Key concepts in self psychology: Empathy-Introspection
Excerpted from "Xu Jun: An Introduction to Self Psychology" Beijing United Books Publishing Company
01 Kohut 's contribution to psychoanalysis clinical: spiritual reality and Experience process
Empathy-introspection is a key concept in self psychology and the basis of self psychology. It is very important in both clinical and theoretical learning. Relying on this foundation, we can understand the experience and working perspective of the clinical practice of self psychology. The concept of
is often misunderstood. The misunderstanding began in the days of Kohut. Kohut's last paper "On Empathy" before his death was an effort to clarify this concept.
In the development of contemporary Chinese self-psychology, misunderstanding of this concept has always existed, and it has even spread to many schools of clinical psychoanalysis. This concept also involves the most basic working methods of self psychology. This most basic working method comes from one of Kohut's most important discoveries for clinical psychoanalytic work - spiritual reality (psychological reality) and the experience process.
In one of the cases I supervised, a client stated in an interview with the counselor that he had been traumatized while pursuing his schoolgirl. But after listening to his story, the counselor felt that he had not been traumatized in his life. He just had a crush on the other person, and the other person did not do anything to hurt him. The other person is from the student union and has a good relationship with all the classmates. He often encourages everyone to participate in student union activities, etc., and does not pay special attention to him. But he liked the other person very much and took the initiative to confess to the other person that he hoped to be boyfriend and girlfriend. However, the other party did not accept his confession until he graduated from college and left after graduation.
After the girl left, the boy felt desperate, felt that his feelings had been played with, and that he had been severely traumatized.
The counselor works hard to feel the client's pain and hopes to help him adjust some concepts. But even after adjusting some of his beliefs, the client still believed that he had been severely traumatized. This involves a very important phenomenon in clinical practice: when the client's statement brings him feelings that are different from what the client experienced during the statement, the counselor can observe and experience the matter as a presenter. matter. If the counselor does not understand the client's spiritual reality, he will feel that his problem is not that serious. At this time, the counselor will encounter a dilemma - he cannot understand why the client is in so much pain, and thus cannot maintain a harmonious counseling relationship.
Self psychology believes that the most important problem does not lie with the client. The client only comes to consultation with his unique experience, characteristics and spiritual experience, which is what he wants to explain in the consultation. For counselors, although we have standards, when the client makes a statement, we cannot leave the client's spiritual reality experience to see what happened to the client. Otherwise, what clients state in clinic will be misunderstood. For example, a three or four-year-old child says to his mother: "Mom, I went to the moon yesterday, and I went to play in the stars last night." If this mother says: "Lying, you have learned to lie at such a young age!" Who do you think? Who is right and wrong? In fact, this is not a question of right or wrong, but that the channels of the mother and the child are inconsistent. The mother said that the child lied because it was impossible for the child to go to the stars and the moon, but the child meant that he imagined that he went to the stars and the moon.
htmlChildren aged 32 to 4 cannot clearly differentiate between reality and fantasy. This experience of confusion between fantasy and reality is actually a very active and healthy expression.
When a mother says her child lies, she understands the child's behavior from an adult's perspective. The child will feel aggrieved, and he will further experience "I am not a good child." This mother's opinion that her child lied is actually very subjective. Kohut called the overly subjective view of adults toward children, or counselors toward clients' own standards, "mature moralism."
For example, a consultant is going on vacation, and the visitor says: "Teacher, I don't want you to go on vacation. What should I do if you leave? If you leave, I will feel that I have no support." At this time, the consultation The teacher said: "I will be back in two weeks."
The visitor said: "Teacher, you will be back in two weeks, so what should I do in these two weeks?"
The consultant further said: "You can do what interests you. things."
The visitor continued: "I don't know what to do. Without you, I feel very empty in my heart. What should I do?"
The consultant couldn't help but said: "Vacation is my business, and you It doesn't matter, I am free to do whatever I want outside of working hours, why do you want to interfere with me like this?" The visitor will immediately feel hurt. The consultant's response position is "mature moralism" that seems to be realistic .
This method is not suitable in clinical practice because what the client expresses is often not literal. Generally, clients have many repressed motives in their hearts, and empathic content is implicit in their expressions. These implicit things need to be well understood by counselors. Many things may be related to separation anxiety, death anxiety, or to some of the client's early traumatic events.
Therefore, counselors must use empathy-introspection methods to understand the client, and understand that what the client states is the spiritual reality with his own subjective experience. Such statements must first be accepted before the consultation can continue. Accepting what the client says does not mean agreeing with what the client says. The two are different, but the counselor must first have a basic attitude of acceptance and understanding.
The proposal of "mature moralism" was an important beginning for Kohut's belief that in clinical psychoanalysis, we should pay attention to the subjective reality and spiritual reality of the client. Kohut summarized many clinical experiences throughout his clinical work period. For example, the visitor mentioned above kept attacking Kohut. Kohut treated him by giving up the theory and listening to what he had to say.
02 What is empathy
The basic method of understanding spiritual reality is what Kohut calls empathy.
Empathy is translated as empathy, and sometimes it is also translated as empathy , empathy, empathy. In education, it is translated as empathy , and in some Taiwanese versions of self-psychology works it is translated as God enter. There is a big difference between what Kohut calls empathy and what we generally call empathy in psychological counseling.
Kohut said in his own writings that his concept of empathy was inspired by Freud's concept of empathy proposed in 1921 - the path to empathy through imitation and identification. In other words, in we must be able to understand these mechanisms with an attitude of accepting any possibility when facing another kind of spiritual life. That is to say, a person understands any possible world in his spirit through identification with another person. This is Freud’s definition of empathy.
Kohut explains and applies this concept in depth. The empathy he talks about in contemporary self psychology is actually empathy-introspection. How did the concept of empathy-introspection come about, or how does it work within us?
Basik of Kohut's Early Seven wrote a paper criticizing one of Kohut's ideas. Kohut was still alive at the time, and after the paper was published, Basik felt very anxious and nervous. On the one hand, he was worried about what Kohut would think, and on the other hand, he was worried about the embarrassment in the subsequent monthly meetings of the seven-person group.
When they met, Kohut took the initiative to greet him, and Basik was a little nervous. Kohut felt that Baske was different from usual, so he said to him: "I saw your article." Baske's heartbeat immediately accelerated, wondering if this article had caused a big disaster.But Kohut went on to say: "I have seriously thought about the views expressed in your article. Although this view needs to be discussed, I know that the views you expounded are actually out of concern and love for my views, and also for the self. Pay attention to the development of psychology, so I can completely accept your expression and listen to it."
When Kohut said this, Basik breathed a sigh of relief.
While listening to this story, you can pay attention inward and feel if there are scenes appearing in your mind. This is a visual process, which Kohut calls empathy-introspection.
Empathy-introspection refers to the entire visual or perceptual state that occurs when the analyst or counselor listens to the client. That is, the counselor presents the content of the client's subjective statement in his own spiritual world. Or as Kohut said, this state is when the counselor immerses himself in the experience of the client's spiritual reality, which means that the spiritual reality stated by the client also appears in the inner process of the analyst or counselor.
(To be continued...)
Source: Modern Self Psychology Reading Library
