Phenomenology as a Form of Empathy

Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy, 2012

In this commentary, we respond to Atwood's (2012) article, "Psychotherapy as a Human Science: Clinical Case Studies Exploring the Abyss of Madness," by highlighting some of the theoretical ideals that guide Atwood's writing and his therapy work. In particular, we consider how these case studies fit into the larger paradigm of humanistic psychology, and how this perspective informed Atwood's work with his clients, providing him with the understanding and empathy that facilitated the therapeutic healing he describes. We also consider the different, but complementary, idea in phenomenological psychiatry of "radical otherness," which suggests the fundamental impossibility of complete empathy, and how this can be therapeutic, particularly when treating cases of schizophrenia. Finally, we discuss the contributions of phenomenology to the understanding of schizophrenia, and its implications for treatment.

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2023

Jaspers identifies empathic understanding as an essential tool for grasping not the mere psychic content of the condition at hand, but the lived experience of the patient. This method then serves as the basis for the phenomenological investigation into the psychiatric condition known as 'Phenomenological Psychopathology'. In recent years, scholars in the field of phenomenological psychopathology have attempted to refine the concept of empathic understanding for its use in contemporary clinical encounters. Most notably, we have Stanghellini's contribution of 'second-order' empathy and Ratcliffe's 'radical empathy'. Through this paper, we reject the pursuit of a renewed version of 'empathic understanding', on the grounds that the concept is fundamentally epistemically flawed. We argue that 'empathic understanding' risks (1) error, leading to misdiagnosis, mistreatment and an overall misunderstanding of the experience at hand, (2) a unique form of epistemic harm that we call 'epistemic co-opting' and (3) epistemic objectification. To conclude, we propose that empathic understanding ought to be replaced with a phenomenological account of Fricker's virtuous listening.

IntechOpen eBooks, 2024

In this chapter, we will seek to determine the role that empathy plays in the relationship between different human beings. In the phenomenological tradition, empathy was often considered the primordial form of relationship with others. According to classical phenomenology, bodily externalizations of inner psychic phenomena play an important role here. In this chapter, we will critically evaluate this approach to empathy. We will argue that empathy presupposes a prior recognition of the other in everyday life. From this perspective, empathy would constitute a second-although fundamental-moment of intersubjective life. The experience of a shared world entails an immediately shared understanding of that world and of those who live in it. Empathy would awaken only when anonymous relationships with other human beings become problematic. In the twentieth century, this concept has been appropriated by psychology on different levels: as a device to analyze how far the lack of empathy may be at the origin of certain pathologies and as a clinical tool that allows the psychologist to gain a deeper insight into the patient's problems. Unfortunately, dialog between the two disciplines around this issue was almost never carried out. This chapter tries to foster the possibilities of such a dialog.

Theoretical Medicine & Bioethics, 2015

The centenary of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology was recognised in 2013 with the publication of a volume of essays dedicated to his work (edited by Stanghellini and Fuchs). Leading phenomenological-psychopathologists and philosophers of psychiatry examined Jaspers notion of empathic understanding and his declaration that certain schizophrenic phenomena are ‘un-understandable’. The consensus reached by the authors was that Jaspers operated with a narrow conception of phenomenology and empathy and that schizophrenic phenomena can be understood through what they variously called second-order and radical empathy. This article offers a critical examination of the second-order empathic stance along phenomenological and ethical lines. It asks: (1) Is second-order empathy (phenomenologically) possible? (2) Is the second-order empathic stance an ethically acceptable attitude towards persons diagnosed with schizophrenia? I argue that second-order empathy is an incoherent method that cannot be realised. Further, the attitude promoted by this method is ethically problematic insofar as the emphasis placed on radical otherness disinvests persons diagnosed with schizophrenia from a fair chance to participate in the public construction of their identity and, hence, to redress traditional symbolic injustices.

Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy, 2012

In this commentary, we respond to Atwood’s article “Psychology is a Human Science” (see Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy, this issue) by highlighting some of the theoretical ideals that guide Atwood’s writing and his therapy work. In particular, we consider how these case studies fit into the larger paradigm of humanistic psychology, and how this perspective informed Atwood’s work with his clients, providing him with the understanding and empathy that facilitated the therapeutic healing he describes. We also consider the different, but complementary, idea in phenomenological psychiatry of “radical otherness,” which suggests the fundamental impossibility of complete empathy, and how this can be therapeutic, particularly when treating cases of schizophrenia. Finally, we discuss the contributions of phenomenology to the understanding of schizophrenia, and its implications for treatment.

Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 2014

This paper seeks to illuminate the nature of empathy by reflecting upon the phenomenology of depression. I propose that depression involves alteration of an aspect of experience that is seldom reflected upon or discussed, thus making it hard to understand. This alteration involves impairment or loss of a capacity for interpersonal relatedness that mutual empathy depends upon. The sufferer thus feels cut off from other people, and may remark on their indifference, hostility or inability to understand. Drawing upon the example of depression, I argue that empathy is not principally a matter of ‘simulating’ another person’s experience. It is better conceived of as a perception-like exploration of others’ experiences that develops progressively through certain styles of interpersonal interaction.

Phenomenology & Practice

This paper aims to show how a phenomenological theory of empathy can be used to achieve a close interpersonal relationship that serves to support shared decision making and recovery from mental health problems. This framework can also be seen as a way to maintain a professional distance in such relationships. First, the paper briefly describes the basics of shared decision making and recovery-oriented practice. Second, the paper presents the notion of second-person perspectivity, the “we-relation”, and the phenomenological term epoché as a background to discussing the possibility of performing a specific kind of epoché, which actively brackets taken-for-granted presuppositions and notions and instead facilitates a focus on the meaning of the other’s experience: a special kind of intentionality directed toward the other’s intentionality. Third, the paper notes that the aim of actively assuming an empathic attitude paves the way for a passive ethnographic epoché that allows for an exp...

Frontiers in psychology, 2023

1999

This paper takes some introductory steps in the direction of sketching the major theme of empathy in Husserl's and Heidegger's phenomenologies. A great deal could be written about these subjects. The paper briefly recaps Husserl's position and uses it as an entrée for a presentation of Heidegger's answer in Being and Time. The title of the paper is taken from Heidegger's call for a "special hermeneutic" of empathy which will offset the conscious illusions of separation between human minds and "will have to show how the various possibilities of being of Da-sein themselves mislead and obstruct being-with-one-another and its selfknowledge, so that a genuine "understanding" is suppressed and Da-sein takes refuge in surrogates" (Heidegger, 1996: 117). What this means is a grounding of the empirical practise and theory of psychotherapy, and the human sciences, in an understanding of empathy that is close to the phenomena as they appear after a reduction of previous ontological beliefs and conceptualisations. Other relevant writers are omitted to make a focus specifically on Heidegger's phenomenology and to ascertain what such an approach to empathy might be.