Empathy

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I wrote this paper for my counseling class. I'll just attach the basic conclusion to it, but I'm wondering on what you guys think about my conclusion about empathy. The paper is entitled, "Empathy: An Intellectual Odyssey."

What is empathy? [I'm 100% serious; I don't understand it...]

I thought empathy was when you could put yourself in another person's shoes even though you had not had a similar experience to the one you are empathizing with; sympathy was understanding another person's POV because you had had similar experiences yourself.

I found your work very interesting, however, as a man with AS who is also a trained spiritual
director, whose job it is to listen in depth to others, I feel it wise to point out that listening for me is NOT about asking questions, for this is often what us aspies do in covering our tracks and fall back on the mechanics of listening over the dynamics of this most subtle art.

A good comparison to draw on here could be on how many of us in the spectrum train ourselves to look at the mid-point of anothers eyebrows, as a way of trying to avoid the neurological discomfort awakened in the exchange. This strategy is for some of us as good as it gets, but it is not the real thing, just as asking questions is NOT real listening. REAL listening has to be contemplative, it is beyond words, and can only come from traveling deep within ones own heart, and as a result our heart resonating with the other.


This might seem very strange for some people to hear that a man with autism can be able to offer empathic listening and affirm another with warmth and tenderness. But natural empathy is a sense not a virtue, and because people in the autistic spectrum can have difficulties with this natural response, we generally overcompensate in other areas and often this forces us down into hidden depths in order to connect with others.

A useful image here would be that of a water pump, for while the average person has a natural and effortless supply of natural empathy (I might be pushing it here) I on the other hand, would have to work this system manually and with great effort. As my emotional routing is well used (from years spent in psychotherapy, not just intelectualizing my feelings but deeply feeling my feelings) I have as much capacity to empathise as most people, but it is from the well of emotion and experienced feelings.

I think it very useful to brake down empathy into 3 units. Cognitive..........Emotional.........and Natural. It is also of great importance I feel, to point out that us aspies can love and that our love can be felt by another...........we just love and show our love differently.

I have a "talent" for acting to be empathetic.
I can't feel what others are feeling at all. I will pretend to, as I know what they are feeling, but I don't feel it inside.

I'm alexithymic and can't identify and respond to my own emotions properly. Relative to that, I'm probably better at picking up on others emotions that my own. Compared to a normal person, you could say I have an empathy deficit, but that's wouldn't be very fair. After all, even if I think "What would I feel in that situation?" I won't necessarily know the answer to that, and if I do I might be wrong.