the real story?

I struggle a lot with Cognitive Empathy, which in a nutshell is understanding what others are thinking and feeling. The term for this difficulty in understanding what others are thinking and feeling is "mind blindness". This was a major theme when I was diagnosed with ASD.

I also realize now that I struggle with Compassionate Empathy after reading the above article. My wife has complained often that I lacked empathy, which I viewed as unfair criticism. Now, however, I accept this criticism as largely valid.

If anyone reading this struggles understanding empathy, you may find the above article of value.

 

[SDRSpark]

I found a really good discussion of three types of empathy, Affective Empathy, Cognitive Empathy, and Compassionate Empathy.

Autistic people & empathy: what’s the real story?

I struggle a lot with Cognitive Empathy, which in a nutshell is understanding what others are thinking and feeling. The term for this difficulty in understanding what others are thinking and feeling is "mind blindness". This was a major theme when I was diagnosed with ASD.

I also realize now that I struggle with Compassionate Empathy after reading the above article. My wife has complained often that I lacked empathy, which I viewed as unfair criticism. Now, however, I accept this criticism as largely valid.

If anyone reading this struggles understanding empathy, you may find the above article of value.

Great article...I think that's the first thing I've read about empathy that really makes sense to me. I definitely struggle with cognitive empathy and compassionate empathy.

 

[Rasputin]

Great article...I think that's the first thing I've read about empathy that really makes sense to me. I definitely struggle with cognitive empathy and compassionate empathy.

This article really clarified my understanding of empathy and things that I need to work on. You can not change who we are, but you can make conscious changes to behavior for the benefit of neurotypicals you may be close to.

What I would like to know is why my brain developed the way it did. Was it poor parenting, heridity, or a combination of factors?

 

[SDRSpark]

What I would like to know is why my brain developed the way it did. Was it poor parenting, heridity, or a combination of factors?

Most likely a combination of factors. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

I've thought about it and pretty much decided it's not worth my time and effort to try to figure out what came from where at this point - it's a tangled, interconnected mess by now and I don't think the top team of experts in the field could figure it out at this point.