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Empathy as a critical factor in psychotherapy is defined and examined. The process is felt to represent not only an identification with, but also an awareness
of, one's separateness from the observed—features of both involvement and detachment, 'the ability to step into another person's shoes and to step back just as easily into one's own shoes again'. Greenson's observation that empathy requires the capacity for controlled and reversible regression is noted. As far as the analyst is concerned empathy is felt to represent 'remembered corresponding affective states' (Schafer) which he can experience by having achieved insight into his own 'ego alien wishes and devices for dealing with them so that he is able to detect and comprehend the patient's repressed wishes and his defenses against them' (Knight). From the patient's point of view the ability to empathize is thought to represent a key aspect of his learning experience during psychotherapy. The learning process involves first a stage of unconscious identification with the therapist, then a phase of quasi-conscious imitation. Finally imitation becomes empathy only after the positive transference aspects of such imitation have been resolved. The authors point out the difficulties and limitations of research that has been carried out on this subject, chiefly because of the problem of evaluating the ongoing therapeutic process.