Empathy in Psychotherapy: How Therapists and Clients Understand Each Other

In this title, Staemmler examines, criticizes, and ultimately broadens traditional concepts of empathy between therapist and client. He takes issue with three traditional ideas about empathy: (1) Empathic processes are understood as one-sided; the therapist empathizes with the client, and not vice versa. (2) Empathy is basically regarded as a cognitive capacity: One mind envisions the mental 'content' of another. (3) The traditional notion of empathy is individualistic. Therapist and client act with no context surrounding them. Staemmler suggests that we need to enlarge the concept of empathy: to understand empathy as a mutual process between client and therapist, to understand its physical and spiritual components, and to understand it within a given cultural context.To that end, he investigates empathy from various points of view: developmental psychology, social psychology and the study of emotions, the latest neuroscience research, classical phenomenology, and more. Along the way he takes many interesting digressions: for example what the latest infant research tells us about empathy between parent and baby; a fascinating consideration of the ways that actors use empathy; and perhaps most surprising, an extended study of empathy's relation to paranormal phenomena and meditative states. Toward the end of the book, having established empathy at the center of the therapeutic process, Staemmler takes up the question of how therapists can become better empathizers. His own preferred approach, mediation derived from Tibetan Buddhism, has found significant confirmation in research on empathic capacities. More secular approaches like mindfulness meditation also increase empathic capacity, but to a lesser degree. Staemmler suggests that clinicians need to give our empathic capacities support and care if we are to avoid burnout and what is often called “compassion fatigue.”