Reversal of empathy deficits?

[Hans de Vries]

Do things like psychopathy/ASPD reverse on their own for some percentage of people/

 

Such reversal does sometimes happen with autism in a few percent of cases. There are kids who go from being completely non-verbal to no longer meeting diagnostic criteria for autism. Does it also happen with other neurodevelopmental conditions?

[CharonY]

I think it is important to acknowledge that autism itself does not reverse, and may not make a lot of sense to think of it that way. Autism is associated with a number of altered functions and to various degree these can improve or decline over time. For example, increased engagement can result in vastly improved verbal skills in persons with autism. It does not mean that they do not have the underlying cause anymore, they just improved their ability to the point where the symptoms are not visible anymore. E.g. they are often prone to faster decline under unfavourable conditions.

Likewise what is often described as psychopathy is not merely a lack of empathy, rather lack of empathy is one of the various symptoms. The combination of these various symptoms are then often used to characterize folks into groups such as antisocial personality disorder, dissocial personality disorder and so on. So here again the question would rather be, can the symptoms be reversed. A few symptoms can be improved. For example, folks in this spectrum of disorders often have learning deficits (including short attention span). Training seems to improve these functions. Folks with antisocial personality disorder tend to have slightly different characteristics than those using the psychopathy diagnosis scheme (e.g. more issues with working memory). 

But again, as a whole the conditions are not reversible.

[Markus Hanke]

On 1/29/2021 at 5:38 PM, CharonY said:

they just improved their ability to the point where the symptoms are not visible anymore

Or they may engage in masking - which is very energy consuming.

[Hans de Vries]

A lot of people with autism mask their behaviors. This sort of recovery happens for a very small minority of people even among those who receive therapy from an early age.

 

https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/children-who-leave-autism-behind/

Edited January 31, 2021 by Hans de Vries

[dimreepr]

46 minutes ago, Hans de Vries said:

A lot of people with autism mask their behaviors. This sort of recovery happens for a very small minority of people even among those who receive therapy from an early age.

 

https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/children-who-leave-autism-behind/

Why are you so keen to change what people are?

As Markus suggests, being content with who we are is much less damaging than wearing a mask, to make other's content with who we are; not that that is even possible, unless they're content with who they are, and that kinda defeats the reason for a mask.

Edited January 31, 2021 by dimreepr

[CharonY]

10 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Or they may engage in masking - which is very energy consuming.

Which from an external viewpoint is pretty much the same (as usually diagnostic scoring improves). That being said, most folks engage to some level of masking and in many cases practice can make it slightly less energy consuming.

[Prof Reza Sanaye]

I think the number of these tags and labels put on people to first , apparently , distinguish , and then  ,many a time (but , of course , not always) discriminate against them ,  is increasing to an INTOLERABLE degree . . .