title: Clinical exercises in empathy.
abstract: These exercises have demonstrated the psychological work necessary in becoming familiar with the use of empathy as an observation mode. As can be seen the residents easily learn to make the important cognitive observations and soon become familiar with and articulate their subjective responses. To get the stage of empathic observation requires the awareness of the distinction between one's subjective reaction and empathy. Metapsychologically speaking, the learning required is centered on expanding the self-observing functions of the ego, so as to be aware of previous reactions and self-experiences. Thus the observer can apprehend in himself these several and separate reactions and distinguish the idiosyncratic, subjective reactions to the patient data from the seeking out of self-states closely identified with the patient's experience. The analogous experience is that of the patient in intensive psychotherapy whose task is to attempt to make a split in the ego into the experiencing part and the observing part of the psychic apparatus. As observers of another's psyche, we are to become aware of the patient's impact on us and to value this data as important to understand how the patient influences people's reactions to him or her; but then this set of observations must be split away from the attempt to introspect to a self-state closer to where the patient is, psychologically speaking.
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine, University of Illinois College of Medicine, USA.
authors: H L
authors: HL
authors: Muslin
mesh_terms: D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000193:education* / Q000379:methods*; D014743:Videotape Recording