Empathy: Expanding the Capacity for Humanness and Freedom

This paper elaborates on the implications of Heinz Kohut's radical revision of the concepts of introspection and empathy for psychoanalytic practice and therapeutics. I focus on three of Kohut's papers: “Introspection, Empathy, and Psychoanalysis,” published in 1959, and its follow-up, “On Empathy”, and “Introspection, Empathy, and the Semi-Circle of Mental Health,” both published in 1981. Specifically, I address the importance of the analysand's introspective capacity as an active element in the therapeutic process augmented by the empathy of the analyst in the form of understanding and interpretation. Analysands enter psychoanalysis because they are aware that they cannot solve the problems with which they suffer or access the selfobject milieu that would help them. Through analysis patients' capacity for introspection and action is broadened and deepened, allowing them to understand and deal creatively with their problems, particularly their inability to fulfill the potential of their self.