The Double Empathy Problem is DEEP
“The growing cracks in the thin veneer of our “civilised” economic and social operating model are impossible to ignore”, Jorn Bettin (2021).
The double empathy problem (Milton, 2012) creates a gap of disconnect experienced between people due to misunderstood shared lived experiences. It is “a breakdown in reciprocity and mutual understanding that can happen between people with very differing ways of experiencing the world.”
Milton (2012) defines the double empathy problem as follows:
“A disjuncture in reciprocity between two differently disposed social actors which becomes more marked the wider the disjuncture in dispositional perceptions of the lifeworld — perceived as a breach in the ‘natural attitude’ of what constitutes ‘social reality’ for ‘neuro-typical’ people and yet an everyday and often traumatic experience for ‘autistic people’.”
I feel we are moving further away from embodied connections with each other; we are losing our primordial affinity with nature and drifting further from coherence, harmony, and the humanised ecology of care that we need (Bettin). The double empathy problem feels extreme, it feels deep; it is what I have been describing with my peers as DEEP (Double Empathy Extreme Problem).
The DEEP (DOUBLE EMPATHY EXTREME PROBLEM) arises from feelings of disconnect; not only from cultural, sexual, political, religious, neurodivergent, or any other cross-section of differences but also through embodiment, or lack thereof. The double empathy gap is non-linear; it is deep, multidimensional, rhizomatic, and holographic (Mirra, 2023). DEEP could be a huge contributing factor that leads to burnout and ill health. The DEEP gap can break people at their core, leaving them fragmented, disconnected, disoriented and disembodied, feeling like they’re in a void space.
Bodyminds is a term used to challenge the idea the body and mind are experienced separately (Descartes). Walker (2021) expands on this idea by explaining:
“Mind is an embodied phenomenon. The mind is encoded in the brain as ever-changing webs of neural connectivity. The brain is part of the body, interconnected with the rest of the body by a vast network of nerves. The activity of the mind and body creates changes in the brain; changes in the brain affect both mind and embodiment. Mind, brain, and embodiment are intricately entwined in a single complex system. We’re not minds riding around in bodies, we’re bodyminds.”
Phenomenologists believe that embodied attunement is an essential, core aspect of our experience of and in the world. Through embodiment, we are able to navigate the maps, the caverns, pleats, and folds (Edgar, 2023) of our lives and perhaps, create new maps in more meaningful ways.
“In phenomenology, embodied attunement refers to how individuals experience the world through their embodied interactions with the environment. This includes the physical, sensory, and emotional aspects of our interactions with the environment. Embodied attunement involves a reciprocal relationship between the body and the environment, where the body is attuned to the environment and the environment is attuned to the body (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Varela, Thompson and Rosch, 2017; Gallagher and Zahavi, 2020; Gallagher, 2022)”.(cited in: Hipólito, I. & White, B., 2023)
There is a gap between those who are intune with their own bodyminds and the bodyminds of those they are with and people who are dis-embodied, (regardless of any intersectionality and other empathy gap that may be present). As Walker (2021) says;
“Mind is inextricably entwined with brain, and brain with body; thus, mind is inextricably entwined with body in a single complex system and in a continuous dance of mutual shaping.We’re not minds riding around in vehicles of flesh and bone; we’re bodyminds, bodies that think and perceive. Experience, awareness, sense of self, psychological development, and capacities for feeling, knowing, cognition, connection, and action are all entwined with — and shape, and are shaped by — habits of bodily usage, including habits of movement, posture, breath, contact, consumption, tension and relaxation, gaze, gesture, and expression.”
I am learning to be more embodied through somatic practice and connecting with other people exploring these ideas across various communities. The work of Kay & Dan Aldred (2023) about Embodied Education demonstrates how embodiment is essential for individuals to thrive, we need somatic practice embedded into the ways our education and healthcare systems operate and evolve, we need people to be deeply intune with others, embodied, so they can transform and work more meaningfully.
We need to carve out time to embody ourselves in the world around us, reorient ourselves, realign ourselves, our past, connect with nature, embrace the rhythms and cycles in water, on earth and in the air and sky around us to fire and energize our bodyminds. We need to take moments to breathe so we can recharge and gather the force we need to move, to transform and to neuroqueer ourselves and our spaces.
Neuroqueering is a verb; it is an act of doing and transforming intentionally through the bodymind. To neuroqueer is to seek out the gaps, the in-between liminal spaces where disconnect lingers. We need to look for opportunities within the cracks of broken systems and broken relationships so we can transform. I am finding these spaces within various online communities in the Dark Forests (Boren, 2024) of the Autistic Rhizome (Gray-Hammond, 2023), where perhaps there is a natural gravitation towards exploring these ideas due to people feeling marginalised, disconnected, and disembodied from society because of the DEEP double empathy gap caused by neuronormative society, prejudice and ableist systems.
I am trying to find spaces of Ma (pauses of potential inbetween people, objects, places and experiences) to find creative ways to liberate my bodymind from neuronormativity, I am seeking potential in the spaces in between to make positive, radically inclusive change through my work with Ryan Boren (Stimpunks, 2024) as part of our Neuroqueer Learning Spaces Project. It feels like ripples are happening, slow change is occurring, conversations are opening up, serendipity is flowing, and the potential of a neuroqueer-embodied future is beginning to transform more spaces.
References:
Aldred, K. L., & Aldred, D. (2023a). Embodied education Creating safe space for learning, facilitating and sharing.
Bettin, J. (2021, March 16). Nurturing ecologies of care. Jorn Bettin. https://jornbettin.com/2020/10/12/nurturing-ecologies-of-care/
Boren, R. (2024d, June 9). Campfires in dark Forests: Community brings safety to the serendipity. Stimpunks Foundation. https://stimpunks.org/2024/05/16/campfires-in-dark-forests-community-brings-safety-to-the-serendipity/
Edgar, H. (2023, July 1). Caverns, Pleats and Folds — MoreRealms — Medium. Medium. https://medium.com/@helenrealms/caverns-pleats-and-folds-912cc93cb950
Gray-Hammond, D. (2023). Autistic rhizome — emergent divergence. Emergent Divergence. https://emergentdivergence.com/category/autism/autistic-community/autistic-rhizome
Hipólito, I. & White, B. (2023, July 3). Smart Environments for Diverse Cognitive Styles: the Case of Autism. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/eb48n
Milton, D. E. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem.’ Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.710008
Mirra, H. H. (2024d, April 27). Holotropism: a multi-dimensional, spacious, edgeless terrain. Medium. https://hmirra.medium.com/holotropism-1cdf99c00b74
Walker, N., & Raymaker, D. M. (2021). Toward a Neuroqueer Future: An Interview with Nick Walker. Autism in Adulthood, 3(1), 5–10. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2020.29014.njw
Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities.
