Empathy skills

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I know my empathy skills suck. Often times NTs will ask you, how would you feel if someone said/did that to you? Well for aspies that doesnt always work. Because we sometimes are infact treating people the way we'd like to be treated.
Example: Sometimes we'd like people to be blatantly honest with us so were blatantly honest with them. But NTs often hate that.

I recently found one way to start to develop empathy, "to put yourself in their shoes". If you tell someone something offensive and you cant see why its offensive or why that gesture is rubbing them the wrong way. You have to imagine what if someone told you something you found offensive or did a gesture that rubbed you the wrong way? It maybe different, but it helps to experience how would that would hurt and then equal that to how u hurt them.

Sure its not quite empathy yet, but its taking steps toward empathy.

Sympathy: The capacity to feel compassion for another person's emotions

Empathy: The ability to recognize and understand nonverbal (body language) cues as to what another individual may be feeling or thinking and to deduce and carry out appropriate social responses - i.e.,to sense when someone may be in need of verbal support, a hug, a tissue, a kiss, etc. and know instinctively when and how to offer that response.

Theory of Mind: The ability to understand that others may have a point of view widely divergent to your own and to imagine and/or predict their behavior and responses based on that understanding.


I don't find Sympathy difficult, it seems to come naturally when appropriate, but I don't feel inclined to offer it if it isn't genuinely warranted. However, feeling it and being able to demonstrate it are two completely different matters.

Reading nonverbal (empathetic) cues is not terribly difficult (though it probably was when I was younger), however, I still suck at knowing when to offer support or condolences - I often find myself hesitating awkwardly until the moment has passed and its either too late, or someone else has done it for me.

I probably do miss a lot of nonverbal cues simply because I'm off in my own head and not paying attention. Poor eye contact doesn't help with cues, either, but not looking keeps me from feeling overwhelmed.

I think ToM is a lot of the reason why Aspergians are known for their naivete. Even when I think I know what someone else is thinking or may be about to do, I am often completely wrong.

Last edited by Willard on 18 Sep 2011, 5:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I pretty much agree with Willard, except on the ToM bit; I like to think I'm a little more skilled in my guesswork.. Then again, I'm only really applying it to my family. However, I do understand there are multiple points on view, and thus I try my best to offend no one.

Hopefully it's working.

Early on, I decided that there was something different about these people around me that warranted study. Ever since, I've been observing, taking mental notes, theorizing about how all of these social cues work and then attempting to mimic them and test the theories. When I was a kid, I empathized really well with Spock from the original Star Trek. He was working in a ship full of irrational lunatics (Kirk especially) and he patiently observed, occassionally tried to mimic the behavior and did his best to keep his own natural tendencies in check. Being exposed to that made me feel less odd and out of place. Yes, he was an alien, but he was the normal one to me. It also helped me to learn that it was better to keep it together, observe the "aliens" and just be careful not to make bad assumptions about what was acceptable behavior. It's probably one of the reasons why I was able to stay out of "special ed" when my odd behavior got noticed. I was good at acting normal.

I remember when I was first introduced to Jane Goodall's work as a teenager, I thought to myself how similar my approach to life was to her work in Tanzania. It's now become an analogy that works really well for me. Living among the NTs is like living among the chimps. They have this really complex and colorful social order that's absolutely fascinating to me. I've actually gotten pretty good at understanding, predicting and mimicking it, but to steal from Heinlein, I don't "grok" it. I also don't really have to in order to coexist with them. I make the right noises and gestures, they grunt back and pass the banana. I'm not sure if it's "empathy" if it's done as an intellectual exercise vs. an emotional/instinctive one. But it's a pretty decent substitute.

They're different and I can't make assumptions that they're going to react in the same way that I would. In fact, they may behave in a totally irrational manner that makes no sense to me. So, when in doubt, I make no sudden moves, I step away from the banana and I observe until I get a better sense of what's going on.

Oh, and I should mention that I fell into one of Jane Goodall's traps. I tend to think of NTs as people and I probably aspiemorphize them more than I should. It removes a lot of the objectivity from my studies of their behavior. But it does tend to make it easier to interact with them and mimic thier rituals more effectively.

I thought empathy is putting yourself in someone else's shoes, literally understanding and feeling how they might feel. While sympathy is feeling for someone else.

Yeah I do agree, aspies suck at theory of mind. I think many aspies can feel sympathy, but I cant really. As for your description of empathy, that can be taught in social skills groups. But TOM, we can be taught that everyone has diverging opinions but knowing how to gain TOM skills is only going to be situational based. You have to go through enough situations to gain adequate TOM skills. TOM can only be taught to a small extent in therapy and social skills groups. However therapy can help with situation to situation. But I feel with many psychs, their aspie TOM is limited. They really dont understand us, so its hard for them to help. So its going both ways, aspie dont get NT TOM and NTs dont get aspie TOM. Ive only had 1 friend in my entire life who got my TOM.

To Ai_Ling: "How would you feel if someone said/did that to you?" NTs often ask me this question. Frankly speaking, I don't know how to answer such questions because everyone is unique. One man's meat is another man's poison. No wonder some NTs say that I'm difficult to please, but I have difficulties pleasing them too.

To Xyzzy: I have never watched Star Trek before, but yup, I love your analogy about Spock. I haven't read Jane Goodall's works yet, but I agree with some authors that we humans share many similarities with chimps. You're right. When in doubt, take a step back and observe.

Hmm while in all technicality, that is true. But in general there are certain standards that majority of NTs like/dislike. However, aspies tend to like/dislike different things. Its hard. When we as aspies get asked that question, we take it super literally. I still take it super literally even though I know what NTs are trying to get at. And frankly, this often not a good think to ask me. Because Id say 3/4 of the time, if someone did the exact same action to me as Im doing to them, I wouldnt be bothered by it, hence one of the reasons why I continue to do it.