Mindfulness and Double Empathy

Photo by Floris Van Cauwelaert on Unsplash

I am not a huge fan of the word empathy because it can be distorted into a patronising form of pity or hijacked into ‘about the other person, not you anymore’. But I do like the concept of double empathy because it is mutual, and therefore cannot fall into the above traps.

THE concept of double empathy was first suggested in 1012 by an autistic researcher called Damian Milton, and it highlights the struggle that many autistic and other neurodivergent (ND) individuals have with communicating with neurotypical (NT) individuals. I relate very strongly to this insight as I feel misunderstood more often than I can possibly remember, and have cut off communications with so many people as a result. This mis-communication is usually blamed on me and I am made to feel the wrong one, so I withdraw. I have heard this story hundreds of times from so many other ND individuals, so I know it is not actually me, but it took years of horrendous shame and self-hatred before I reached this understanding.

Double empathy

Double Empathy is the term applied to a mutual and equal attempts to understand each other in any relationship. Communication cannot work if only one person puts the effort in to reach a common ground that’s comfortable for all. People with ND often have widely varying and different life experiences from neurotypical people, and this…