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Empathy I and Empathy II were published as a part of the Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series. They contain 27 original papers, some of which were published in the 1982 special issue of the topical journal known as Psychoanalytic Inquiry. These two volumes are an expanded version of the 1982 journal articles. My review will contain brief comments on each of the papers.
The first volume has 14 papers on empathy, including Heinz Kohut's last essay. It is divided into three main sections: I: Toward a Definition of Empathy; II: Empathy as a Perspective in Psychoanalysis; III: Empathy in the Arts.
Gail Reed leads off with a very scholarly paper titled “The Antithetical Meaning of the Term ‘Empathy’ in Psychoanalytic Discourse.” She studies the meanings of the term empathy in the psychoanalytic “common symbolic universe.” Empathy may refer to vicarious introspection, affective communication, a mode of data-collecting, or the recognition and understanding of complex mental states in others. In her paper Reed emphasizes the antithetical meanings of empathy. She attempts to blend or synthesize these opposites into a meaningful whole. For example, she notes that in describing an analyst as empathic, both his active or intrusive role and his passive or receptive role are being referred to simultaneously.
In her discussion of Reed's paper, Evelyn Schwaber limits her definitoin of empathy to a mode of listening and of gathering clinical data. Roy Schaffer then points out that Reed's understanding of the language of empathy is based on the “inevitable tension” which is always to be found in opposites.
James Spencer discusses Reed's paper and points out that the word empathy has to bear the burden of having too many different meanings. He asks whether empathy is merely an important adjunct to the psychoanalytic method or whether it represents the vital center, characteristic of the psychoanalytic method. He restricts his use of the term empathy to the narrower definition of being an imp