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The most general statement that can be made about a psychoanalytic interpretation is that it is an act of illuminating personal meaning. Since meaning is something that exists only within a world of subjective experience, all psychoanalytic interpretations, as Kohut (1959) eloquently demonstrated, must be informed by the psychoanalyst's empathy, which provides access to the patient's world of experience. Thus, any discussion of the nature and therapeutic action of psychoanalytic interpretation must begin with a consideration of the thorny question of what constitutes the essence of analytic empathy.
In an important paper delivered at the Eleventh Annual Conference on the Psychology of the Self in Washington, D.C., Brandchaft (1988) voiced certain concerns and caveats about the conflation of two uses of the concept of empathy appearing in Kohut's later writings. In one usage, consistent with his original pathbreaking essay (1959) on the subject, Kohut (1982) describes empathy as a “mode of observation attuned to the inner life of man” (p. 396), an investigatory stance that constitutes the “quintessence of psychoanalysis” (p. 398). In a second usage he depicts empathy as a “powerful emotional bond between people” (p. 397) and claims that “empathy per se, the mere presence of empathy, has … a beneficial, in a broad sense, a therapeutic effect—both in the clinical setting and in human life, in general” (p. 397). The same term, empathy, is being used to designate