ABSTRACT
Empathy is a notoriously difficult experience and concept to pin down exactly, being defined in different ways by different disciplines and in different historical periods. Empathic processes are also always in motion as people’s emotional states and perspectives change over time, and even from moment to moment, sometimes as a result of having been empathized with. Laurence Kirmayer has noted the special obstacles to empathy that obtain in a psychiatric clinic serving a diverse population in which the opacities of more severe forms of mental and emotional distress, and language and cultural differences, may challenge or impede successful communications between mental health workers and patients. Psychotherapeutic situations also expose how difficult it can be for a potential empathizer to track such dynamic flows of emotion and perception, and how often such efforts miss the mark, even when the potential empathizer is professionally trained and motivated.
