ABSTRACT
Empathy, as Kohut (1984) emphasized, has always been a feature of psychoanalytic practice. For Kohut, however, empathy became the central concept of psychoanalysis. Indeed, both illness and health are self-psychologically conceptualized in terms of empathy: psychopathology is said to originate in empathic failures on the part of the child’s primary caretakers, whereas the capacity for empathy for oneself and others is viewed as the most significant indicator of psychic health (Kohut, 1984). While some commentators have criticized these aspects of Kohut’s thought, others (Gedo, 1986) have reserved their principal objections for Kohut’s (1980) global claims that (1) empathy defines the psychoanalytic field and (2) that empathy, as practiced by the analyst in the clinical setting, is a scientific method of investigation. These considerations give rise to a crucially important question: can Kohut’s most global claims regarding the role of empathy in psychoanalysis be understood and justified exclusively within the context of self psychology? That is, is self psychology self-sufficient? And, if it is not, what additional foundation is required? 1
