title: Empathic understanding: the foundation of self-psychological psychoanalysis.
abstract: Empathy is the theoretical and philosophical foundation of self-psychological treatment. By emphasizing empathy as the primary methodology for collecting data about our patients, Kohut subtly, but dramatically, shifted psychoanalysis from Freud's theory-based treatment to a patient-centered treatment in which there is a profound shift in the analyst's listening perspective. This chapter explores the implications of such a shift in our listening perspective for both psychoanalytic treatment and developmental understanding. Using verbatim dialogue from both patient-therapist interactions and parent-child interactions, it delineates empathy's important role in therapeutic healing as well as its growth-promoting functions in a child's development.
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis-Psychoanalysis, Newton, Massachusetts 02468, USA. richard.geist@comcast.net
authors.forename: Richard A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Geist
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000379:methods*; D002666:Psychology, Child; D019455:Self Psychology; D014167:Transference, Psychology