Reframing Empathy: The Double Empathy Problem as a Foundation for Mutual Understanding and Healing in Autism
<p>Empathy has traditionally been conceptualized as an individual capacity through which one person recognizes, understands, and responds to the emotional states of another. Within the domain of autism research and clinical practice, this assumption has frequently led to the interpretation of autist...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book Chapter |
| Language: | English |
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IntechOpen
2026
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| Online Access: | https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/1240133 |
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| Summary: | <p>Empathy has traditionally been conceptualized as an individual capacity through which one person recognizes, understands, and responds to the emotional states of another. Within the domain of autism research and clinical practice, this assumption has frequently led to the interpretation of autistic individuals as inherently deficient in their empathic ability. This chapter challenges such interpretations by reframing empathy as a fundamentally reciprocal and co-constructed process that emerges within relational contexts rather than residing solely within individuals. The argument is posited that the primary source of difficulties in mutual understanding between autistic and non-autistic people is not a lack of empathy, but rather mismatches in perceptual styles, communicative conventions, and meaning-making processes.</p> |
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| ISBN: | 978-1-80631-256-6 |
| DOI: | 10.5772/intechopen.1014663 |