Hermeneutical injustice and invisible Wounds

Wittgenstein was speaking about the boundaries of thought itself, but his words carry a particular weight for anyone who has suffered invisibly. When we lack the words for an experience, we struggle to grasp it ourselves, let alone explain it to others. And still, the pain is no less real for being unnamed.

While studying for the Global Cultures MA, my supervisor introduced me to the work of scholar Miranda Fricker, whose 2007 book Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing gave language to a phenomenon I had been witnessing for years in my work as a coach to neurodivergent people but had never had the framework to articulate. Fricker identifies two forms of epistemic injustice. The first, "testimonial injustice," concerns moments when prejudice leads a listener to unfairly doubt or dismiss what someone says. The second, "hermeneutical injustice," concerns a different kind of harm: when the shared concepts available in a society contain a blind spot, leaving certain people unable to make sense of what is happening to them (Fricker, 2007). Fricker argues that this gap emerges when marginalised groups are excluded from the processes that generate social meaning, leaving their experiences unnamed and unrecognised.

One example she cites is that of sexual harassment: women endured unwanted advances, intimidation, and coercion in the workplace for decades, but before the term was coined in the 1970s (Farley, 1978), there was no shared language to name the pattern. The suffering was real, but it remained illegible. In simpler terms, hermeneutical injustice is the injustice of not being able to understand or communicate your own suffering because the words for it do not yet exist. The person suffers twice: once from the experience itself, and again from having that experience rendered invisible.

My work with neurodivergent individuals brings me into contact with a population whose suffering often falls into an unspoken hermeneutical gap. Many grow up feeling out of step with those around them, unable to understand why. Neurodivergent individuals – those whose cognitive or neurological functioning diverges from societal norms, including people with autism, ADHD, high sensitivity, and intellectual giftedness – frequently experience this form of harm. Their experiences fit Fricker's description of invisible harm: suffering that leaves no visible marks but erodes something essential on the inside. While clinical and academic literature has developed concepts like "sensory processing differences" (Patil et al., 2023) and "executive dysfunction" (Hill, 2004), these terms often remain confined to specialist settings. They are not widely known among families, classrooms, workplaces, and communities where real lives happen. Without the right understanding, an autistic person's distress in noisy environments is dismissed as misbehaviour (Pavlopoulou et al., 2025). Someone who cannot sit still or follow multi-step instructions is labelled lazy or defiant, punished instead of supported for legitimate struggles.

Consider a child whose cognitive or emotional wiring differs significantly from that of their parents. The parents may be well-meaning but simply unable to comprehend why their child reacts so strongly to stimuli that seem unremarkable, why they ask so many questions, and why they cannot just "be normal." The child receives constant signals that their way of being is wrong. Such experiences do not leave visible marks. But they erode something essential: the capacity for self-trust, the sense that one's inner world is real and valid.

Being gifted and talented is often assumed to confer advantage, yet the gifted frequently experience their own version of hermeneutical injustice. Someone who feels deeply, thinks rapidly, and perceives nuances that others miss may be told repeatedly that they are "too much" or "too sensitive." Their intensity is treated as a problem to be managed, a flaw to be corrected (Daniels & Piechowski, 2009; Wellisch et al., 2012). Without frameworks that recognise emotional or intellectual giftedness as genuine differences, these individuals learn to distrust their perceptions. They shrink themselves to fit environments that cannot accommodate them.

People who experienced hermeneutical injustice from a young age may struggle with a persistent sense that something is wrong, without being able to articulate what. They may feel broken, inadequate, and chronically out of place. They question their own memories: “Was it really that bad?” They are told they should be grateful and that others had it worse. The absence of external validation migrates inward. They begin to doubt themselves, minimise their own pain, and silence themselves. When previous attempts at disclosure have been met with disbelief or dismissal, silence becomes a learned protective response (Alyce et al., 2023). Without language to understand what has happened to them, many learn to suppress their emotions entirely, treating their inner world as unreliable territory best left unexplored. And when we cannot understand our own experience, we cannot move through it. We remain trapped in cycles we cannot name, repeating patterns we cannot see, carrying weight we cannot set down because we do not know what we are holding.

The first step toward addressing such harm is recognising that it has a name. Simply knowing that "hermeneutical injustice" exists as a real concept can itself be a form of relief.

For individuals who suspect they carry such unnamed wounds, the work begins with granting oneself permission to trust one's own experience, even when others have not validated it. It means resisting the urge to minimize or dismiss what cannot yet be fully articulated. Journaling, reading memoirs of those with similar experiences, and finding neurodivergent communities online or in person can all serve as acts of hermeneutical reclamation. Collectively, the growing neurodiversity movement is creating new hermeneutical resources, building language and frameworks that make neurodivergent experience intelligible on its own terms. Writers and clinicians are similarly expanding the conceptual toolkit available to those who have long felt unseen.

Each of us can contribute to the slow, necessary labour of naming. We can listen without rushing to interpret through familiar frameworks. We can amplify voices that speak from the margins of understanding. In doing so, we participate in building a world where fewer people must suffer the double wound of pain and invisibility.

About Imi Lo

Imi Lo is an author and independent consultant. She has published three books with Hachette: Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity (2018, translated into seven languages), The Gift of Intensity (2021), and The Gift of Empathy (2025). She holds three master's degrees – in Mental Health, Buddhist Studies, and Global Cultures. Imi has lived in the UK, Australia, and Asia. Her professional experience includes work as a psychotherapist, art therapist, and mental health supervisor. 

About the Global Cultures MA

The online Master's in Global Cultures will build your interpersonal and cultural skills to help you engage effectively with colleagues, customers, clients, suppliers, and partners in today's interconnected world. Developing the key soft skills to bridge the gaps in the global industry workforce, this course sets you up for success in the modern workplace.