The ability to share another person's feelings: About empathy

Journal/Book: Forum Psychoanal. 1998; 14: 175 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10010. Springer Verlag. 1-17.

Abstract: The ability of empathy includes different competences. Being infected by emotions, the adoption of another person's perspective and the capability to understand the social context. All three competences have to be learned through social experiences. A theory of the empathic process has to describe, how it is possible to experience emotions and phantasies of another person in the self as one's own and to recognize them as belonging to the other. The theoretically founded attempt to differentiate between self-perception and the perception of the other proves necessarily to reach an impass. A constructivistic hypothesis seems to be more appropriate here, that conceives empathy as a personal draft. This draft is directed by one's own inner objects and by concrete experiences with the other as well. In the psychoanalytic dialogue both participants, patient and analyst, develop their empathic drafts and try to reach through them an understanding.

Note: Article Korner J, Inst Sozialpadag & Kleinkindpadag, Arnimallee 12, D-14195 Berlin, GERMANY

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