Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. One of the biggest myths we hear, is that autistic people have no empathy. This is simply not true. Instead, it may be that autistic people express their feelings in a way that neurotypicals may not understand or expect.

In the past, it was viewed that autistic people “lacked theory of mind”. Theory of mind is the ability to imagine the thoughts and feelings of others, in order to comprehend and predict their behaviour. Whilst it is true that autistic people can find it difficult to make sense of and understand the intentions, thoughts and emotions of others, autistic people state that the same can be said for neurotypicals.

We therefore prefer the double empathy problem, which is a theory by Damian Milton. The double empathy problem suggests that when people with very different experiences of the world interact with one another, they will struggle to empathise with each other. The difficulties are not attributed solely on the autistic person, but in the mutual disconnect between the non-autistic person and the autistic person.

Empathy

Some autistic people also describe hyper-empathy, which is an intense sense of empathy where the person can feel emotional, mental or even physical pain on behalf of someone else (people, animals and objects). This can understandably often lead to burnout, feelings of being overwhelmed, and subsequent withdrawal.  Potentially without a way of sharing and communicating how they feel, as it may be misunderstood by others.

Hyper-Empathy