Empathy through the Lens: of Classical Psychoanalysis and Self-Psychology

This book undertakes a comprehensive examination of empathy as conceived within two major psychoanalytic traditions: classical psychoanalysis, as articulated by Sigmund Freud and his immediate successors, and self-psychology, as developed by Heinz Kohut and his collaborators.The central argument advanced in these pages is that the shift from classical psychoanalysis to self-psychology represents not merely a refinement of clinical technique but a fundamental reorientation in how the psychoanalytic enterprise understands the nature of human subjectivity, psychopathology, and therapeutic action. Where classical analysis positioned empathy primarily as an epistemological tool self-psychology elevated empathy to a central therapeutic agent, conceptualizing psychopathology itself as arising from failures in empathic attunement and the therapeutic relationship as a vehicle for repairing these developmental deficits.The book also explores the contributions of Sándor Ferenczi, whose pioneering work on clinical empathy anticipated many of the insights later developed within self-psychology, yet remained marginalized within mainstream psychoanalysis for decades.