A rumor of empathy: reconstructing Heidegger’s contribution to empathy and empathic clinical practice

Abstract

Heidegger's 1927 call to provide "a special hermeneutic of empathy" is linked with his later commitment at the Zollikon Seminars to engage explicitly with issues in psychodynamic therapy with psychiatrists. The task of providing a special hermeneutic of empathy is one that Heidegger assigns in Being and Time, but on which he does not deliver. Inspired by the assignment, this article applies the distinctions of Heidegger's Daseinanalysis to human interrelations. This article generates a Heideggerian account of empathy as a multi-dimensional process that delimits and illuminates the field of possibilities of authentic human relationships. The multiple dimensions of empathy include affectedness (Befindlichkeit), understanding of possibility, interpretation, and speech, the latter including listening. The result is a reconstruction of a Heideggerian account of empathic human relations in the sense that it goes beyond what Heidegger explicitly says to what the Heideggerian method of inquiry can contribute to understanding and implementing the process of empathy. In particular, a two-by-two matrix is built and engaged in detail, cross referencing the four possibilities of authentic and inauthentic relationships with the individual and the other. A specifically Heideggerian analysis of the multi-dimensional process of empathy is the result. The clinical relevance of Heidegger's work is made explicit as empathy is positioned as the foundation of clinical practice as exemplified in psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Empathizing with the stranger: Rereading Heidegger.

“…The natural is already historical in the HC, and this means for Hatab that nature and nurture are coconstituents of human development. Agosta similarly argues that human beings are natural in the sense that they are a bundle of neurons, but “these neurons generate meaning, possibility, and conscious experiences; and these latter are what arouse, invite, and call forth the process of empathy” (Agosta, 2014, p. 283). The conception of affect in the HC is generally considered not naturalistic/physicalist because it is always expressed in a historical and discursive fashion.…”

Understanding empathy: why phenomenology and hermeneutics can help medical education and practice

“…But where is emotion? It remains relatively untheorised, though very recent research is beginning to take the question up (Agosta 2014;Zahavi 2015). An intersubjective grasp of another's experience presumably involves and evokes emotion, although Zahavi argues, problematically in my view, that this is very limited (Zahavi 2015).…”

“…Others approach the question as affect rather than as emotion, and this is likely to fit better with an account of how empathy emerges and has impacts: because people are affected (Seigworth and Gregg 2010; Shouse 2005). Agosta argues that a Heideggerian account of empathy would make affectedness a key feature of authentic empathic relationships (Agosta 2014). In this context, empathy's distinction from sympathy becomes largely artificial (certainly not very useful for doctors) and the concern with preserving self-other relations less a matter of ontology than of performance (Downie and Macnaughton 2007).…”

Being person-centered and Heidegger’s sense of “being”: a discussion

“…Or, a person can leap in, take over for, and dominate, the Other. This issue is contentious, not only because it is anathema to person-centered values, but also because it privileges selfbeing and betrays a paucity of understanding about authentic relatedness (Agosta, 2014;Friedman, 2011;Levinas, 1972Levinas, /2006Stolorow, 2013). At the other extreme of solicitude, a person may leap ahead of, and liberate, the Other.…”