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Functional Empathy

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Hi all,

You know one of the things at a recent workshop that

upset me greatly

was when she said that people on the spectrum

don’t automatically

understand that most communication is NOT intended

to inform, teach, or

enlighten... it is just for enjoyment. I

literally jumped in my seat!

It was like she reached across the room and hit me

hard... almost fell

out of my seat. “WHAT IS SHE TALKING

ABOUT?” I looked around the room

full of NTs to see if I could detect the same amount

of shock the I was

feeling.

None! They were either calm

or nodding in agreement. OMG!

Communicate without intent to inform, teach or

enlighten? What does this mean?

After thinking about it for a while, I filled in

my own example... when

we took the kids to the amusement park recently

for my niece’s birthday

party, we were riding a train around the park

- my sister’s husband

said loudly, “If someone offered you

$100,000 to ride this train all

day, would you do it?” I thought this

was the stupidest thing I had

ever heard. I couldn’t figure out why

in the world he would ask such a

question, since nobody would ever make an offer

like that! But you know

what? Most of the other people thought it

was so much fun. They all

answered him and were laughing at some of the

stupidest answers I ever

heard (to one of the stupidest question I ever

heard). They all enjoyed

the stupidity and meanwhile I was left there

trying to figure out what

could have lead him to ask the question in the

first place, why these

people were bothering to answer, and what they

found so enjoyable about

the whole exchange!

A friend and I have been discussing problems that occur when an NT is venting

emotionally and the person

with AS, instead of commiserating as other NTs would

do, goes into problem

solving mode. The person with AS

usually gets accused of

not caring. This is not an example of communication for enjoyment – but still

emotional.... looking for emotional

satisfaction.

When presented with a problem, we go into problem solving

mode

automatically.

They listen with their hearts, we listen with our

heads.

They sit back and listen, we immediately begin to

calculate how to help.

We don’t recognize that the actual purpose

of passing on this

information was to get emotional satisfaction and

not to pass on

information as a request for help. Just like

the lady at the workshop

said.

It doesn’t occur to us that we were not

being asked to help, or that the

person would not even WANT help.

Why wouldn’t they want help with a

problem? Isn’t that why they are

telling us about it?

Yes it is a different kind of empathy.

Problem solving mode is more

FUNCTIONAL! Functional empathy. Oooo I

like that a lot! Functional

empathy!

Does that make NT emotional empathy dysfunctional?

No, I guess not.

I wonder how they’d feel if we called it

that?! We’d be attacked as

we’ve never been attacked before! Yet

they call ours dysfunctional and

that is ok with them!

NT-emotional empathy is “nonfunctional

empathy” or “emotional empathy”.

AS-problem-solving empathy is “functional

empathy”.

(Did I just coin a new phrase? Just did a search – no hits... I guess

I did!

Should I copy write it? LOL)

The thing is, they cannot SEE or FEEL functional

empathy. We aren’t

responding because we are calculating (how to

help). So they think we

don’t care at all.

Meanwhile we are becoming more involved than the

NT and putting in a

great deal of mental effort (and probably more

involved emotionally too)

than the person showing nonfunctional empathy,

possibly even being

almost consumed by our efforts since we have such

a great ability to

focus!

Nonfunctional empathy seems to fade quickly.

Functional empathy stays

with us for a long time.

And we are accused of being uncaring.......

Wendi

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