Autism and Empathy

Myths about autism as an antonym for empathy have permeated popular culture where they have the potential to do a lot of harm.

This review of a book called The Angel Maker says of a character, "He has Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. He lacks empathy..." The review goes on to use phrases such as "empathy deficit."

Both Kristina and I blogged about the "Transporters" video that is supposed to "teach emotions"--the implication being that "emotions" are what needs to be "taught." (Regarding the unfortunately worded headline in the change.org newsletter, I apologize and have done what I can make sure a similar thing does not happen again.)

Recently I was interviewed about a paper which used autism/empathy as opposite ends of the same spectrum in a discussion of Sarte/Camus. In searching for a link to the paper, I found something much better to share: Donna Williams was also interviewed and posted her answers on her blog. Williams' answers are so well put they nearly make my post here moot.

It's become a given in popular culture that autism "means" a person lacks empathy and emotions. But this idea is not present in the actual definition of autism, and neither is it universally accepted by autism researchers nor is it consistent with the first hand experiences of autistic individuals.

"Autism" as a descriptive word "means" a set of observable behaviors defined by DSM criteria, which says nothing at all about the reasons why a person is exhibiting those behaviors. Neither does the definition include anything about a person's core capacity for emotion, caring, or empathy. Assumptions about what's going on inside based on what is observed on the outside can lead to mistaken impressions.

Atypical social interaction does not "mean" lack of empathy or emotions any more than lack of social imitation "means" lack of creativity or imagination. There are a huge number of reasons why social interaction may be atypical. It may be from lack of being able to process social information on a sensory level, or difficulty with language, or from being unable to move with volition in response to a social prompt, or from a vast pool of other reasons including a personality disorder that affects empathy.

Jim Sinclair addresses empathy from a first-person perspective in the essay Thoughts About Empathy. Sinclair also writes about the empathy issue in Bridging the Gaps: An Inside-Out View of Autism,

...Even when I could find words, no one believed me. I was told that I was only pretending to feel pain, fear, confusion, or whatever I was reporting because I really felt whatever the therapist's preferred theory predicted I should feel.

And through all this condescending concern about feelings and emotional issues, no one ever bothered to explain to me what the words meant! No one ever told me that they expected to see feelings on my face, or that it confused them when I used words without showing corresponding expressions. No one explained what the signals were or how to use them. They simply assumed that if they could not see my feelings, I could not feel them. I think this shows a serious lack of perspective-taking!

Dawn Prince Hughes writes in Songs of the Gorilla Nation,

Many people, again lay and professional alike, believe that all people with autism are by definition incapable of communicating, that they do not experience emotions, and that they cannot care about other people or the world around them. My experience, both personally and with others like me, is that in many cases quite the opposite is true. A significant number of autistic people who care deeply about all manner of things, and are profoundly emotional about them, share these capabilities in the privacy of their journals, diaries, and poetry. They do not show them to the world, which is too intense and often too destructive, or, worse, dismissive. They do not show them to professionals, whose beliefs about the abilities of autistic people and the power they wield over their clients sometimes make them too frightening to challenge.

This idea that autistic people generally, globally don't have empathy or emotions can lead both directly and indirectly to horrific human rights issues. Such as an "autism expert" telling a room of teachers not to worry about autistic students being bullied because the autistic students won't be emotionally affected by bullying. Bullying is known to lead to depression, anxiety, and suicide in autistic people and is a serious, serious health and safety issue. That's just one example, and hardly the most shocking.

Blanket generalizations about a minority population's capacity for human emotion have consequences.