Empathic Understanding: A Review Of The Concept And Some Theoretical Considerations

A review of the psychoanalytic literature shows that empathy has always played an important part in the practice of psychoanalysis, but that as a concept it has not been well understood. This confusion and a certain mistrust of empathy that it engenders were traced to an incomplete understanding of the meaning of the term, and to the lack of an affect theory that could explain the communication involved in the empathic process. These problems were examined and suggestions for their resolution were made. A line of affective development that culminated in empathic understanding was proposed. An operational approach to empathy was described and the role of empathy as the basis for and the prelude to psychoanalytic interpretation was discussed.

[1]  P. Castelnuovo-Tedesco.  Toward A Theory of Affects , 1974 .

[2]  R. Schafer.  Generative empathy in the treatment situation. , 1959, The Psychoanalytic quarterly.

[3]  Silvan S. Tomkins,et al.  The quest for primary motives: Biography and autobiography of an idea. , 1981 .

[4]  T. Shapiro.  The development and distortions of empathy. , 1974, The Psychoanalytic quarterly.

[5]  C. Olden.  On Adult Empathy with Children , 1953 .

[6]  T. Reik.  Listening With the Third Ear , 1983 .

[7]  A. Modell.  The origin of certain forms of pre-oedipal guilt and the implications for a psychoanalytic theory of affects. , 1971, The International journal of psycho-analysis.

[8]  J. Piaget,et al.  The Psychology of the Child , 1969 .

[9]  A PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF AFFECTS , 1980 .

[10]  H. Kohut,et al.  Introspection, Empathy, and Psychoanalysis An Examination of the Relationship between Mode of Observation and Theory , 1959, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

[11]  Basch Mf.  Psychoanalytic interpretation and cognitive transformation. , 1981 .

[12]  J. Bowlby.  Attachment and loss: retrospect and prospect. , 1969, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[13]  F Deutsch,et al.  Empathy: historic and current conceptualizations, measurement, and a cognitive theoretical perspective. , 1975, Human development.

[14]  C. Darwin.  The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , .

[15]  Richard S. Lazarus,et al.  EMOTIONS: A COGNITIVE–PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS , 1980 .

[16]  H. Hartmann.  Essays On Ego Psychology , 1964 .

[17]  H. Kohut,et al.  Advances in Self Psychology , 1980 .

[18]  M. Basch.  The Concept of Affect: A Re-examination , 1976, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

[19]  B. E. Moore,et al.  A glossary of psychoanalytic terms and concepts , 1968 .

[20]  Roy Schafer,et al.  Aspects of internalization , 1968 .

[21]  S. Freud.  Project for a Scientific Psychology , 1895 .

[22]  K. Eissler.  The relation of explaining and understanding in psychoanalysis: demonstrated by one aspect of Freud's approach to literature. , 1968, The Psychoanalytic study of the child.

[23]  G. Devereux.  Psychoanalysis and the occult , 1953 .

[24]  A. Reich.  Further remarks on counter-transference. , 1960, The International journal of psycho-analysis.

[25]  C. Brenner.  Psychoanalysis and Science , 1968, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

[26]  R. Fliess.  The Metapsychology of the Analyst , 1942 .

[27]  C. Olden.  Notes on the development of empathy. , 1958, The Psychoanalytic study of the child.

[28]  J. Novick,et al.  Projection and externalization. , 1970, The Psychoanalytic study of the child.

[29]  H. Kohut,et al.  The analysis of the self , 1971 .

[30]  The First Year of Life. , 1932 .

[31]  S. Tomkins.  AFFECT AS AMPLIFICATION: SOME MODIFICATIONS IN THEORY , 1980 .

[32]  H. W. Loewald.  Psychoanalytic theory and the psychoanalytic process. , 1970, The Psychoanalytic study of the child.

[33]  J. A. Arlow,et al.  Fantasy and identification in empathy. , 1974, The Psychoanalytic quarterly.

[34]  D. Burlingham.  Empathy Between Infant and Mother , 1967, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

[35]  Sigmund Freud,et al.  Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego , 1924 .

[36]  Post Sl.  Origins, elements, and functions of therapeutic empathy. , 1980 .

[37]  Silvan S. Tomkins,et al.  Chapter 6 – Affect as the Primary Motivational System* , 1970 .

[38]  Claude C. Buxton.  Feelings and Emotions , 1954, The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.