Recently, one of my clients mentioned the Double Empathy Problem of Dr. Damien Milton, a sociologist and psychologist and himself autistic, and how it helped them understand that one of the daily traumas of being autistic, is to be forced into the position of the “abnormal’ versus the norm. Discovering this theory helped them immensely in advocating for themselves, and liberating themselves from a heavy social stigma. I decided to share some thoughts on the theory here, so maybe it can help my readers too.
I must admit, I never understood the whole thing about ‘autistic people have no empathy’. I have so much empathy that often I can’t sleep at night – when I think of other people’s, and animals’, and even the earth’s suffering. Sometimes I wish I could absorb some of their pain to make their lives a bit softer, lighter. And in my therapy practice, empathy is my main skill. During my official autism studies that got me a degree allowing me to practice in Europe, I learned about the Theory Of Mind as being part of the autism basics. Simply put, it claims that autistic people lack of empathy. As with a few similar theories, this one never felt right to me.
In my practice, I get to meet many autistic people from all kinds of backgrounds, but never have I thought that they were lacking empathy. Autistic people are not the same as people with NPD (narcissistic personality disorder), sociopaths or psychopaths who really have empathy problems. It can happen, but it’s rare. So what is it that gave autism this stigma of ‘no empathy’, and this burden of ‘theory of mind’, that says that autistic people are not able to… well, basically understand another person?
Dr. Damien Milton, an autistic academic and father, proposes another perspective with the ‘Double Empathy Problem’. Let’s try to understand it.
An experiment with the “telephone game’ (you whisper something in the ear of the person next to you and they try to reproduce the message to the next person) has shown that when a circle of exclusively autistic people play this, the final message gets delivered rather accurately. Same result with a group of all NTs (non autistics). The problem starts when they get mixed. Apparently they don’t understand each other too well, and the original message gets lost easily.
Autistic differences lead to different life experiences, which cause an empathy divide between NTs (non autistics) and autistic people. Strictly spoken,, autistic people don’t communicate that badly, they simply experience life differently and express themselves differently from NTs. But autistic people understand each other very well and do show empathy. It is just that between the two different groups, there is a lack of social insight into the world of the other. The empathy problem is therefore not only on one side, but it arises in the encounter of both sides. And this is where the Double Empathy theory is revolutionary: in an absolute sense, the autistic people don’t have a communication or empathy deficiency. It simply works differently. The NT (neurotypical, or non autistic) person is as much deficient since they have difficulty understanding, and hence empathizing with the autistic universe!
In our western culture, communicating and empathizing differently from the norm as defined by the majority, is still problematic in a sense that it is not only misunderstood, but also considered incorrect, faulty, needing treatment and adaptation. The autistic person is considered presenting a ‘social deficit’ and expected to make the effort. And most of the autistic people actually do the hard work of understanding, adapting, translating their inner world (or at least part of it) to what can be received by the NT, normative population. No wonder almost ALL autistics have burn-outs.
Dr. Milton says: “One could say that many autistic people have indeed gained a greater level of insight into NT [non-autistic] society and mores than vice versa, perhaps due to the need to survive and potentially thrive in a NT culture. Conversely, the NT person has no pertinent personal requirement to understand the mind of the “autistic person” unless closely related socially in some way.”
This theory is at least 13 years old (I found literature from 2012), and who knows maybe it will find its way into our syllabi and official professional training programs one day? Because yes, the old paradigm is what it is: old and needing renewal. We can no longer function with ABA (behavioral training of autistic children) and the stigmatization (“no social skills, no empathy”) through old theories (Theory Of Mind) that have proven to be ableist, and in practice often so violent that they are ate the basis of many traumatizing experiences.
Marlene Nuhaan
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