Empathy and Verstehen

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I added a section to my personal narrative on the subject of "Empathy and Compensations":

http://narrative.neurelitism.com

In it, I refer to my own experiences, as a sociologist, practicing methodological empathy (Verstehen) or cultural relativism. I explain how Verstehen helped compensate for my lack of cognitive empathy (theory of mind, etc.).

My point is, that even if some autistics have problems with cognitive empathy, there is no reason they can't cultivate methodological empathy.

YOur webzorpage is V/ic/<edly koewl. KTHXBAI

Lovely website, and I love the little spinning globe cursor that came up.

I fully agree that we can construct our own version of empathy if we decide that is what we want.

Cool..I will bookmark as this is an area of interst for me. I find the "lack of empathy" very confusing as I know since childhood I was very empathetic in some ways and it still gets me in trouble with many of my jobs. I find it painful to be around the sffering of vulnerable people...(I work with DD clients and dogs at a kennel). The pain fo their discomfort is so intense that I often break rules to try and avoid their feeling it, (so I can avoid it myself). I would really like to understand this, as it certainly doesn't fit my current understanding of AS. I have the sae problem when asked to do something I consider unethical..about 5o% of many jobs...even selling someone something that I think is crap or creating an add to trick someone into buying something useless.

I do think reading a lot of books through out my life about different people from different cultures in different time periods (as well as being a psych major) has given me "logical empathy". I find myself often defending even the biggest jerks becuase I realize that they may have chemcical or psychological factors that we are not aware of.

er. and 'verstehen' is german for 'understand'.

which makes total sense. i just was confused by the title when i saw it.

Thank you all for reading it.

Yes, although Verstehen is a verb (to understand), I believe it was used by the German rationalists (including Simmel and Weber) in order to indicate active understanding.

It seems to me that, since so many aspies are interested in logical thinking, practicing Verstehen (methodological empathy) would be attractive.

IMO, the problem is the terminology. Simon Baron-Cohen and others are using the term "empathy" in a very nuanced sense, which I called "cognitive empathy" in that narrative. It is not exactly the same as the popular definition of the term, empathy.

in general, it means 'to understand' but it can be used as 'understand' depending on the sentence structure and pronouns used.

eta: sorry for the off-topic pickiness...

Last edited by RampionRampage on 06 Jun 2008, 2:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm finding this fascinating, and will be taking some more time to reflect upon everything you've written there. Thank you for taking the time to share... Much of what I've already read resonates; or as Michael would say - "I grok."


M.

I still do not understand...How can I feel what another person is feeling uness I know there thoughts about it. Some people get so upset over things that seem...unimportant and I get upset about things they find unimportant...like th jerks who put tupperware in the bottom of the dishwasher can't seem to have any empathy for my anger about it after I told them 10 times that they warp down there and can fall off onto the heat coil and smell up the whole house.\

Where is these famous NT empathy when it comes to bullying and standing by when someone else is bullied. I just don't see many example of it day to day...certainly not towards me or the disabled or the dogs...how can the be so oblivious to Ovious suffering and still be considered empathetic? If this isn't empathy...what is it?

I've considered this before; but it almost seems like lying, it's far too insencere. It strikes me as, okay, so I can't feel what you feel - but I'll pretend to anyway. I'm sure that's not what you mean, but that is how I see it.

Empathy, as the term is used in relation to "theory of mind" is not knowing what another person is thinking or feeling. It is being able to read their body language, tone of voice, etc. so that one can respond to what they are feeling (not only to respond to the words themselves in a detached fashion).



In common language, I would call it empathy, but it is different from what people like Baron-Cohen are talking about.

It is compensation. My sister talks about my late mother in a very emotional fashion. My inclination is to respond in a detached fashion. However, I realize that is not what she wants, so I just keep quiet and listen.

TL;DR: however, I will when I feel more up to it.
What's more, it's good to hear learning empathy is possible from a professional.
I'd like to show this to a former friend of mine who claimed that "Empathy can't be learned."
And I did see certain parts of it regarding some less-than-nice childhood experiences with other, so called professionals when you were younger.
Hope things are much better than that now, dude.

OK...thanks for explaining. I think they should pick some different words then because when you see lists of aspie traits..this one can not only be missleading, since it is taken out of the context of their particular deffinition of empathy by all the people who quote them, but is slanderous to our true charactors. Lacking empathy is somethig said about sociopaths and I don't care to be identified with that group.

ToM also seems to me to be a bit confusing because I DO know that other people have their own minds/thoughts/beliefs/desires but I just can't figure out what they would be if they are very different from my own so I just have to act as f they were like mine until they verbilize what they are....To me, to expect otherwise would be assuming that I am psychic...I also think they do the same thing to us...assuming that we are "like them" and want the same things, etc. I can't count the times that they were wrong by projecting their own gestalt onto me. As example...assuming tha my behavior that draws attention from them is done mearly to draw their attention...I don't like attention(especially negative attention). If I lack ToM, so do they, and they are far worse about "projecting" onto me then I have ever been towards them.

It is alll definitions. The way in which empathy is defined in relation to so-called theory of mind is very different from how the word is used in everyday conversation.



Thank you. Yes, much better.