ABSTRACT
A situation in which we are listened to by another seemingly sensitive human being who is seeking to understand us and explain us to ourselves is a situation that offers us “the most crucial emotional experience for human psychological survival and growth: the attention of a selfobject milieu” (Kohut, 1984). He further points out that this milieu, via human empathy, “attempts to understand and participate in our psychological life.” Empathy per se, the mere presence of empathy, has a beneficial, therapeutic effect both in the clinical setting and in human life, in general.
