Synaesthesia, Empathy, and What Neurodiversity Actually Asks of Us
What synaesthesia tells us about neurodiversity
I came across Cecelia Ahern's novel "In a Thousand Different Ways" recently, on the recommendation of the brilliant Claire Pedrick. The story follows a young woman with synaesthesia, a neurological experience in which the senses become intertwined in ways most of us never encounter. She might see colours when she hears music or feel sounds as physical sensations. Her brain simply works that way.
I found myself sitting with that for a while. If someone experiences the world that differently from the way I do, what assumptions am I making when I think I understand what they mean, or what they need, or how they are finding things? And more to the point, how often do I even think to ask?
What neurodiversity actually means
Synaesthesia is more common than most people realise, and it sits within a much broader conversation about neurodiversity: the recognition that human brains vary, significantly, in how they process information, sense the world, manage attention, and make meaning. Dyslexia, ADHD, autism spectrum conditions, dyscalculia, and synaesthesia are all part of this picture, and none of them fit neatly into a single story about what it means to think or feel differently.
What they share, though, is this: people who live with these differences have often spent years learning to operate in environments built around a different kind of mind, and that effort is considerable, frequently invisible to everyone around them, and rarely acknowledged.
As a coach and as someone who has spent a long time thinking about how people relate to one another, it makes me think how much our assumptions about "normal" processing cost us. We design workplaces, conversations, feedback processes, and expectations around a particular kind of mind, and then wonder why some people are not thriving. The problem is rarely the person. It is far more often the environment, and the unexamined assumptions built into it.
Why neurodiversity demands a different kind of listening
The empathy question here is quite specific: can I genuinely hold open the possibility that the person across from me is having a different experience of this moment, this conversation, this environment, and that their difference is not a deficit? Our instinct, when something looks unusual or unexpected, is to interpret it through our own frame, assuming shared experience even when we have no real evidence for it. Curiosity requires more effort than judgment, but it produces something far more interesting, and in coaching, it is not optional.
The words we use with neurodivergent people
Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote that "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world." I think about this often in the context of neurodiversity, because one of the things I notice with thinkers who are neurodivergent is how frequently they have been handed someone else's language for their own experience. Words like "distracted," "oversensitive," or "difficult" describe behaviour as others perceive it, rather than experience as it is lived. When we slow down and ask what something is actually like for the person inside it, we often get a very different picture.
That shift in approach, from observing outward behaviour to asking about inner experience, is one of the most useful things coaching can offer. Coaches who have done real work on their own self-awareness tend to be more effective with neurodivergent thinkers, because if I have not examined my own assumptions about how people should communicate, process, or respond, I will keep misreading the person in front of me.
Neurodiversity in coaching and leadership
When I think about the teams and organisations I work with, the ones that handle this well are not necessarily the ones with the longest DEI statements. They tend to be the ones where leaders have got curious about the people around them, where there is enough psychological safety for someone to say "I find this kind of environment difficult" without it being treated as a problem to manage. Curiosity is a practical capability, and it shapes outcomes in measurable ways: retention, creativity, the quality of thinking that happens in a room when people feel they can show up.
For those of us in coaching roles, this matters in a particular way. Our thinkers bring their whole selves into the room, including the parts of their experience they may not have language for, or that others have historically not taken seriously. Part of what we offer is a space where different ways of being in the world are genuinely attended to. That requires us to keep noticing our own reactions, our own impatience, the moments when we reach for a familiar frame because sitting with something unfamiliar feels harder.
The question every coach and leader could be asking
Ahern's novel, and the broader conversation about neurodiversity, keeps returning me to the same question: who is this person, really, and what would I learn if I stopped assuming I already knew? In my experience, the answer is usually more than I expected.
If you have not read "In a Thousand Different Ways," it is worth your time. And thank you, Claire Pedrick, for pointing me towards it.
About Amanda
Amanda Livermore is the founder of LORE Consultancy Ltd and a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). With over 20 years of experience in coaching, training design and facilitation, Amanda specialises in helping individuals and teams develop the skills to work even more effectively together. As both a trained mentor coach and coach supervisor, she supports coaches in their own professional development whilst helping organisations create more inclusive, psychologically safe environments where different perspectives are valued and heard.