Can Aspies develop empathy?

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They say that Aspies lacking (cognitive) empathy is like THE hallmark of the condition, and has certainly felt that way for most of my life, but once I reached about 27 years old, it got much better and felt more natural to me, where I had girlfriends and now a wife, and my wife at present always told me from our early years that I was a decent, kind and caring man (my aunt always told me something similar), and I know that I've been the compassionate and attentive type but something always felt amiss.

When I look at a more scientific explanation for this apparent empathy disruption, such as this very well-explained site below, it tends to make more sense.
http://psychcentral.com/lib/neuroscienc ... k-empathy/

It comes down to centralizing sensory abilities and roll them up to a cohesive picture, case in point, I often realize the fact that people are upset, or perturbed, or worried or whatever, but I don't always automatically process WHY, which is what the NT brain seems more adept at doing (I have done so on occasion, but not nearly as consistently as them). This is why I also theorize that those of us with HFA/ASD do to some degree effectively interpret the meaning of body language / facial expression / tone, but we don't always put it into its proper context, so we filter it out subconsciously. Like in the past I dated young women whose emotional cues suggested upset, and *I* was the source of it, but I only looked at things from MY perspective - ergo their emotional state didn't make sense, there was no reason for what I said or did to get them upset as far as *I* was concerned, but I clearly didn't take into account some unspoken environmental factor. So I just filtered it out. And this is why I think that this whole "perspective-taking" as the URL above mentions, is so integral to the seamless NT empathy processing.

To the main subject, can we develop empathy...I think we can, but it's just more sluggish and inconsistent. I think that years of being bullied and ridiculed kind of put us off the notion of developing empathy for people who treated us like s**t, to be blunt; we are put off by the hypocrisy of being empathetic towards those who didn't treat us with decency and compassion. Unfortunately, such an attitude impedes our progress and can become a vicious circle.

The article does concede that it may be possible since the brain is flexible and is always making more neural and synaptic connections (rejecting the ages-old notion of fixed intelligence of various types), but not enough research has been done - I mean considering that ASD was only really explored at the turn of this century, I see their point.

Many Aspies already have empathy.

I've had empathy since I was very little and I'm a certified aspie.

yes, its just that they feel others' emotions too intensely to cope. Understanding what another person is thinking and feeling is difficult for someone with Asperger’s. But this is different from not having the capacity to care and be concerned about people’s feelings.

A large part of empathy is a learned, and aspies can learn it as well.

myth.

As has been proven many a time before, yes, they can.

Maybe the myth is that we have no empathy in the first place.

Personally I don't think autistic people necessarily have a lack of empathy. I don't. If anything I get overwhelmed by people's emotions. The difference is in how the empathy is handled. Mine will often leave me confused and unable to act, whereas nts are not so effected. I think that nts are less concerned with understanding the cause of the other's upset, as with offering comfort regardless. In some ways this is a more superficial form of empathy because the person only cares about the moment of upset; but, at the same time, this moment is an important one and the person might need help getting through it. This is where I fail to be of use, but it's not because I don't care, it's because I'm not sure what to do.

Kathy Marshack, phD can kiss my tushy. You don't have to actually be smart to get a phD. You only have to be persistent and willing to give up years of your life. She's basing her ASSumptions on old data, and stating theories like they are true, when in fact they've been debunked.

She's part of this "Help! I accidentally married an Autstic and now my life is miserable." Trend. No, unsatisfied wives of the world. You did not get tricked into your marriage and you are not a victim of aspergers. All sorts of marriages experience problems. And it takes TWO people to make those problems.

Empathy is poorly defined and an absence of empathy is not the hallmark of the condition, though many may speak of it that way because it seems like effective shorthand for "Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts" which is one of the hallmarks of autism and requires considerable explanation to be understood.

There are almost certainly multiple developmental paths to autism, and some of these may effect reciprocity in social and emotional communication (what people usually mean when they misuse "empathy") to a greater degree than others.

Neuroplasticity means none of this is set in stone, new abilities can be gained and new skills developed or existing skills improved, so there is always reason to be hopeful.

This is where I agree with you. It's not true that AS people don't have empathy.

Looking at the the idea that thoughts ---->feelings---->behavior, as one finds in Cognitive Behavioral theory, we can see that the feelings follow thoughts. If someone with ASD doesn't follow those same thoughts to that feeling, it looks like lack of empathy when the ASD person doesn't react "appropriately." The person with ASD doesn't have the same thoughts, so how can they know the basis of the feeling.

Part of this, I think, has to do with representing oneself accurately (or "honestly" as some would describe this alleged ASD attribute, which could be another thread). Rather than *feigning* an empathetic response, the ASD person first tries to understand the thinking behind the emotion.

Not agreeing with the line of thinking that led the emoting person to that feeling, the ASD person may try to reason with the other person. (But isn't that the most empathetic thing to do if you want someone to feel better?)

Not agreeing with the thoughts or beliefs that led to the feeling, the ASD person may disregard the emotion as invalid and therefore not empathize because clearly this person is mistaken to have this emotion.

Not understanding how the emoting person got to the feeling at all, the ASD response may just be confusion.

This is not lack of empathy; thus is a true response from someone who thinks a different way.

Compare this to being a stranger in a foreign land. A native person bursts into tears, having an emotional response to some event which has no meaning to the stranger. What's the appropriate response of the stranger? It's confusion. NTs would say the appropriate empathetic response is to... burst into tears? Experience distress? An NT in that situation would likely be confused as well. Does that mean empathy is lacking? No, it does not.

I have had an abundance of empathy at times in my life but empathy can in fact be abused to the point by the one that you are trying to show empathy for that one becomes cold to the person who is abusing you & your empathy. This has happened to me.

I have become cold to my girl friend who abused my empathy such that at times it is very very hard for me to talk with her. She had used the times that I did listen intently to her issues to turn on me & start attacking me verbally.

Things have been improving of late between us but my trust & empathy towards her is returning very very slowly. I know she is trying though but I'm very much gun shy so to speak & often I retreat into my room for days on end coming out only for absolute necessities such as work, eat & rest room breaks. During this time I'm very quiet such that you may not know I'm there.I'm basically in shut down mode & only do what I absolutely have to do to survive. In times past before meeting her it was so bad that I would shut down for as much as a month or so & not speak to anyone during that time.

I would say I've always had empathy but I think one can develop it further later on with just life experience and introspection.

I have an unconquerable radiance of empathy shuddering through my brain every day, I have always been very empathetic, I can be quite selfish if something is making me confused that another human is doing where I think they can deal with it more efficiently so I'm not some perfect sage or something but on the whole I am very concerned with the well being and state of my fellow creatures. I read the paper and I will get extremely emotional when I read about painful experiences even if I never met folk, I don't forget about them for weeks sometimes I never forget them.

As someone who is a HFA, I think it is very hard to have empathy for people because you may feel you've been kicked around and don't see other people's problems as a big deal. Being a college students I see a lot of posters for racial equality, gay equality, sexual assault victims, etc. Whenever I pass them by I honestly just shrug because they seem like overridden topics you hear about all the time. That's by no means a knock on those people but you don't see any "Autism Awareness" signs and such because it is not talked about. But yeah, I think I've slowly lost empathy for people over my life, just because I may see their problems, they think are huge and in my mind are irrelevant. I've seen the sam people that were dicks to me hurt and don't care. For example, there was a kid in elementary school and middle school that I to say the least, had our differences and got under my skin with some things he said about me and this girl. Fast forward to Sophomore year of high school, he found a brain tumor or cancer of some sort and eventually just did online school because he missed so much. When I heard that happened I just let out a light-hearted chuckle. His health to my knowledge is fine now, but it's s**t like that that can make you not care or have compassion for someone.