PSYCHOANALYTIC ISSUES IN THE THEORY OF EMPATHY.
Item
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Title
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PSYCHOANALYTIC ISSUES IN THE THEORY OF EMPATHY.
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Identifier
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AAI8614696
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identifier
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8614696
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Creator
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NORTHRUP, GEORGE H.
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Contributor
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I. H. Paul
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Date
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1986
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical
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Abstract
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The empathy of the psychotherapist is the focus of this theoretical dissertation, which critically reviews a variety of psychoanalytic formulations. An attempt is made to identify the reasons why 75 years of clinical reflection have yet to compose themselves into a cohesive theory of empathy and why empathy remains, to a great extent, an estranged concept in psychoanalysis. In this regard, attention is given to the historical origins of empathy in 19th-century aesthetics, problems in defining its phenomenological nature and mechanisms of operation, epistemological issues concerning the credibility of empathic knowledge as contrasted with natural science knowledge, and heuristic arguments for and against the development of a clinical theory of empathy as the paradigm of psychoanalytic technique. Examination of these topics suggests that the reasons for the chronically ambiguous and disputed status of empathy are essentially twofold: (a) fears associated with the nonrational, emotional, unscientific, and (perhaps) "feminine" nature of empathizing, and (b) the relative failure to construct comprehensive definitions of empathy using existing psychoanalytic terms.;The first issue appears to have sparked a defensive idealization of psychoanalytic technique as rational, objective, and scientific. This wishful representation is inconsistent with the required use of the therapist's own personality to understand the patient and unrealistic in the clinical situation. Nor is empathy, despite its subjective nature, inferior as a means of obtaining knowledge about the mind of another insofar as it involves an adaptive integration of emotion, perception, and cognition under the auspices of secondary process. Understood in this way, empathy offers some hope of organizing and clarifying the principles of classical psychoanalytic technique.;As a step toward overcoming the second problem, empathy is described in relation to other psychoanalytic terms, including regression, evenly hovering attention, counter-transference, object representation, the economic point of view, and (especially) projection and introjection.;Particular attention is given to the theories of Robert Fliess, Theodor Reik, and Heinz Kohut, and clinical material is included to illustrate the mental operations characteristic of various aspects of empathizing.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
