This idea that people on the Autism Spectrum do not have empathy is not only wrong; it’s toxic. My sense is that Spectrum folks are in fact overwhelmingly empathic, but unable to make sense of the truly strange emotional functioning neurotypicals think is normal. I think you’ll appreciate the posts!

Karla

I think we do shutdown/freeze up, whatever, when overwhelmed by emotions or our senses. I’ve certainly been accused of “not caring” because of my reactions when nothing was further from the truth though I could not articulate that at the time. I see the same thing in my friend…maybe even more extreme though due to his past bad experiences related to socializing. I can understand from his behavior why people often misinterpret his behavior as rude, uncaring, arrogant etc. and at the same time I can often sense the pain and emotional turmoil he is experiencing because he really is a very sincere and genuinely nice man who feels empathy for others.

In workshops, I do a teaching game called Emotion Theater, where I have people become emotions. I don’t have them become emotional, rather, I have them take the place of anger (and sadness, and shame, and happiness, etc.) in the psyche, and then I have all the people-emotions interact with one another, both in healthy scenarios, where the emotions are doing what they should, and then in situations where something is wrong.

So, for instance, the anger-person’s job is to watch the social milieu for incoming attacks while the shame-person’s job is to watch the internal milieu for outgoing attacks; the sadness-person watches for anything that needs to be released, the fear-person watches for change, novelty, and physical danger; etc.

It is totally amazing how quickly people understand what emotions are supposed to do, how they interact, and how behavior falls apart when certain emotions are not working properly. I think it might be a fun thing for spectrum people to witness and play; it certainly helps NTs, who supposedly know what emotions are for. Hah!

I’d really like to film Emotion Theater, but it’s a very kinetic thing with 15 emotion-people in the circle, and I think I’d need more than one camera!

I love the idea of yours to have spectrum kids work through emotions using actors! What a brilliant idea. My son’s school uses drama class in much the same way. In order to play a role, you have to understand the emotion involved. It is a HUGE lesson in emotions and how they look on the outside. Your unique spin on it would be to explore what the purpose of the emotions are and how they can be used. Wow…I can see a workshop here (maybe even for people not even on the spectrum!).

We had one serious “little Professor” guy who would do monologues about movies or bus schedules, but it was clear that he was trying to engage socially, sort of desperately so. I’ve been thinking a great deal about creating a visual guide to emotions that involves more than happy faces and sad faces, since I’ve seen so many spectrum people say that they see hundreds of images of people in each moment and have a hard time organizing all of it. I’m thinking of creating a sort of kaleidoscopic or 360 view of the full bodies of different people having each emotion, but also suppressing each emotion, and mishandling each emotion. Emotions don’t just sit on the face, and since eye contact can be too overwhelming, it would be nice to help spectrum people decipher emotions in ways that their brains can tolerate.

I think that this concept of mind-blindness is not correct, though it has taken on a life of its own. I think it’s leading us in the wrong direction.

Oh, do you know what would be awesome? I’d love to gather spectrum kids and actors, and have the actors do some emotional displays that they could freeze in place so the kids could have the time they need to process and organize it. I gotta think about that.

I hadn’t heard about mirror neurons until very recently! I’m still learning. Neuroscience is amazing!

So let me say this without referring to mirror neurons: The idea that autistic people are “mind blind” is something that doesn’t seem to be standing up to scrutiny. For instance, Temple Grandin is certainly not mind blind where animals are concerned.

Though putting forth ideas that can then be shot down is a function of scientific discovery, it’s important not to typecast autistic people based on whichever theory is most popular at the moment. What I found is that each person on the spectrum is a complete individual, as we all are. To assume that there is mind-blindness may blind us to what is actually going on with the individual in front of us.