You know how in the world of high fashion grey is the new black? Well, empathy is the new love. Okay, enough with the tenuous humor. What does this mean? Culturally? Politically? Psychodynamically? Polemically? Critically? Culturally, the context is a… Read More ›
talk therapy
Variations on Empathy IN TREATMENT
Your psychotherapy session is now a major HBO Miniseries, In Treatment. Mine too. Two obvious questions occur. One for prospective clients, one for therapists. If I go to see a therapist about some personal issues and problems, is this what… Read More ›
Empathy in the Context of Psychotherapy (Talk Therapy)
Absent a gracious and generous listening (empathy), psychotherapy is hard to distinguish from a dental procedure, probing sensitive, tender spots with sharp instruments. Empathy makes all the difference. If a person is going to express difficult and sensitive personal content,… Read More ›
Empathy in Context …
I am humbled by the comments of my colleagues, friends, and associates on Empathy in the Context of Philosophy. “An insightful and provocative exploration of a topic that has only recently begun to receive the attention it deserves and the… Read More ›
The Comparison between Empathy and Taste (Aesthetic) In Kant’s Third Critique
This post explores the parallel – the analogy – between empathy and taste. Such a parallel is justified by invoking the tradition in which empathy is made the basis of aesthetics. Instead of regarding this basis as a historical confusion, the… Read More ›
Empathy and Intersubjectivity – the Legacy
As noted on the first page of the attached article, “intersubjectivity” is understood in the article to mean our interrelated being together with one another in the interhuman world of regard for and sensitivity to the feelings of other individuals… Read More ›
The Recovery of Empathy in a Folktale
A wonderful example of empathy and its absence is documented in one of the fairy tales (Märchen) of the collection edited by the Grimm Brothers. “The Story of the Youth Who Set Out to Learn Fear” is about a youth… Read More ›
Intersecting Conversations in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis
The therapeutic dimension of philosophy attempts to give the ultimate philosophic question – those of freedom, God, and immortality – a proper place in thinking. They lie at the limits of conceptual intelligibility. Borrowing a phrase from Karl Jaspers –… Read More ›
Kant’s Treasure Hard-to-Attain: Why Kant Scholars are Engaged by Folktales
In the Anthropology (1797: §16; 33; 154), Kant calls out “The thrill that comes over us at the mere idea of the sublime and the gooseflesh [grüseln] with which fairy tales put children to bed late at night are vital… Read More ›
Engaging Heidegger’s Special Hermeneutic of Empathy for Self Psychology – the presentation
This is a presentation engaging Heidegger’s Special Hermeneutic of Empathy from the perspective of Heinz Kohut’s Self Pscyhology. A shortened version of this is scheduled to be delivered at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis on Wednesday Feb 24th at 1:30… Read More ›
Empathy Lessons 