Empathy and autism: alexithymia

This post is the first in a six-part series on empathy from Autistic perspectives. In this first post, we’ll explore empathy and its relationship to alexithymia.

What is empathy?

Empathy encompasses the ability to recognize, understand, and share the feelings of others. It is a commonly held (but usually erroneous) belief that Autistic people lack empathy. While some Autistic people do struggle with empathy, for the most part this is due to alexithymia and not Autism. 

What is alexithymia?

Alexithymia is a type of emotional processing where an individual has difficulty identifying and describing their emotions. Alexithymics may also place more emphasis on external experiences since their internal emotional experiences is confusing. Alexithymia is more common in Autistics than allistics, with an estimated 50% of Autistics also being alexithymic. 

Wondering if you might be alexithymic? Try the free online Alexithymie Questionnaire. To help you interpret your questionnaire results, I recommend Neurodivergent Insight’s Alexithymia Traits Explained: An Introduction to the Alexithymia Wheel of Traits.

The relationship between empathy and alexithymia

Alexithymia may act as a barrier to fully engaging in empathetic responses, as the inability to accurately identify and understand emotions in themselves can prevent them from identifying and understanding other’s emotions and inner experiences. Alexithymics, therefore, may not lack empathy, but rather lack the skills needed to engage with empathy.

Developing empathy skills with alexithymia

If we consider that it may be a lack of skills rather than a lack of empathy, it is possible to work on building skills around emotional identification and understanding of other’s experiences. Here are a few ways to do this:

• Developing emotional awareness: intentionally practice identifying and naming your own emotions. Using an emotion wheel may be helpful, but it’s also important to note that your own experience of emotions may be different than the norm.
• Asking for explanations: ask trusted friends or loved ones to explain their emotional experiences. This can help you learn to identify your own emotions, as well as understand how your experience may differ from others’.
• Practicing empathy-building activities: try engaging in activities that promote perspective-taking and emotional understanding, such as volunteering, reading literature from diverse perspectives, or joining a variety of Facebook groups that offer both Autistic and allistic perspectives so that you can learn more about how others experience the world. Build your data set!

In our next post, we’ll explore the first of four types of empathy, cognitive empathy.