Empathy In Psychoanalysis

As an important technique in psychoanalysis,the meaning of empathy in psychoanalysis is complicated,and its connotation needs to be clarified.To understand what empathy actually means and what kind of technique it is in psychoanalysis with many schools and branches,we need to make a detailed analysis of empathy in psychoanalysis,beginning from the history of empathy in psychoanalysis and the characters who have made major developments.Starting from this purpose,this article reviews and sorts out the development of empathy in the field of psychoanalysis from the timeline and characters,intending to help clarify the definition of empathy in psychoanalysis.There are two main tasks completed in this article:(1)sort out the development history of empathy in psychoanalysis and its internal logic;(2)introduce counter-transference to empathy to construct empathy theoretically.In reviewing the historical development of empathy in psychoanalysis,this article uses Kohut as the boundary and divides its development into three stages.From Freud,Ferenczi,to Kohut,and then to intersubjectivity,empathy progresses step by step from the empathy of a one-person psychology to the empathy of a two-person psychology,and its development is continuing.In the part of theoretical construction of empathy,out of the need for theoretical construction,this article first sorts out the history of counter-transference which are connected with empathy in psychoanalysis and can play a role in the theoretical construction of empathy later.On this basis,this article proposes a method of introducing counter-transference into empathy,and explains how empathy should be formed on this basis.Finally,by introducing counter-transference to empathy,this article conceptualizes the consultant's empathy as a complete process consisting of empathy understanding,empathy interpretation,and the client's improvement of their ability of empathy for themselves.