Double empathy assumes the neurotypical person is being empathetic. Sometimes they're not.

My issue with double empathy is it assumes the neurotypical person has empathy; often in my experience, they do not.

On paper, Damian Milton’s Double Empathy theory was meant to dismantle the old, pathologizing myth that autistic people simply "lack empathy." It reframed the issue as a two-way breakdown in communication between people with vastly different lived experiences, sensory profiles, and social instincts. The theory was introduced as a way to bridge the gap between neurotypical and neurodivergent persons who both mean well in their interactions but are coming out of the situation which a different point of view.

I certainly believe that neurodivergent persons are not being rude or dismissive when they have a different communication style from a neurotypical person, but sometimes I do find that the neurotypical person isn’t actually trying to understand the world of the neurodivergent person.

Below is a recent video where I discuss double empathy:

Note: the rest of the article is a direct video transcript, awkwardness and all.

The double empathy problem refers to a situation where the neurotypical person and the neurodivergent person are seeing the world from a different lens, where the neurotypical person may think that there’s a specific way to act, such as giving eye contact makes you engaged and not rude, whereas for the divergent person, perhaps that eye contact is deeply uncomfortable and something that they’re unable to do.

This can also come up in speaking styles where a neurotypical person may throw in little kind of jokes in the situation or not speak directly or be sarcastic, whereas the person with autism or sensory dysregulation or really anything could say, ‘You know, I want to be direct. I want to say what I mean, and I don’t want to have to be like deciphering the text like there’s a code.’

And part of this theory is that neither is right or wrong. And while I think double empathy does capture part of the neurotypical-neurodivergent experience, part of me, part of me has this thought that not all neurotypical people are being empathetic.

And I guess my problem with that double empathy theory is that it assumes that neurotypical people are being empathetic. And it’s been my experience that a lot are not, and it hurts to say this because I’ve had it happen with relatives, I’ve had it happen with friends, and there’s this place where people will say they understand, they’ll act like they understand, and they’ll be empathetic until, you know, it clashes with something that they want to do.

So if you don’t, you know, want to go to a super, super loud event, or you’re not very good at going to weddings or parties, the list goes on, they were empathetic to you before that you have this condition, but when it’s doing something that goes against their values, that empathy can often disappear.

And I think, personally, that there isn’t a level of understanding that meets the threshold, I think, for basic empathy, because I think basic empathy would involve sitting there and thinking, ‘Okay, well, why is this person struggling? Why can’t they go?’

And I’m going to say, for a lot of people, there really... I think it’s a scapegoat to say that, you know, just because they’re seeing it from their neurotypical lens that, you know, it’s not a problem with them, they’re trying. It depends on the situation, I think. I think some people really are not trying, and they are rigid in their beliefs, and not everyone, of course, not everyone, but there does seem to be a subset of people who will accommodate until it gets in the way of something that they want, and then they’re kind of like, ‘Well, you know, this is inconvenient for me, why can’t you just stop doing that?’

And maybe, maybe I’m being dramatic, but I’ve had many situations where even educators, parents, etc., will say to me, ‘Well, you know, all of these accommodations are well and good, but what if I want to do something that my kid can’t handle?’ And it’s like... so we’re back to the beginning. Okay, okay, we’re back to the beginning of going through all of these accommodations again and again and again, and explaining why these accommodations are in place.

And this can happen to adults, too. This can happen to adults who are trying to navigate family relationships, navigate roommate situations, and unfortunately, these conversations happen again and again and again.

True empathy requires an attempt to understand a point of view and lived experience beyond our own. It is not conditional.