ABSTRACT
Kohut has identified empathy as not only the fundamental psychological data gathering agent (Kohut, 1959) but also as one of the most potent therapeutic experiences (Kohut, 1981). Self psychologists ran with the latter. Empathic attunement as a response came to be regarded as always constituting optimal therapeutic responsiveness. In the author’s groundbreaking paper, “Optimal responsiveness and the therapeutic process” (Bacal, 1985), he asserted that, while empathic attunement provides the therapist with awareness of the patient’s subjective states, responsiveness that could be therapeutic comprised not only interpretive explication, but also a wide array of other responses. This chapter underscores how responses other than empathy, too, may provide experience specific to therapeutic need. It examines when and why other forms of response may be more beneficial for certain patients in specific therapeutic contexts.
