Autism and Empathy
Empathy: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy
It is a common stereotype that autistic people do not have empathy. This is something that comes up in my social work practice on a regular basis and came up as recently as recently as this week. This unfortunate belief is one that is held by many in the medical, psychological, and helping professions (social work, education, disability services, etc). This is belief is not only false and not backed up by the latest science, it’s harmful to autistic people. The fact is, that empathy in autistic people just looks different.
Over my 20 years of practice with autistic folks, I have never met an autistic person who felt no empathy. I had an autistic teen tell me that while they cared about their family, they didn’t really care about anyone else, ‘Because why should I care about people I don’t know?’ While this person certainly had a lack of empathy for most of the world, they were incredibly empathetic towards their family members, especially their youngest sibling. At the same time, I have worked with many autistic people who I felt had much more empathy than the average neurotypical. These individuals report overwhelming distress when they see harm done to others, or think they may have even mildly hurt another person’s feelings. I encounter this in my work over and over again and much more often that my first example.
I think about my own experience as an autistic teen as I traveled abroad for the first time and then began to work to be more informed about world events. When I would watch the news about current events of the times, such as the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war and genocide occurring in that region, I would feel physical pain in my body. I vowed to work towards a profession that would help me make the world a better place. While it took me until my 30s to find social work as a profession, I was volunteering with Bosnian refugees in Portland by age 19. When I shared my experiences with the psychologist who did my autism assessment, he told me that many autistics, especially women, displayed this type of empathetic drive to make the world a better place (think Greta Thunberg). He told me that most of the autistic, female adults he tested were in professions such as special education, social work, counseling, etc.
So, if you are reading this, please erase the stereotype from your mind that autistic people do not feel empathy. IT IS JUST NOT TRUE. It is likely that the autistic person is just not feeling or displaying empathy in the way that neurotypicals do. Defining the world only by neurotypical standards is the definition of ableism. Continuing to hold onto this and other harmful beliefs about autism is ableist. Take some time to read more on this subject, talk to autistic people you know about how they experience empathy, and help make the world a more understanding and accepting place.
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