How to Read Minds: The Science and Art of Empathy

‘A beautifully observed exploration of what it really means to understand another person’ EMMA REED TURRELL

‘Sharp, funny and brilliant – a book that needed to be written’ DR CAMILLA PANG

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What is true empathy?

The classic stereotype of autistic people is that they can’t empathise, that they’re highly intellectual but find it difficult to connect. As an autistic psychotherapist who empathises for a living, Aimee Cliff knew that this wasn’t right. Empathy is something you do, not something you are – meaning it’s something we can all get better at, if we choose to practise.

Drawing on the latest scientific research, her clinical experience and interviews with a wide range of neurodivergent people, Cliff examines how empathy works in the brain and body, and lays out five pillars that allow anyone to practise empathy. She finds that empathy is humble, empathy is embodied, empathy is amoral, empathy is radical, and empathy is work.

How to Read Minds offers a new idea of empathy with a more radical and expansive definition. For real empathy fights against constrictive stereotypes and dares to imagine something new. It has the potential to connect and liberate humans across our differences.

This wise, humane and quietly life-changing book considers how to understand each other, how to care for and love each other, in a timeless examination of questions that affect us all.

‘Clear-eyed, forensic and humane’ Sophie Walker, author of Five Rules for Rebellion