ABSTRACT
The place of confrontation in self psychology has yet to be clarified. Still, the concepts of self psychology are particularly suited to advance our understanding of confrontation. The confrontations to which I refer in this paper generally serve to promote a patient's cohesive self and are fully empathic. Unempathic confrontations are only touched upon in terms of misuses of confrontation. Whether one uses Kohut's (1978) definition of empathy—“the recognition of the self in the other [p. 705]”—or any other definition, empathy is a way of organizing observations; it is not a technique. Because one's empathy may be employed in any clinical technique, the use of empathy in interpretation, in the communication of empathic understanding, and in a confrontive response merit comparison.
