5. The Analyst's Empathy, Subjectivity and Authenticity:
Affect as the Common Denominator
Presenter: |
Judith Guss Teicholz, EdD |
Chair: |
Gary M. Rodin, MD |
Self Psychology Page | 22nd Conference Program
Summary
This paper takes as its starting point the critique of empathy to be found in the current relational (Owen, 1998; Mitchell, 1997; Aron, 1996) and constructivist (Hoffman, 1998) literatures of psychoanalysis. The authors of these views suggest that the analyst's empathy and subjectivity are mutually exclusive, and that therefore a clinical choice must be made between them on the part of the analyst. Their choice clearly goes with the analyst's subjectivity; and with varying emphases, they urge that the analyst's deliberate self-expression and authentic engagement replace her empathy in the clinical situation. Intersubjectivists from outside a self psychology tradition join the relational and constructivist theorists in this choice, arguing, for instance, that the subjectivity of the growing child can develop only through direct exposure to the overtly-expressed subjectivity of a differentiated "outside other," perceived as such by the child (Benjamin, 1988, 1990).
In exploring the limits of scientific objectivity, Kohut (1984) also acknowledged the analyst's subjectivity and mutual influence between patient and analyst. But while recognizing the analyst's subjectivity and its inevitable impact on the treatment situation, Kohut did not see a diminished role for empathy in cure. Thus, at the time of his death, self psychology was already emerging as a theory in which the analyst's empathy and subjectivity seemed to enjoy a peaceful coexistence. This state of affairs has been carried forward in the intersubjectivity theory of Stolorow and his colleagues, and in the dynamic systems theory of Lachmann and Beebe. However, the opposition set up in relational and constructivist theories between the analyst's subjectivity and her empathy remains troubling, and this paper seeks to explore the relationships among the analyst's empathy, subjectivity, and authenticity in the clinical situation, searching for ways that they might work together to facilitate analytic process and therapeutic action. The paper suggests that all three of these aspects of the analyst's psychic functioning might have a common source in affect, enabling them perhaps to work together either silently or articulated, toward creation and maintenance of an analytic bond between analyst and patient.