Empathy: A psychoanalytic perspective.

Abstract

psychoanalytic listening, Schwaber ( 1981) defines empathy as "that mode of attunement which attempts to maximize a singular focus on the patient's subjective reality, seeking all possible cues to ascertain it" (p. 378). In this mode of listening, one will be attentive to all the cues that will enable one to understand the experience and the subjective reality of the other. For Schwaber, when one is listening to a patient empathically, the basic questions that orient one's listening are: What is the patient's experience? What is the nature of his or her subjective or perceptual reality?According to Schafer (1959), empathy involves "the inner experience of sharing in and comprehending the momentary psychological state of another person" (p. 345). However, he also appears to define empathy much more broadly when he describes it as a sharing and comprehension of "a hierarchic organization of desires, feelings, thoughts, defenses, controls, superego pressures, capacities, self-representations, and representations of real and fantasied personal relationships" (p. 347). We will return to this issue of broad versus narrow conceptions of empathy.Greenson ( 1960), embracing the narrower definition, wrote that "to empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person" (p. 148). He stresses the dangers of both inhibited empathy and the loss of control of empathy seen in overidentification with the patient. Both Greenson and Schafer (1959) emphasize the idea of an optimal distance from the patient and the development of an internal working model of the patient as an important guide to empathic responsiveness.In further refining the meaning of empathy, we should perhaps speak about what empathy is not. As has been said many times, empathy is not identical to sympathy. One can understand the feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of another without having sympathy for the person having them. And conversely, one can feel sympathy for another without a deep understanding of that person's subjective reality. According to Schwaber (1981), another thing that empathy is not is "what we would feel if we were in [another's] shoes" (p. 385).' Hoffman (1984) refers to this stance as "egocentric empathy.'' In short, when one takes an empathic stance one tries to understand the other as an experiencing subject, whereas when one takes an external perspective one understands the other as a behaving object.We believe that Schwaber's statement is too strong. Although putting oneself in another's role involves trying to imagine what the other person is feeling, it seems inevitable that one aspect of this process will include one's own imagined feelings and experiences in a similar situation. We implicitly assume that we are sufficiently like the other so that what we would feel in that person's shoes is similar to what he or she feels. (See Basch, 1983, which will be discussed later.) Indeed, empathy is probably facilitated by the greater similarity between two people. 218 EAGLE A N D WOLZTZKY Copyright American Psychological Ass...

The Importance of Empathy in the Therapeutic Alliance

“…Psychoanalytic theory, especially object relations and self-psychology, relies heavily on empathy within the therapeutic alliance (Bohart & Greenberg, 1997;Duan & Hill, 1996;Eagle & Wolitzky, 1997;Hansen, 2000;Hartley, 1995;Henry et al, 1990), and client-centered (Glauser & Bozarth, 2001;Hartley, 1995;Rogers, 1957) and existential theories (Hartley, 1995) focus on counselor empathy as well. There have also been numerous studies of empathy and related constructs within psychodynamic therapy (Harriest, Quintana, Strupp, & Henry, 1994;Henry et al, 1990), Gestalt therapy (Pearson, 1999) and behavior therapy (Bordin, 1979).…”

Intentional Attunement: Mirror Neurons and the Neural Underpinnings of Interpersonal Relations

“…Can one "rescue" the role of empathy in relation to unconscious mental states by thinking of it as putting oneself in the shoes of another who is harboring certain wishes and desires, but also warding them off? (see Eagle and Wolitzky 1997). This is but one of the issues and questions that arise when one elevates empathy or "vicarious introspection" as the primary tool for understanding the patient.…”

Concern and Empathy: Two Concepts or One?

“…As he saw it, empathy suggests only that the therapist understands the patient ' s situation. Eagle and Wolitzky (1997) , in differentiating empathy from sympathy and compassion, emphasized its nonjudgmental, amoral nature. Finally, Kohut himself cautioned against equating psychoanalytic or scientifi c empathy, which he described as " in essence neutral and objective " (1980b) , with " the cluster of ill defi ned meanings, calling forth associations of friendliness and emotional warmth, that the term empathy tends to evoke " (1980a) .…”

“…O ' Hara (1997) distinguished between egocentric and sociocentric empathy. Eagle and Wolitzky (1997) noted that the term empathy is used in at least six different senses: empathy as a genetically based ability to understand, a means of relating to others, and a means of responding to others; empathy as a method of observation and data-gathering; empathy as a means of listening; empathy as a developmental need; empathy in communication; empathy as a therapeutic agent. Recently, Meissner (2003) viewed empathy as the adjustment of subjective feelings to what the individual concludes and imagines about the subjective state of the Other.…”