Mind-blindness

[Divrom]

Many clinicians speak of 'mind-blindness' as an essential - maybe even defining - aspect of autism.

Personally, I don't buy it. I am a fan of the Intense World Theory. So I tend to see any 'deficits' as actually being the flip-side of strengths.

As an example, some people say we feel no empathy. I would suggest that we feel too much and struggle to manage or interpret it. Also, some say we don't understand sarcasm. I'd suggest that we actually pick-up on multiple possible meanings of any particular sentence, such that we struggle to know which is the intended meaning.

Anyway, back to mind-blindness. I don't buy it. I think it is too deficit-oriented and a lazy way to explain things.

What about you?

 

[xudo]

I had to read up on mind blindness, but yeah it describes me pretty much to a tee. I can't understand how other people think and feel because I can only understand my own mind. As for sarcasm though, I mostly have a very good grasp of it. I am very sarcastic, but occasionally I do miss when others are sarcastic.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

I had to read up on mind blindness, but yeah it describes me pretty much to a tee. I can't understand how other people think and feel because I can only understand my own mind. As for sarcasm though, I mostly have a very good grasp of it. I am very sarcastic, but occasionally I do miss when others are sarcastic.

Yeh,right.

 

[Divrom]

I had to read up on mind blindness, but yeah it describes me pretty much to a tee. I can't understand how other people think and feel because I can only understand my own mind.

I would argue that that is true for everyone.

 

[Suzanne]

I USED to have mind blindness, but now, totally the opposite.

I am good with empathy and terrible with sympathy and believe that is where the "professionals" get mixed up, which is pretty ironic!

I am rather too good at sarcasm now ( never used to be), but I still have trouble with interpreting it in others; the best I come up with is: why on earth did you say that? Kind of thing and if it is out loud, I generally will get back: I was being sarcastic, but really, what right do I have to feel upset about it, when I too can be like it?

I am uncomfortably gaining awareness that I am hypocritical, which is not a nice place to be in.

 

[Divrom]

I know quote a few aspies who are very sarcastic themselves.

Personally, I struggle to know when something ISN'T sarcastic, as I see/hear it all over the place.

 

[xudo]

I would argue that that is true for everyone.

Then how do people manage to express empathy? You have to be able to (to some degree at least) be able to "put yourself in their shoes" and see it from their perspective. I can't do that, so empathy is a problem for me.

 

[Divrom]

Then how do people manage to express empathy? You have to be able to (to some degree at least) be able to "put yourself in their shoes" and see it from their perspective. I can't do that, so empathy is a problem for me.

I would argue that they guess. If you look at something like CBT, they list mind-reading as an unhelpful thinking habit.

Empathy, as you are using it, is a myth and an illusion.

And, of course, it goes both ways. NTs presume sometimes that we are rude or don't care if we say something. That's an example of them presuming to step into our shoes and getting it wrong.

 

[WereBear]

I would argue that that is true for everyone.

I have to disagree. Like all skills, it varies, and is very much helped by imagination, perhaps.

But I have no other way of explaining how I can feel for even different species, and my cat blog is based on my understanding of other species from their perspective.

If we are talking about different things, I apologize.

 

[Fitzo]

I can do both empathy and sympathy, but only in situations I have experienced myself or can accurately imagine. So I believe it varies depending on the situation. For instance I can feel empathy for someone going through a marriage breakup but not someone who's just been diagnosed with cancer.

 

[wight]

"mind blindness" is a misnomer and an oversimplification of the much broader psychological concept of "Theory of Mind". See Criticism of: Mind-blindness - Wikipedia

Theory of mind - Wikipedia

Theory of mind appears to be an innate potential ability in primates including humans, that requires social and other experience over many years for its full development. Different people may develop more, or less, effective theory of mind.

The study of which animals are capable of attributing knowledge and mental states to others, as well as the development of this ability in human ontogeny and phylogeny, has identified several behavioral precursors to theory of mind. Understanding attention, understanding of others' intentions, and imitative experience with other people are hallmarks of a theory of mind that may be observed early in the development of what later becomes a full-fledged theory. In studies with non-human animals and pre-verbal humans, in particular, researchers look to these behaviors preferentially in making inferences about mind.

 

[wight]

The human mind (distinction made from the physical brain) is so complex and mutable that even people who study it their entire lives have only a rudimentary understand of it's workings, and then only their OWN mind, with any clarity. The proof being how rapidly psychology and neuroscience keep changing and expanding.

 

[Streetwise]

i

Then how do people manage to express empathy? You have to be able to (to some degree at least) be able to "put yourself in their shoes" and see it from their perspective. I can't do that, so empathy is a problem for me.

i do it by gifts or loaning aids to people ,you understand more as you experience unending psychological pain or physical pain.

 

[the_tortoise]

I think mindblindness is a valid and potentially useful concept if it is defined as an inability to know or theorize about what others are thinking. (Although I would say that all of the theories of social and emotional cognition are overly-simplified, overly-abstracted, and have obvious flaws and mind-blindness is no different.)

I grew up not naturally thinking about other people's perspectives at all unless specifically asked to do so or prompted by clear displays of emotion (and then I couldn't really get into their perspective as far as their thoughts or if they had feelings I didn't know/underestand). I can even remember the beginning of my ability to try to see the perspectives of others sometime in my mid-late teens, because it was torturously difficult and for a long time I just tried and failed over and over and over again in every single instance.

Even today, when I would say that I often think about other people's perspectives and like to believe I have pretty good perspective-taking ability (for example, I am keenly aware of the difference between "putting myself in another's shoes as myself" and "putting myself in another's shoes as them"), I apparently think about the perspectives of others notably less often than is common; I am continuously surprised by how often my non-autistic family and friends think about other people's perspectives, and even surprised by how often other ASDers think about other people's perspectives in relation to things like how they are perceived in day to day life.

When people speak and I don't understand them.....Even though there are times when I am confused because I can see many possible meanings and can't work out the intended one, there are also times when people say things and I consider only one meaning, or can't come up with any meanings at all.

 

[OkRad]

I know quote a few aspies who are very sarcastic themselves.

Personally, I struggle to know when something ISN'T sarcastic, as I see/hear it all over the place.

me too. Someone says, "Nice day" and I am sure they are all pissed and I am to blame.

 

[OkRad]

I would argue that they guess. If you look at something like CBT, they list mind-reading as an unhelpful thinking habit.

Empathy, as you are using it, is a myth and an illusion.

And, of course, it goes both ways. NTs presume sometimes that we are rude or don't care if we say something. That's an example of them presuming to step into our shoes and getting it wrong.

It is so rich. NTs treat us in ways we would NEVER treat them and then tell us WE have no compassion. Look at the research they have done, the way they want to abort us. it is no stretch. I have a chromosomal abnormality and am involved in the research about that chromosome. I learned that MANY women who have feti w the aberations are encouraged to abort.

Now I am not getting into abortion. That is not my point. My point is that they have decided MY LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING so the next kid w this also is not worth it. AND that the parents will hate us. My parents love me, thank you. My family does too and the few people who I meet like me, somewhat.

Bottom line is though I am suicidal here and there I LOVED BEING HERE. If not for being beaten up and traumatized I would have never thought of suicide. I am SO GLAD i got to be here and read Homer and see the sky and everything.

So NTs want me dead. I HATE THEM for that. Do I want them dead? NO.

WHo has less compassion??????? Phhhhhhhew

 

[DogwoodTree]

I would argue that that is true for everyone.

I think NTs and aspies both, if not conscious about it, tend to assume that others think the same way as that person does. If you're an NT, then assuming everyone thinks like you do won't be far off the mark in most cases. It's not theory of mind...it's just homogeneity.

If you're an aspie, though, the way you think is likely very different from most other people. So when we make the same assumption...that most people think like we do...we're way off, and that's very noticeable. It's the same process that NTs use, but with very different results because we have to begin the process at a place that puts us at a significant disadvantage simply because of the differences.

Those of us who have been able to notice this discrepancy and therefore study other people in-depth so as to make adjustments...we actually expend a great deal of our intelligence bandwidth to the problem of understanding and adapting to other people's perspectives. We become more fluent in the foreign "culture" of NTs. They could do the same for us, but most don't.

 

[SusanLR]

I had to look that up. Mindblindness. I think it is as clear as mud.
Yes, I'm sarcastic a lot too.
Usually I can tell if someone is being sarcastic towards me.
Not always. Sometimes I'm just at a loss as to what they are conveying.

The empathy issue is still not clear to me exactly what it is. I've read things like "mirror genes" can be involved.
Making it when we see someone in a state of experiencing, we somehow feel something like it inside?
Like if we see someone in pain/agony, we feel hurt emotionally also. Or the opposite, if we see happy, laughing people, we're suppose to feel a lightheartedness also.
That's the best I can describe it from what I've studied.
I know the term is used a lot in the sociopathic personality. And as to why when shown a series of photos from gruesome to happiness, there are no changes in the internal emotions from one photo to another.

I can say for myself, how does one relate to a feeling you have never felt?

For instance I can feel empathy for someone going through a marriage breakup but not someone who's just been diagnosed with cancer.

Exactly. Having had cancer I can relate to that feeling of just being told. On the other hand, something like the joy a mother feels at hearing she is going to have a baby, I can't relate to at all since I've never been a mother, wanted children, never experienced pregnancy, I've never even held a baby.
So the true meaning of empathy still remains a mystery.

 

[Laughingowl1975]

I can be sympathetic and empathetic to a fair degree and do sarcasm but its the intent with expressions, feelings and phrases I often struggle with, example someone may respond to something I say with "Whatever you say" or "yeah right" and I find myself pondering what was meant by that, was it sarcasm or an agreement. My mind gets so boggled easily figuring out what people want and what to say, no wonder I find socializing a bit tiresome.

 

[Suzanne]

i
i do it by gifts or loaning aids to people ,you understand more as you experience unending psychological pain or physical pain.

Just yesterday, a lady I do not know, who is one of my facebook contact, friends, said that she also loves cross stitching, but her eyes fail her and so, she cannot do cross stitching. I immediately said I havea magnifying glass if she wants it? I have not got the same issue as she has, but the idea of not being able to cross stitch again, prompts me to use what I have, for someone else.

I tend towards the practical element; sympathy is hard, when I see a solution.