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January 11, 1982. EMPATHY—A MODE OF ANALYTIC LISTENING. Evelyne Schwaber, M.D.
Dr. Schwaber discussed the use of empathy as a method of observation. By defining empathy as method, Dr. Schwaber hoped to extract it from the valueladen theoretical positions of current psychoanalytic practice. She presented some clinical vignettes which emphasized the difference between adopting an "outer perspective," i.e., the analyst standing apart from the patient's experience as it is observed, and an "inner perspective," i.e., the analyst including his own participation as intrinsic to the patient's experience.
Dr. Schwaber briefly reviewed the history of some of the vicissitudes in the nature of psychoanalytic clinical observation, noting certain parallels to shifts in the nature of scientific observation. She stated that the original concept of transference, from the perspective of the analyst-observer standing outside the field of observation, did not include the analyst's contribution to the patient's perception as fundamental to its very nature. She cited Kris and Loewald as particularly eloquent spokesmen for including the milieu, or psychic field, in understanding human development, although they did not extend that understanding explicitly to the conceptualization of transference. Dr. Schwaber reviewed studies which, in the past twenty years, placed emphasis on the changing psychic world of infants and their reciprocal interaction and adaptation within it.
Kohut's contribution to empathy-introspection was mentioned. Dr. Schwaber noted that his use of empathy as a primary mode of data gathering permitted him to suspend the inferential imposition of a reality from without, leading to the discovery of the variety of transferences he subsequently elaborated. The analyst's listening stance, however, as proposed by Dr. Schwaber, is differnt from that of the theoretical position which Kohut elaborated, for the self psychological perspective may also be used to impose a view