ABSTRACT

THE NOTION OF EMPATHY derives from the Germanic concept of einfuhlung; the "ein" prefix implies something from outside moving into something else; "fuhlung" is the noun version of the state of feeling; thus, "einfuhlung" literally translated denotes one person feeling into another. Empathy, as a psychotherapeutic skill, encompasses two primary actions: (1) the act of impartially perceiving, reflecting on, and conceptualizing the client's person/environment configuration of dynamics and effects (Bowlby, 1988; Winnicott, I960), and (2) the act of accurately communicating such an understanding to the client (Strupp & Binder, 1984; Kohut, 1959) with objectivity and tolerance. Thus, empathy is personified as and evidenced by (1) the therapist's proficiency in entering and beholding, psychologically, cognitively, affectively, and physiologically, a client's inner world, for example, his or her conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mental activity; (2) entering and beholding the client's external being, within and across microenvironments; and (3) entering and beholding his or her phenomenological points of view, both historically and currently (Wilson & Lindy, 1994), as well as (4) the therapist's adeptness in synthesizing and making sense of the incoming data (Lichtenberg, Bornstein, & Silver, 1984) and (5) the therapist's dexterity in expressing, verbally and nonverbally, the client's surface and underlying experience (Kohut, 1959). Metaphorically, the therapist functions like a pendulum, beginning with an invitational stance, decentering into subjective and active participation in order to identify with SAM's history of CSA within the greater context of his life story, then moving back into objective detachment, wherein the therapist contemplates SAM's dynamics and effects with a sense of neutrality and centering once again to accurately and sensitively reflect SAM's multidimensional experience.