This just in! (sarcasm warning)

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I think the no empathy myth derives from the fact that some people with autism have antisocial/sociopathic tendencies and therefore may lack empathy. But that it should be a characteristic for the condition is wrong.

The myth is characterised as a metaphorical misunderstanding which again, sends off mixed signals to people who are like this with sensory perceived difficulties, yet are more than fairly equipped at dealing with voicing people out who they haven't got a clue about, and don't want to know either.
When you actually understand what someone is saying, the cause for having them perpetuate 'ideas' through obvious feelings means that they have a sharper insight and a stronger empathy or feel of identity.
Most however, can subject themselves to tale- tale images that they can't break out of, either because their as/asd is too powerful or they can't integrate fully in cognitive therapy. This is actually a borderline disorder of some kind that forces negative energy from a hole they can't seem to shift. Must include passive intensive circumstances for anyone factoring outside of the initial trait prognosis.
Most typical traits seem to hover over a suspected vacuum, I don't cotton onto feeding borderline reduced thinkers who need more than just one kind of therapy. I think a carer should be in their better interests.

Thanks, Empathy, the test says I "show few to no alexithymic traits." That's consistent with my experiences, as I feel that I got a lot better during my 20s when I started studying emotions. I wish I'd been tested for it a few times during my childhood and the rest of my life.

I don't understand a word of what Empathy said.

I guess that's what keeps a certain degree of empathy from descending into total apathy and despair.

I'm in my twenties and the only time I couldn't really define myself too well, was when I was in my mid teens.
So an AS trait is probably different for women who can interpret themselves with neurodiversity a whole lot different than someone who is AS male and stumbles through life, but then I have AS traits so this might show me up to be more serious and self-contained more so, than if I 'd have had a different start in life.
If you can read emotion well, you harbour less traits than if you are typical or excusable.

^
I was just extremely lucky really, in my 20s. I sensed that my ability to make and keep friends was very shaky, and I was terrified of ending up alone. Then suddenly there were all these Desmond Morris books coming out about body language and about what makes people tick, and I found "How To Win Friends And Influence People" in the library. All those books have flaws, but they were still extremely useful because without them people were a complete mystery. At the same time I was in counselling for the first time, and they were encouraging me to explore my feelings. And then by sheer chance I happened to move into a district full of friendly anarchists and hippies, and I felt really accepted and safe with them, so it was my social renaissance. If it hadn't been for all those things happening together like that, I don't know what would have happened to me, but I don't think it would have been nice.

No problem.

I understand what ToughDiamond is saying but not Empath, so I'm surprised that the two of them are having an exchange. This fact to me is a scientific curiosity.

I didn't understand all of it, but I could fathom some of it after re-reading it very carefully, and I found it interesting enough to reply to. I didn't understand the post that naturalplastic quoted. One of my replies probably makes it look as if I did, but I was actually replying to an earlier post of hers - I would have clarified this by quoting the post I was replying to, but Capcha keeps getting in the way when I try to do that. So I'm not really as clever as I might have appeared.

Often I get hung up on the slightest little imperfection in the syntax of others, or I might get stuck on a style I'm not familiar with, and it can stop me from understanding any of it, but sometimes I can go into a different mode and by picking out what little I do understand, without worrying too much about what I don't get, I can learn quite a lot. "Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State," and "Moby Dick" are good examples of this. I understand very little of either of those books, but by resisting the temptation to dismiss them as something that's too hard, I've learned and grown. And to be honest, I have trouble understanding a lot of what I hear and read every day, even the stuff that most people seem to find very easy, so the persevering thing has become rather a habit. It's quite rare that a piece of writing or talking is crystal clear to me the first time I see or hear it.

You know what ToughDiamond I think a lot of people don't understand what the other person is saying is and I think that's actually normal conversation and there isn't a single academic discipline out there that seriously deals with the reality which is the way people relate to each other.

I guess most people don't rigorously understand a lot of the stuff they hear and read. I think a lot of it is guesswork. I suppose they figure that if they misconstrue some of the meaning, sooner or later that will become apparent, if it's important enough. And I guess with social interchanges, people often pretend to understand or agree, and the other person doesn't much mind if they don't, it's the gesture that matters to them. But I think Aspies frequently just want to get the data across, like a file transfer.

I read a book about the use of empathy in psychotherapy once. It was all about a technique where the client talks and the therapist picks out what feelings they're expressing in their words, and feeds it back to the client so it can be checked. I guess the theory was that by thus heightening the awareness of feelings, the person would be better able to heal themselves from whatever was bothering them. What fascinated me was that it was possible to use that method with the kind of psychiatric patients who talk extremely incoherently - e.g. the "word salad" of severe schizophrenia. They gave a few examples of how the therapist managed to pull out emotional meaning from what at first glance looked like complete nonsense. And it made sense. I think there are two things humans can't do - one is to talk with complete clarity, the other is to talk complete nonsense.

I think you made some interesting points. What's also worth considering is the "word salad" of schizophrenics how in fact we don't understand most of what we tell each other and does that impact on schizophrenics. I have experienced psychotic breakdown before and I can say that it is really an acute form of confusion. A person doesn't understand the forces going on around them I found the professionals who I dealt with unsympathetic or incapable of helping me they only prescribed medications that simply didn't work.
The most important thing for a person suffering from a mental illness/disorder is communication but there is no codex for human language people just grab the jist of it and go with it.
What you were describing was psychiatrists working in a systematic way to understand what their patients were saying thats why it had good results. Thats not how it usually works.

Yes that book I read must have been an unusually compassionate work. Though the other kind of shrink is hardly likely to write a book exposing their own corrupt, lazy ways of working.

Ain't that the truth.