ABSTRACT
Our clinical science considers empathy in two ways: as a mode of observation and as an interaction. The mystical view of empathic capacity as irreducible beyond a special mode of perception is not held consistently among students of self psychology. A clear view of empathy in a scientific framework is available, then, in the writings of self psychology. This view of empathy as an inferential process depends on ordinary observation of behavioral cues provided by the patient and introspective location of referent resources in the mental constitution of the analyst. The meaning of empathy is broadened by some self psychologists to include an actual therapeutic role; empathy becomes equivalent to what the analyst provides over and above accurate psychological understanding. Friedman records his own impression that in self psychology 'empathy and narcissistic need refer to the just-rightness of interactions'. Shapiro emphasizes that empathy is strictly a mode of observation that implies no interpersonal attitude.
