Empathy - Relating, Knowing, Objects, Patterns ...

INDIVIDUAL

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     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

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GROUP

"Logos is our capacity to separate ourselves from the surrounding world, making it into objects in order to recognize it objectively, reflect about it. Any fully developed human relationship needs both principles, the relating and the knowing. Knowing in this sense means the possibility of discriminating between the common ground and the difference of I and Thou. Without knowing, there is fusion or identity but not relationship between a separate I and a separate Thou." p.64.

"Recently a woman training to be an analyst came for supervision and brought with her for the first time a tape of an analytic session she had had with a woman patient of hers. To our amazement, in listening to this tape, we both had at certain times quite some difficulty in distinguishing her own voice from the voice of the patient. This happened mostly when the patient was talking very softly and obviously fighting to overcome feelings of shame. The candidate felt rather shocked at first and asked me whether she might have identified with the patient in an unhealthy way. I heard her interventions on the tape as being genuinely in tune to the atmosphere and situation of the patient at those moments, so I told her that to my mind she was responding in an empathetic way to her patient. It was apparent that the patient needed this kind of response, for later in the tape one could hear that the patient became more confident in exploring her feelings. I think the candidate reacted to the needs of her patient with a concordant countertransference reaction." p.38.

Jacoby, M. (1984) The Analytic Encounter: Transference and Human Relationship. Toronto: INNER CITY BOOKS.

In this text and other reading I can see a possible means as to how the concept of identity can be used between the Individual - Group (other).

To follow soon:

Book review iii. General Psychotherapy: Principles and Common Theoretical Aspects - Rediscovering Humanity