psychological study of empathy

8/13/2019 Psychological Study of Empathy

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Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 43 (2012)151184 brill.com/jpp

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Edith Stein and the Contemporary Psychological

Study of Empathy

Rita W. MenesesCatolica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics,

Universidade Catlica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal

Michael LarkinSchool of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Abstract

Illuminated by the writings of Edith Stein (1917/1989), this paper presents a model

of empathy as a very particular intersubjective understanding. This is commonly a

view absent from psychology literature. For Stein, empathy is the experience of

experientially and directly knowing another persons experience, as it unfolds in

the present, together with the awareness of the otherness of that experience. It

can be conceptually distinguished, in terms of process and experience, from

current models that propose that empathic understandings are intellectual expe-

riences (e.g., explicit simulation theories, perspective-taking) or sympathetic expe-

riences (e.g., implicit simulation theories, contagion-related theories). As such,

she provides an additional or alternative aspect to understanding other peoples

experiences. Our paper provides a summary of Steins key analytic claims about

three key facets of empathy (directly perceiving, experientially projecting, and

interpretatively mentalizing). Her views are discussed in the light of debates rele-

vant for contemporary psychology and social cognition.

Keywords

empathy, social understandings, sympathy, intersubjectivity

Empathy entered everyday discourse surprisingly recently. The German

philosopher Theodor Lipps was inuential in this. In 1903, Lipps adopted

This is a common contemporary historical view, although Duan and Hill (1994, p. 261)

were able to track down the use ofEinfhlungto Robert Vischer (1873), in the aesthetic eld,


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152 R. W. Meneses, M. Larkin / Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 43 (2012)151184

the German termEinfhlung, derived from the Greek empatheia(fromem-

in and pathosfeeling), in his thesis on aesthetic experiences. This con-

ceptwas translated by Titchener into English as empathy. It was used todescribe the process of humanizing objects, of reading or feeling ourselves

into them (Titchener, 1924, p. 417, cf. Duan & Hill, 1996, p. 261). At the core

of this concept is the idea of going into a strong feeling-connection with

another (Barrett-Lennard, 1981, p. 91).

Soon after this, Max Schelers (1913/1979) work on sympathy appeared,

(Sympathie/mitgefhl), followed by Edith Steins thesis on empathy

(1917/1989). Lipps, Scheler and Stein proposed theoretically distinct views

of these interpersonal phenomena (sympathy and empathy), which, overtime, have been confused with one another. Among Scheler, Lipps and

Stein, there is, however, an agreement that empathy is a way of knowing or

understanding others: there are three spheres of knowledge. I know about

things, about myself, and about others. . . . The source of the third type of

knowledge is empathy (Barrett-Lennard, 1981, p. 91, cf. Allport, 1937, p. 351).

This was the core consensual meaning of empathy in philosophy in the

beginning of the twentieth century.

Aims

Presently, the stance that empathy is a way of knowing or understanding

others sometimes appears to be a non-consensual position, although it is

the one adopted in this paper. For example, in psychology, empathy can be

regarded as a responsive sympathetic feeling, also named empathic con-

cern (i.e., an other-oriented emotional response elicited by and congruent

with the perceived welfare of someone else, Batson, 2009, p. 8).

Among those who have psychologically investigated interpersonal

understandings, some have proposed that these come about via an explicit

which would be the predecessor of empathy, to mean humans spontaneous projection of real

psychic feeling into the people and things they perceive. On the other hand, Zepf and Hart-

mann (2008, p. 56) remarked that the word empathy was rst used by Lotze, in 1858, to

describe how we can deploy our imagination to place ourselves in, and participate in the expe-

rience of nature, as well as to Herder, in 1774, to describe how one feels oneself into every-

thing. Therefore, although there are alternative historical versions, in these early beginnings,

empathy was a term that described an act that connected a subject to an object (person or

other) by means of which some sort of knowing of that object occurred.


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R. W. Meneses, M. Larkin / Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 43 (2012)151184 153

simulation process, that is, a higher-order intellectual process of adopting

someone elses perspective (intellectual understandings); and some more

suggested that social understandings are the result of an implicit simulationprocessthat involves ones personal emotional responses to other peoples

experiences (sympathetic understandings).

In this paper, we suggest that these two models capture two distinctive

routes to understanding other peoples experiences; and that there is an

additional form of understanding (intuitive understandings). It has also

been proposed as an alternative route in phenomenology (e.g., Gallagher,

2007). Although this particular form of understanding appears to underlie

some psychotherapy approaches (e.g., Rogers, 1957/2007), psychologicalmodels do not usually address this type of understanding as a phenomenon

on its own right (e.g., Kerem, Fishman & Josselson, 2001).

The experience of an intuitive understanding was thoroughly described

by Edith Stein. Her thesis, On the problem of empathy (1917/1989; Zum

Problem der Einfhlung), was conducted under the supervision of Edmund

Husserl. It is a rare, canonical example of orthodox, Husserlian, phenome-

nological inquiry. In this work, Stein provides one of the most systematic,

complete, and thorough applications of Husserls methodological approach

to experience. It is also a text which offfers a remarkably contemporary,

theoretically coherent, and clear delineation of the psychological phenom-

enon of empathy, as it appears in consciousness.

Steins clarity about the limits and nature of empathy was achieved by

means of the phenomenological method. This required her to establish the

essential features of empathy, and to rule out of her account those simula-

cra of empathy which, without close examination, might be mistaken for

empathy itself. Given that the eld of empathy studies is in some concep-

tual disarray (e.g. see Batson, 2009), and that the term itself has a relativelyrecent history, Steins conceptual clarity is worthy of re-discovery and offfers

a sound basis for further psychological research. Unfortunately, the con-

ceptual clarity of her thinking is not mirrored by theaccessibility of her

workthe text of her thesis on empathy is embedded within the dense and

specialist phrasing of the German phenomenologists. In this article, we hope

to unpack Steins ideas for a contemporary psychological audience. We

hope to persuade those interested in the nature of empathy, that through

its study as a lived experience, a theoretically and coherently grounded

understanding of this particular form of understanding can be generated.


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Steins work on empathy has been overlooked by much contemporary

psychologyin contrast with Lipps and Schelers theses on the theme. As

we shall see, her work is also sometimes misinterpreted, or only partiallyportrayed. Recently, however, there has been a growing resurgence of inter-

est in some of her doctoral claims, both in the phenomenological and

psychological elds of research (e.g., Barrett-Lennard, 1981; Boulanger &

Lanon, 2006; Depraz, 2008, 2001; Gallagher, 2007; Gurmin, 2007; Prinz,

2006; Reik, 1948/1971; Rockwell, 2007; Rogers, 1957/2007; Thompson, 2001;

White, 1997; Zahavi, 2008, 2007, 2001).

We think that her ideas have the potential to clarify the concept of empa-

thy for psychology, and to open up new directions for researchers in thiseld. We will therefore focus upon the key aspects of Steins thesis, drawing

out those which have most relevance for the psychology of empathy. Steins

views sometimes contradict widely-held contemporary views about empa-

thy, but they are developed with a logic and elegance which is persuasive,

and we hope that the reader will nd these points of diffference illuminat-

ing and informative; and that a particular picture of empathy emerges.

Steins Brief Biography

Edith Stein (18911942) was born at Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, into a

Jewish family. In her youth, she declared herself an atheist. Stein began her

doctoral work while working as an assistant to Husserl at the University of

Gttingen, but her studies were interrupted by the war, and the death of

Husserls son. For a period she worked as a nurse at a eld hospital in Aus-

tria. In 1916, the eld hospital was dissolved, and Husserl took up a new post

at Freiburg im Breisgau, so Stein returned to the town of her birth, where

she completed her doctorate in 1917. Stein worked alongside Martin Heide-

gger, who was also an assistant to Husserl during this period. In Germany,

professorial posts were not easily obtained by women or Jews at this time;

and Stein appears to have struggled to nd a niche for herself. She held

posts at Freiburg and Gttingen, before working as a schoolteacher for

some years. Academically, she retained an interest in phenomenology, phi-

losophy and psychology, but in the 1920s she also converted to Catholicism,

and an increasingly theological focus informed her later work. She left her

For a biography, see Oben (1988/2010), and Macintyre (2006).


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Gallagher, 2007; Gurmin, 2007; Hart, 1999; Prinz, 2006; Scheler, 1913; Stein,

1917; Thompson, 2001; Zahavi, 2008, 2007, 2001), andprojection theories(under-

standing via a identication-related projected experience; e.g., Bachelor, 1988;Boulanger & Lanon, 2006; Gladstein, 1983; Hkansson & Montgomery,

2003; Kerem et al., 2001; Tempel, 2007; Zepf & Hartmann, 2008).

Explicit simulation(perspective-taking, role-taking, theories of mind) is

a higher-order, usually deliberated reasoning about available information

or cues (Batson, 2009, p. 4), based on the others experience or situation,

such as what she says and does and your knowledge of her character, values,

and desires (Batson, 2009, p. 7). Here, one intellectually imagines, predicts

or simulates another persons experience. For example, if a friend tells youthat he is going to father a child, and you knew that he had been trying to

have children for a while, you now imagine that he is happy. This is how

explicit simulation works; and hence it can be said that it is an intellectual

form of understandingothers.

Implicit simulationtheories see social understandings as the result of a

contamination and/or mimicking experience and a lower-order imagina-

tive experience. That is, people have the the tendency to automatically

mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures and move-

ments with those of another person, and, consequently, to converge emotion-

ally (Hateld et al., 2009 p. 19). This reaction is subsequentlyused as the

source of knowledge of the experience of another, in a stepwise manner

(rst mimicry, then contagion, and then understanding). Thus, one infers

from ones afffective reaction the experience of another. For example, you

encounter a friend, feel unexpectedly happy, and you may somewhere

along the line conclude that it is your friend that is happy after all. This is

consistent with Lipps theory, and with the contemporary model of inter-

personal understandings provided by neurocognitive theories. Projectionofffers a similar reading of events but via a distinctive terminology (through

the concepts of identication, and then projection; e.g., Zepf & Hartmann,

2008); and without determining that the reactive emotional experience

(and perhaps the projective experience as well) necessarilyhappens sub-

consciously, as generally observed with implicit simulation theories.

Lipps would argue that this experience amounts to an empathic form of

interpersonal understanding. Scheler would counter-argue by suggesting

that contamination and identication are examples of sympathetic phe-

nomena; and that sympathy is to be distinguished from empathy. Certainly,


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sympathy is rst and foremost a response to anothers experience, although

it sometimes leaves the impression that one understands others too: we

seem to have an immediate understanding of anothers experiences, whilealso participating in them (Scheler, 1913, p. 3). For Scheler, these respon-

sive afffective phenomena should better be called sympathynot empa-

thy. We propose that the interpersonal understanding achieved through

sympathy should perhaps be conceptualized as a sympathetic form of

understanding, and one which should be distinguished, on the one hand,

from the intellectual form of understanding described by explicit simula-

tion theories.

Stein would not accept any of the above explanations as illustrative ofthe phenomenon of empathy. Her position is in accordance with current

phenomenological theories. From this phenomenological perspective, we

can use our minds and experiences to personally simulate (explicitly or

implicitly) anothers experience, in order to gain insight about these, but

this is not the only, or most ordinary way, of understanding others. That is,

most commonly, from the viewpoint of the lived experience, one does not

need to react in any emotional (contagion), behavioural (mimicking) or

rational (remembering our knowledge or similar past experiences) way for

the understanding to come about.

Rather, people can understand one another not by inference, but directly,

as a sort of primary perception (Scheler, 1913, p. 10). This ability is present

from infancy, when already in a non-mentalizing way, I am able to see

meaning, intention, and emotions in the actions of others (Gallagher, 2007,

p. 354). For example, you look at your friend and just see how happy he is,

while disclosing the news to you. That is, you would have a perceptive kind

of understanding of his experiencefor claritys sake, say, an intuitive form

of understanding. In broad strokes, this is what empathy is, for Stein. Thisexperience is sometimes described as an experiential understanding,

anchored in the having of the experience of another, and thus confused

with sympathetic understandings.

We here propose that these explanations for interpersonal understand-

ings (intellectual, sympathetic and intuitive) are distinctive psychological

experiences, and merit to be explained in the light of appropriate psycho-

logical theories. By offfering Steins views to a contemporary readership, we

offfer to discussion an alternative (intuitive) form of interpersonal under-

standing that is often absent from psychology literature.


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Empathy and Sympathy: A Distinction

According to a useful distinction made by Batson (2009), we can place Steinalongside those researchers who understand empathy as a way of knowing

what another person is experiencing, and in opposition to those for whom

empathy is a response to that knowledge. For instance, many psychologists

would hold that empathys afffective component consists of a personal

emotional response, congruent with the afffective state of another person

(e.g., Batson, 2009; Boulanger & Lanon, 2006; Decety & Jackson, 2006,

2004; Depraz, 2001; Duan & Hill, 1996; Eisenberg, 2000; Gladstein, 1983;

Hkansson, 2003; Hofffman, 2000; Hassenstab et al., 2007; Hateld et al.,

2009; Jabbi et al., 2007; Kerem et al., 2001; Preston & Waal, 2002). Two formsof afffective responses commonly investigated by these authors are conta-

gion and distress; and their importance in current empathy-related litera-

ture is evident in the following: all forms of empathy involve some level of

emotional contagion and personal distress (Preston & Waal, 2002, p. 4).

Stein explicitly rejects this idea, not because these responses do not

exist, but because, for her, it is not the response, in itself, that is empathic.

For Stein, empathy is, by denition, a means through which knowledge

is acquired about another persons experienceand not a reaction orresponse to that understanding. As Zahavi says, empathy (. . .)amounts to

experiencing, say, the other persons emotion without being in the correspond-

ing emotional state yourself (2008, p. 517). Contagion and distress are ruled

out as mere simulacra of empathy, precisely because these arepersonaland

responsiveexperiencesnotanothers experience.

An Example

In neurocognitive psychology, mirror neuron activation is often read as acontamination or contagion response. According to Scheler (1913), conta-

gion is a discrete, personal, reactive phenomenon that does not presuppose

any sort of knowledge of the joy which others feel (p. 15), sometimes happen-

ing subconsciously, beyond awareness, in the sense that we get into these

states without realizing that this is how this comes about (Scheler, 1913,

pp. 16/17). Furthermore, during contagion, there is nothing in the mournful

feeling itself to point to its origin; only by inference from causal consideration

does it become clear where it came from. That is, contagion can only become

a form of interpersonal understanding if one infers from ones personal


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reaction that the other person is probably having a similar experience (i.e.,

projects the contaminated experience onto the empathee), as implicit sim-

ulation theories propose.Contagion researchers commonly back up their empathy theories with

cross-species studies of emotional contagion, social imitation, and the work

of audiovisuomotor neurons/mirror neurons (van Baaren et al., 2009; Bou-

langer & Lanon, 2006; Decety & Jackson, 2006, 2004; Dinstein, Thomas,

Behrmann & Heeger, 2008; Gallese, 2003; Goldman, 2006; Hateld et al.,

2009; Preston & Waal, 2002). In short, researchers experimenting on

macaque monkeys have found that some neurons are active both when

performing a goal-directed action, and when observing it being performedby another monkey or person. They called these mirror, or audiovisuomo-

tor, neurons. The activation of these neurons is hypothesised to underpin a

form of social understanding (implicit simulation theories). This illustrates

the contamination-as-knowing hypothesis that we have suggested as an

example of a sympathetic understanding.

On the other hand, in phenomenologically-informed research areas,

the neurobiological and behavioural evidence is often interpreted in a

coupling-as-knowingsense (Depraz, 2008, 2001; Gallagher, 2007; Thompson,

2001). The diffference between the neurocognitive contamination-as-knowing

interpretation and the neurophenomenological coupling-as-knowingreading

of the (sometimes same) evidence is irreconcilable; they cannot both be

accepted to explain the same evidence. One excludes the other.

The term coupling originated from Humberto Maturanas biological

research (1975) on autopoiesis (theoretical description of the inter-

relationships between living beings and the environment), currently most

often associated with his student, Francisco Varela and his neurophenom-

enological approach to psychology. Coupling is a self-other linkage occur-ring at a biological cellular level. It is a pre-reexive, permanently dynamic

and co-generative self-other link. For him, both environment and organ-

isms are said to be constantly changing and co-determining each other,

even at a cellular level. This theory is sometimes criticized for its solipsism,

though given the intrinsic intersubjective meaning of coupling, this criti-

cism is perhaps a misinterpretation. Claiming that the observer and

Steins approach is phenomenological and descriptivenot explanatory. She does not

address the whys, the genesis or psychological mechanisms behind the experience of empa-

thy. For these, we must turn elsewhere.


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observed change one another at such a primordial level of analysis is not an

elegy to solipsism, it is not a defence that the world is nothing but a subjec-

tivity inside ones mind.Rather, it is accepting that the world is intersubjectively constructed, in

the more Heideggerian sense of being-in-the-world. This view does not

obliterate or clash with the premise that there is a world out there to be

perceived and experienced. Subject and object are still two diffferent enti-

ties, despite their mutual inuences upon each other. Coupling is not merg-

ing, or a dissolution of self and other identities as some tend to suggest (e.g.,

Finlay, 2005). It is simply an interaction occurring at a biological level. Gal-

lagher (2007, p. 356) gives a good example of this coupling mechanism:

If we think of perception as an enactive process (e.g., Hurley, 1998; No,

2004)as involving sensory-motor skills, rather than as just sensory input/

processing; as an active, skilful, embodied engagement with the world rather

than the passive reception of information from the environmentthen it

may be more appropriate to think of the resonance processes as part of the

structure of the perceptual process when perception is of the action of conspe-

cics. Fogassi and Gallese, despite their simulationist interpretation, put this

point clearly: perception, far from being just the nal outcome of sensory inte-gration, is the result of sensorimotor coupling (2002, p. 27). Mirror activation,

on this interpretation, is not the initiation of simulation, it is part of a direct

intersubjective perception of what the other is doing.

Gallagher does not dissociate the mirror neuron activation from empathic

experiences; he reads it as a sign of the phenomenon of coupling; and asso-

ciates it with the meaning of direct perception. For instance, you are seeing

your friends happiness, rather than feeling happy yourself, while listening

to the news. This illustrates the coupling-as-knowing interpretation.Through coupling, the empathizers experience is composed of 1) a percep-

tive side; 2) a self-felt resonant personal side (inclusively, mirror neuron

activation). For him, mirror neuron activation is part of the empathic per-

ceptive act; but it is not a contamination emotional reaction as this phe-

nomenon is dened. Rather, it is a response insofar as a perception can be

conceptualized as a response (to the existence of an object in the environ-

ment). This is a radically diffferent interpretation of the mirror neuron acti-

vation; and one which does not involve an inferential act, nor an emotionalcontagion reaction, for the understanding to happen, as with the contami-

k Th


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theories are illustrated in Figure 10. Coupling-as-knowing(intersubjective

empathic direct understanding experience) is not to be confused with

the contamination-as-knowingtheory (a personal response, an experiencewhich is no longer, or never was, anothers, and that is subsequently taken

for anothers via an additional act).

From the typical neurocognitive viewpoint, empathic understandings

are a step-by-step experience with each step (the cells identied in the

Neurocognitive Perspective: contamination-as-knowing column) follow-

ing upon the contamination and/or mimicry response. This means that

peoples social understandings are seen are the result of a prior sympathetic

(Scheler, 1913) response; they are always purely subjective experiencesderived from a personal afffective reaction.

Figure 1: Comparison between the neurocognitive and the neuro-

h l l l f h k

Neurocognitive perspective:

contamination-as-knowing

Foreign experience

Perception of external cues

Imitation and contagion-as-

contamination responses

Simulation of an experience

Self-other diffferentiation

Inferential knowledge of the

foreign experience

Neurophenomenological

perspective:

coupling-as-knowing

Foreign experience

Direct awareness of the foreign

experience via an intersubjective

coupling experience (perceiving

and contagion-as-coupling)


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On the other hand, neurophenomenology proposes that empathy is a

direct, experiential, non-mediated, intersubjective understandingthat is

not ttingly conceived as a plain afffective sympathetic response, nor anintellectual or inferential or projective knowing. It is rather an intersubjec-

tive experience, in terms of process andin terms of experiential qualities.

Empathy is to experience anothers experience at once, and know that it is

anothers experience, simultaneously, as part of the same act. This is con-

gruent with Steins position.

Empathy as an Intersubjective Process

To introduce what Stein means by empathy, we will begin by clarifying theepistemological assumptions behind her reasoning, which are drawn from

the rst phases of Husserls phenomenology (Gurmin, 2007; Macintyre,

2006/2007).

The rst of these is that people are embodied and minded, and embed-

ded in the world. Secondly, the world is objectively out there to be per-

ceived, in the sense that it is not merely a subjective representation inside

the mind. Thirdly, people relate to the world by means of an intentional

act of consciousness. This intentional act is what brings the world andits objects into consciousness, as phenomena. Consciousness is always

intentionalit connects a self to an object, in consciousnessand it is

always relationalin the sense that it places a self and an object in relation

to one another, by means of an intentional act. Fourthly, phenomena bear

in themselves essential qualities of the given world (object). Finally, it is

held that through phenomenology it is possible to inspect these phenom-

ena and identify the worlds essential qualities.

For Stein (p. 6; p. 21), empathy is an intentional act in this phenomeno-

logical sense. However, it is a very particular kind of intentional act, because

its object is the experience of another. It is generally a core assumption that

empathy is about our experience of another. This is referred to in the litera-

ture as the alterity, othernessorforeignquality of an experience. For Stein,

empathy deals with the givenness, to oneself, of this foreign experience;

and it is through empathy that foreign experience is comprehended ( p. 6).

Steins understanding of empathy difffers from some contemporary deni-

tions because she explicitly denes empathy as a way of knowing, rather

than as a response to the foreign experience (after Batson, 2009), andin terms of her description of the way this knowledge comes about. In


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particular, for her, empathy is a direct givenness, as opposed to the indi-

rect inference (sympathetic and intellectual understandings) favoured by

some authors.Steins conception of empathy always involves at least two perspectives,

self and other. Thus, psychologically speaking, empathy can be said to

be an interpersonal process (and intersubjective in the phenomenological

sense outlined above). There is always the empathizer, relating to the

empathized (even given the case of empathizing with oneself ).

On the other hand, in the models of empathy proposed by her predeces-

sor, Lipps, and in implicit simulation theories, a kind of merging of empa-

thizer and empathized is hypothesisedone during which self and otherbecome one.

Stein rejects the idea that empathy is the experience of oneness with

another. For Stein, Lipps view of empathy describes a kind of inner par-

ticipation in others experiences (p. 12), which is only complete when there

is no longer a distinction between oneself and the other. For Lipps, the ulti-

mate level of empathy is a unity between self and other, captured by a feel-

ing of oneness (p. 16). Lipps explains this with a theory of imitation, which

resonates with contemporary ideas about contagion and mirroring (e.g.

Hateld et al., 2009), but is distinct from empathy as Stein understands it.

Perhaps as a consequence of Lipps work, we nd a number of recent

authors asserting that empathy is, or involves, a lack of self-other distinc-

tion (Preston & Waal, 2002, p. 4, tab. 2), or a total identication without

discrimination between ones feelings and those of the other (Decety &

Jackson, 2004, p. 75); or a merging-with, where subject and object function

as an unique body (Finlay, 2005); or a feeling of at-oneness (Davis, C., 1990,

p. 709), or a connection that temporarily unites the separate social entities

of self and other (Davis, M., 2009).For Stein, empathy is not the feeling of oneness (p. 17). Empathy as this

oneness, entanglement (Decety & Jackson, 2006, p. 56), fusion, or confu-

sion, is, for Stein, an impossible position, simply because what my body is

doing to my body and the foreign body is doing to the foreign body would then

remain completely obscure (p. 16). We would further argue that this degree

of perceptual and embodied confusion is simply not a phenomenological

Despite Steins clarity on this, she is still portrayed by White (1997) and C. Davis (1990) as

supporting the notion of empathy-as-oneness.


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feature of peoples experiences of empathy. It lacks persuasive face validity.

As Gallagher (2007, p. 359) points out:

At the phenomenological level, when I see the others action or gesture, I see

(I directly perceive) [original italics] the meaning in the action or gesture. I see

the joy or I see the anger, or I see the intention in the face or in the posture or

in the gesture or action of the other. I see it. I do not have to simulate it. And I

immediately see that it is their action, gesture, emotion, or intention, and it is

extremely rare that I would be in a position to confuse it with my own.

Lipps concept of empathy implies a blurring of ones self-identity with

anothers, in a manner which is not consistent with most peoples experi-

ences. Indeed, in a clinical sense, this degree of fusion is usually seen as

either infantile or pathological. For example:

From object relations theory to transpersonal psychology, there is a presump-

tion that the newborn experiences the world in a preegoic fusion with the

primary caregiver and the world at large. (. . .) There may be similar empathic

fusion in adults who have unusually permeable boundaries and a symbiotic

relational style (see Johnson, 1994). In conventional diagnostic formulations,this may occur with some regularity in Borderline or Dependent personality

disorders. The symbiotic character style may know the other by introjecting,

or swallowing whole, the others experience without digesting the experience

so as to understand or appreciate it as the others. (Hart, 1999, p. 113/114)

For Stein, empathy involves a self-object connection, not a self-object

fusion. This is perhaps more in line with Heideggers mitsein(being with),

than with Lipps Einfhlung. Stein explicitly denies that empathy is a

fusionor even an analogical feeling of self-other similarity (p. 87). Hence,even though we might even feel something which, though weaker in degree,

is not altogether unlike them (Hateld et al., 2009, p. 20), it is not this feeling

that should be seen as empathic in nature.

To summarise then, for Stein, empathy is neither a reactionto anothers

experience (neither contagion, nor imitation, nor sympathy); nor any form

of intellectually-reasonedknowledge about anothers experience (neither infer-

ence, nor projection, nor fantasy, nor analogy, nor perspective-taking, nor

memory), and it is not a mergingof selves or feeling ofoneness. In Figure 2,we have illustrated how Stein applies her phenomenologically-derived


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criteria (right column) to exclude a number of related concepts and pro-

cesses as non-empathic phenomena. This list is not exhaustive, but it illus-

trates the reasoning behind Steins derivation of the essence of empathy.

For Stein, empathy is an interpersonal process lived as a direct coming-

to-know anothers experience. Or, better, more in line with a contemporary

phenomenological view, empathy is the intersubjectiveprocess of directly

knowing the foreign experience.

Figure 2: What Empathy is not: Steins logical path towards a pheno-

menological denition of empathy

Contagion

Imitation

Oneness

Sympathy

Identication

Empathy

isnot

Analogy

Projection

Association

Inference

MemoryFantasy

Simulation

Perspective-taking

EXCLUSION CRITERIA:

I personal response

I personal knowing

Produced by intellectual

activity

Mediated

Past intentional object

Undiffferentiated,

unconsious selfness and

otherness

Necessary similarity inexperiencing


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Three Levels of Empathy

There are three levels to Steins understanding of empathy, which meritfurther exposition. The term levelwhich Stein employsmay be slightly

misleading. There is not a strongly hierarchical element to her account.

Stein notes that while one might usually progress throughthe levels (from

rst, to second, to third) this is not always the case. As we will see, it is

possible to imagine that one might move from level 1 to level 3 (p. 10, p. 70).

For reasons which will become obvious, it is unlikely that Stein considered

that someone could be said to be having an empathic experience if they

had accessed only level 3, however.

Each of the levels she describes has particular dening characteristics,but each is also a way of knowing anothers experience. That is, the three

levels share one of empathys essential qualities: all are experiences which

bring anothers experience to our awareness. This means that, in a way, we

can look at these levels as diffferent kinds of empathic phenomena, or dif-

ferentways intoempathy.

We have attempted to label the three levels of Steins conception of

empathy in ways which are reasonably clear and meaningful to the con-

temporary reader. As we have named them, these levels are: 1. Directlyperceiving(the immediate perception of anothers present, minded, embod-

ied, embedded, experience); 2. Experientially projecting(the non-intellec-

tual experience of anothers unfolding experience); and 3. Interpretatively

mentalizing(the higher-level recognition and interpretation of our knowl-

edge of the others experience). In the following sub-sections, we expand

upon each of them in a little more detail.

Level 1: Direct Immediate Perceiving

For Stein, empathy is a founding or fundamental act, which, in this level,

has a status analogous to direct perception; that is, it is not a product of

other deliberated, intellectual, or cognitive processes (Stein, 1917/1989, e.g.,

p. 14; p. 20; p. 24; p. 27). Rather, it is the result of a perceptual act, which

directly brings anothers experience into ones own awareness. This distin-

guishes empathy from perspective-taking and simulation.

For reference, in Steins (p. 10) thesis, these are: 1) the emergence of the experience; 2) the

fullling explanation; and 3) the comprehensive objectication of the explain experience.


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What it is that We Perceive [Anothers Experience]

Direct perception is a special case of perception (a kind of an act of perceiv-

ing sui generis , p. 11), because what is immediately perceived is the for-eign experience. That is, it is not a meaningless external cue, such as a

gesture or a facial expression, into which some meaning is subsequently,

imaginatively, and intellectually, infused. Even though we grasp the others

experience with the same perceptual intention that we grasp a thing (Mous-

takas, 1994, p. 94) there is a contrast between ordinary perceptive acts and

empathic perception. The former bring concrete objects of the world

(physical objects, closely wedded in appearances, Prinz, 2006, p. 434) to

our awareness, but empathic perceptions bring us an experience in itsentire embodied and embedded form. In empathic perception, when we

perceive an expressive gesture, the gesture andits meaning are given to us

immediately and together.

A key feature of empathic perception is that it involves our immediate

knowledge of anothers present experience. It has the foreign experience

for its intentional object. Empathy is an act of perception, and the object of

that act is the embodied, embedded experience of another, as it is given in

consciousness. This distinguishes empathy from some related phenomena,

such as fantasy, or contagion.

How we do this [Directly, Immediately, Non-Inferentially]

Stein emphasises at the outset that empathy deals with grasping here-and-

now (1917, p. 7). She stresses (p. 10) that empathy is always the primordial expe-

rience (by which she means, immediate, here-and-now) of a non-primordial

We understand this adjective, in Steins thesis, to mean here-and-now, Bournemark

(2005, p. 124) translates it as original instead. Original accentuates a facet relative to theauthenticity or the source location. When Stein denes empathy as an act which is primor-

dial as present experience though non-primordial in content (p. 10), it would be precise to

infer that empathys content is originally located in the other (empathy being responsible

for its subsequent givenness to the perceiver). However, when Stein discusses acts of mem-

ory (p. 8), she highlights that memory deals with non-primordial phenomena. And, in

memory, the source is the perceiver. Hence, the term primordial cannot be read as relative

to the source location. To avoid this interpretation of primordial as meaning located in the

self, we dene primordial as present, actual, and here-and-now. In this quote, then, we

understand that Stein means that the empathic experience is happening in the now for the

perceiver, but its content (foreign experience) is not happening in the nowit is anothers

experience after all. Or, better, empathy is an intersubjective experience.


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source (the experience of another). These two aspects both contribute

to the nature of empathy: whilst the act, for the perceiver, occurs in the

here-and-now; the content of this act is not happening in the here-and-now, for the perceiver. The perceived experience is not presently occurring

to the perceiver, but to the perceived person. In this level, then, Stein

is concerned with what happens when we directly perceive anothers expe-

rience, as it unfolds in the present. This distinguishes empathy from mem-

ory, and contagion.

Stein refers to this possibility of perceiving the body and its experience

as empathys con-primordiality (1917, p. 57), or double given-ness

(p. 43)by which she means that seen, averted and interior sides aregiven to the perceiver at once. As Zahavi (2001) would add, experiences are

not internal, they are not hidden in the head (p. 153)hence, co-perceiving

anothers experience is a perceptive possibility. In phenomenology, expe-

rience is perhaps best understood as a kind of convenient, psychological

shorthand for our relationship to the world. It is located betweenperson

and world.

In short, much like any ordinary perceptive act, empathy happens here-

and-now, but specically to bring to our awareness the experience of

another. In everyday language we might understand this sort of perception

in terms of having a sense, an intuitive knowledge, or a feeling about

anothers experience. Steins preference is simply to say that we are able to

see the foreign experience, as it happens.

Example

Steins model of empathic perception, then, has a gestalt quality. She calls

this its con-primordiality. Stein uses a spatial metaphor to unpack this,

imagining that empathic perception might be understood by analogy withvisuo-spatial perception. Hence, here-and-now, in the present ongoing

moment, she suggests that it is as if the averted and interior sides of a spa-

tial thing are co-given with its seen sides. In short, the whole thing is seen

(1917, p. 57)the con-primordial concept.

Imagine that you perceive a chair. When you perceive it, you see the

presenting sides of the chair (those which face you), and you see the sur-

rounding area (the context). You would not literally see the back of the

chair (averted sides) or its underlying structure (interior sides), of course,


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but the chair is still perceptively given to you in its wholeness (i.e. as a com-

posite of its seen and averted sides andits structure). Under normal condi-

tions we do not perceive a fragmentary chair, composed only of that whichis literally accessible to our gaze.

In empathy, this analogy means that one simultaneously perceives at the

same time (co-perceives) the others outward, expressive, visible (seen

sides) and non-visible behaviour (averted sides), as well as the others expe-

rience (structure). This is what we mean when we say that for Stein the

given-ness of empathic perception is direct. In empathy, we directly co-

perceive body-and-mind, together, at once, in its context. We directly per-

ceive anothers minded, embodied, embedded, expressive experience. Wehave access to this gestalt other through empathic perceptive acts.

How Might this be Understood?

As we have seen, then, Stein views the givenness of anothers experience

as a core feature of empathy, and she wishes to emphasise that there is a

direct and unmediated quality to this. In her own text, Stein calls this level,

the emergence of the experience (1917, p. 10). This might suggest that she

sees empathic experience as a process, and one which begins at this level,

but this is not necessarily the case. Stein emphasises that in a concrete case

people do not always go through all levels (1917, p. 10), and that ones

empathic lived experience may be carried out in a manner diffferent from

her own order of presentation (p. 14/15; p. 70; see also Depraz, 2001 for a

similar formulation).

Steins approach is phenomenological, and not explanatory. However,

in the most recent phenomenological examination of empathys levels,

Depraz (2008, p. 172), relates this direct perception to Paarung (after Hus-

serl), or coupling (after Maturanas acoplamiento, 1975). Similarly, Zahavi(2007; 2001) sees direct perception as the most fundamental mechanism

underlying our daily interpersonal relationships. Empathy, he argues,

makes people intelligible to each other in a direct, immediate manner, and

is the core form of interpersonal knowledge. But even from a completely

diffferent background, relative to the study of neurosciences and articial

intelligence, a similar claim can be found: there is a kind of mind reading

which is in a certain sense purely perceptual and unaided by any verbal

theoretical elements (Rockwell, 2007, p. 2).


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Level 2: Experientially Projecting

Why Empathy is a Form of ProjectingStein herself describes this level as the fullling explication (1917, p. 10).

The reason for this is discussed below. We have chosen to emphasize

instead the importance of another feature of Steins perspective for this

level: the sense of empathy as involving a kind of transposal or projection

of the self.

Through an examination of Steins step-by-step elimination of what

empathy is not, we can conclude that, for her, empathic projections:

1) areexperienced(not reasoned, or imagined, or simulated, such as in per-spective-taking; 1917, p. 14); 2) are a means of accessing genuinely foreign

experiences(not hypothetical, probable, p. 27; nor conjured, or projected,

experiences, p. 20); and 3) this access is direct(not based in any kind of

past knowledge, such as the empathizers past experiences, p. 27) and

immediate.

In more common usage, projection is understood as an intellectual pro-

cess, based on pre-acquired knowledge and concrete evidence-based rea-

soning; and does not necessarily happen here-and-now. In contrast, Steins

projection is a very particular kind of projection. It is an experiential, non-

intellectual, and intuitive (1917, p. 20) kind of projection. This notion is

much closer to Lipps understanding of empathy, though it can be distin-

guished from contemporary neuropsychological theories because this is

still a direct non-simulative experience that is given as anothers. That is,

the experienced projection is not an intellectual simulation, and is imme-

diately co-perceived as foreign.

An ExampleImagine that we are watching a novice acrobat balancing on a wire. At rst,

we directly see his/her fear of heights (direct perception level). We may

also experience this fear to some degree, but for that experience to be an

Thompson (2001) offfers a similar reading by explaining this level as a kind of projection.

This supports our reading, even though, explicitly, in her text, Stein never connects empathic

projections, discussed at length, with the second level as put forward in the beginning of the

dissertation. Though, after careful analysis and consideration, this is the most reasonableand probable reading of her ideas for this level.


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empathic one, the fright could not be our own personal fear (e.g. contagion),

or an imagined probable fright (a simulated or remembered one), or a fear

forthe safety of the acrobat (Schelers fellow-feeling, or sympathy). Instead,it would have to be the acrobats fright, given to us via experiential projec-

tion. As we observe the acrobat, we may project into the objects experi-

ence, turning with it towards the wire and the depths below. At such a

point we are empathically given an experience of the acrobats own fear.

Critically, we experience it, not in the fullest sense (the sense with which

we might experience our ownfear, for our own safety), but only partially

as the acrobatsfear. The fright, for the empathising observer, is non-pri-

mordial; it is not happening in the here-and-now. It is anothersandhence distinct from contagion, as the latter is usually dened. After all, it is

not the empathiser who is balancing on the wire and experiencing fear

he/she is just watching the acrobat and having an empathic experience.

As Stein puts it, I am not one with the acrobat, but only at him. I do not

actually go through his emotions but quasi (1917, p. 16).

In the previous section, we noted that empathic perception has the

others experience for its intentional object (e.g. the acrobats fear). For

empathicprojection, the intentional object shiftsand we become focused

on the intentional object which is at the center of the othersexperience

(e.g. the high wire, the looming depths below). In both empathic projec-

tions and empathic perceptions, however, subject and object are not one,

because they are not having the very same single experience. The otherness

of the experience, implicitly a self-other diffferentiation, is one of empathys

dening attributes. The observer does not really feel any threat for him

or herself (only quasi fear), but rather gains access to the acrobats fear

by feeling it with him/her. Metaphorically speaking, it is a second-person

fear, where we are with the other, experiencing the others extant ongoingstate, almost as if we were having the experience ourselves, but aware

that we are not. In our example, for the empathising observer, the fear is

not happening here-and-now, and nor is the act of wire walking. The

experience and content are anothers, and yet we are withthe other, expe-

riencing it. Hence, Stein claims that this level exhibits the non-primordial

parallel to the having of the experience (1917, p. 10).

It is important to note that, for Stein, empathic experiences can be about

sensations just as easily as they can be about emotions. This makes sense

when we think about the features of her approach, but it is a dimension of


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empathy which is not always included in contemporary writing. In Steins

description, the movement from perception to projection is identical,

regardless of whether the observed experience is an emotion or a sensa-tion; a feeling into and then a feeling with. This idea is explored in her

thesis as sensual empathy (1917, p. 58/60).

Why Stein Calls this the Fullling Explication

Stein uses the term self-transposal. This delineation is applied in some con-

temporary work, too, such as when Depraz (2001) describes an equivalent

stage as being about a spontaneous, highly embodied, imaginative and kin-

aesthetic self-transposal to anothers experience. In Stein, this concept isperhaps closer to the notion of a sensing-in, a feeling-at, a feeling with

(p. 58)denitely not a feeling for (sympathy); or an imagined feeling, as

perspective-taking and simulation are usually conceived. It is an intersub-

jective experience all along.

From this point, it is easier to see why this second level might be referred

to as the fullling explication. Returning to the novice acrobats fear of

heights, recall that, initially, one empathically perceived the acrobats fear.

However, it is only through projectingintothis experience, that one is able

to explore this foreign experience, and to inspect its many sides. For

instance, one might acknowledge that the acrobat is looking beyond the

wire, down into the void below. This happens in an exploratory lived man-

ner, unfolding in the present with the foreign experience. Through this act,

other sides of the foreign experience are revealed, such as acknowledging

the trembling of the wire or the absence of a safety net. Consequently,

one fulls (the term adopted by Stein) ones awareness of the others

experienceor, at least, ones awareness is enriched. The act is an explica-

tion because it reveals in more detail and depth that which was initiallyperceived as merely fear.

It seems to us that referring to this as an imaginative projection, as

Depraz (2001) and Thompson (2001) have done, falls short of this levels

experiential, present-tense, intuitive, sensing-in essence. Imagination may

suggest that Steins view is much closer to intellectual conjecture, than it is;

as Stein points out, this experience is not about the feeling of ones own

experience via anothers screen (p. 20). It is about how we come to feel the

experience of another.


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Level 3: Interpretatively Mentalizing

Since empathy is often represented in psychology as partly, or wholly, anintellectualized ability, this level is probably the aspect of Steins account

which seem most familiar to a contemporary readership. Thompson (2001)

claims that, in this level, the experience faces me again, but now in a clari-

ed or explicated way (p. 16) and this level is usually seen as following on

from the explicative, experiential level. However, for us, this is not its most

distinguishing characteristic. What is fundamental, and fundamentally dif-

ferent, is that, for the rst time, empathy includes a clearly intellectual

facet, responsible for its more intellectual comprehensibility. Thus, with

this level, Stein describes the point at which the interpersonal process ofempathic knowing reaches its inevitable conclusionthis is where we

actively interpret our directly perceived feeling-in of the others experi-

ence, and it becomes more explicitly and linguistically accessible to us as

knowledge. Simultaneously, then, this is the point at which the process

more clearly resembles a non-direct ways of knowing the foreign experi-

ence, though still distinguishable because its intentional object is a directly

given foreign experience (not a deduced, inferred one).

What is Mentalized (The Foreign Experience)

Here, for the rst time, that which was directly intuitively given about the

others experience (during direct perception and/or experiential projec-

tion) is represented, in awareness, as a mental object. That is, the content

of the intuition is mentalized, becoming, in awareness, an intellectual idea

about the foreign experience. This is most transparent when Stein states

that, at this level, empathy can be seen as an intuitive idea about anothers

experience. Before this level, empathy is not an idea, or a representation,

but intuition only (p. 20). But now we have a form of knowledge about the

foreign experience, in the usual conception of the word knowledge.

Through mentalizationthe making of an experience into a mental

objectempathy becomes comprehension. The novel quality that we have

emphasised in the naming of this level is that this act partly transforms the

empathic experience into an intellectually intelligible one. More precisely,

during this level, the empathizer is nally given the foreign experience

in an intelligible, partly interpreted, manner. Consequently, the foreign

experience becomes once more, as it was during direct perception, theintentional object of the empathic actwith the diffference here that


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now the others experience is not the target of an intuitive act, but of a

mentalizingone.

Example

To extend the example of the acrobat, recall that, initially, the acrobats

fear was directly perceived (rst level). Then, the perceiver projected into

it, to explore some of its non-perceptively given sides (second level), say,

the escalating intensity of the acrobats fear. Then, nally, the perceiver

gives to the intuition an intellectual formwhich might hypothetically

mean the empathizer saying to him/herself that the acrobat is experienc-

ing something that could be called fear of falling (third level). In thisintellectual manner, the acrobats experience becomes an intelligibly inter-

pretedthus partly, or fully, comprehended; the empathic experience

completed. Hence, it is only through this level that empathy is, as previ-

ously noted, a more intellectual act through which the foreign experience

is comprehended (p. 6).

These three aspects (i.e. occurring after experiential projection; requir-

ing the making of the experience into a mental object; and being an

interpretative activity) explain the name given by Stein to this level: com-

prehensive objectication of the experience (p. 10).

The Importance of the Mentalization Level

For Stein, the empathic experience can only be complete with the intellec-

tual interpretative act (representation is the term she adopts), which is

simply the giving of an intellectual meaning to an intuition. More than

that, she even tells us that the empathic representation is the only fullment

possible (p. 57).

In order to understand the meaning behind this claim, we must inspectthe term fullment. We have used it in relation to the second level,

and translated it in terms of the enrichment and revelation of the non-

perceptively given aspects of the others experience. We have also noted

that Steins sees the third level as the fruition and end of the empathic pro-

cess. Metaphorically-speaking, we might imagine a river owing through

the earth, exploring the surroundings as it goes. This would be the experi-

ential fullment. At the point where the river reaches the ocean, in a sense,

it ceases to be a riverbut by ceasing to be, its path is complete. This would

be the representational act. When Stein claims that the empathic act can


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only be completed by establishing an intellectual representation, it as

though the empathic act arrives at its destination, and in doing so, the pro-

cess of knowing is transformed, and becomes something else.

Summary of Steins Approach

Steins phenomenological equation includes the self, the intentional act

(empathy) and its object (foreign experience). With this equation, Stein is

able to detect three kinds of empathic phenomena: direct perception;

experiential projection; and interpretative mentalization. And although

these ways into empathy are about the knowing of the foreign experience,it is only the latter (mentalization) that can be properly qualied as a form

of intellectual knowledge. The rst two are intuitive, not ideational.

In short, the rst level, direct perception, is about the direct, non-medi-

ated (e.g. by expressive behaviour or aprioristic knowledge) co-givenness

of another persons present embodied, embedded, minded experience.

Here, one immediately sees the foreign experience. The second level,

experiential projection, is about exploring, as if with the other person, their

unfolding experience. Here, one feels aspects of the foreign experience,some of which may not have been perceived at level 1. Finally, in the third

level, interpretative mentalization, empathy is transformed into an intel-

lectual, interpretative act. During this level, one recognises and represents

the others experience by forming an intellectual interpretation of what

was given of it. And, since the intentional object of this act is still an intui-

tively directly given foreign experience, then, although of an intellectual

nature, this is still an empathic act. This act completes the empathic experi-

ence. Although organized in a sequential manner, people may perhaps

enter into empathy at any of these levels, as they may even skip a few (p. 10,

p. 70)though level 3, alone, cannot count as an empathic experience. It

must always be an interpretation of either level 1, 2, or both.

These levels share some essential characteristics that distinguish them

from non-empathic acts of consciousness. First, the act of empathizing is

immediate, it is here and now experience (p. 7). Secondly, it is an inten-

tional act of consciousness. Thirdly, its intentional object is foreign (the

foreign experience, or the foreign intentional object). Fourthly, this experi-

ence is, to a great extent, direct, non-intellectual and non-mediated. Fifthly,empathy is specically about the knowing of anothers experience. Finally,


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what is given through empathy is always a second-person experience. It is

not an authentic personal experience. This is what essentially denes

empathy as a phenomenon across the three levels: empathy is the coming-to-know anothers experience.

Discussion

The direct implication of the nature of empathy is that selfness and other-

ness are never absent or confused. Rather, the otherness of the foreign

experience is permanently co-given with the empathizers experience, even

if only in the background of experiencing. Hence, self and other are alwaystwo beings with diffferent experiences and identities, even while relating

empathically: both experiences are actually diffferent in themselves (Stein,

1917, p. 23).

It is in this givenness of otherness that Steins empathy becomes more

clearly an intersubjective experience. For her, the empathic act can be

understood as intersubjective in nature, because it has two sides, it has two

essences (p. 19): 1) the foreign experience; and 2) ones own experience.

Consequently, it is fundamental in any interpersonal encounter, it acts asthe bases of intersubjective experience (p. 64) because it is how human

beings comprehend the psychic life of their fellows (p. 11)it is even seen as

a key to ones individuality. Empathy is then a core aspect of ones lived

daily experience, both in an individual and in an interpersonal sense. It

allows for a mutual interpersonal understanding.

Accepting this, the problem of how it is possible to perceive other minds

becomes one of those pseudo problems (Zahavi, 2001, p. 155). Reference to

the other is already inherent to ones being-in-the-world. For Stein, self-

other similarity is indeed enabled by empathy, but it is a non-empathic

phenomenon. It is a only its consequence, in the sense that, before the

apprehension of similarity takes place, the other must rst have been

directly given to oneself. That is, empathy allows for the understanding of

oneself as a living body among many other living bodies (p. 88).

Correspondence with Psychotherapeutic Theories

Stein describes three types of empathic experiences, though none of them

are commonly called empathy in the mainstream psychology literature.


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There are a few exceptions in the humanistic, existentialist and psycho-

dynamic approaches to psychotherapy, however (e.g., Bozarth, 2009; Geist,

2009; Rogers, 1957/2007; Zepf & Hartmann, 2008). There is no other areawhich is so fundamentally concerned with other peoples genuine experi-

ences as psychotherapy. And, in contrast with neurocognitive and develop-

mental psychology, some humanistic and psychodynamic approaches to

psychotherapy more commonly offfer a view of empathy much closer to

Steins conception.

In this particular Steinian sense, empathic understandings are con-

ceived as a key aspect of the therapeutic process. The therapists claims can

be received by the client as correct or incorrect, but, through the continu-ous maintenance of an empathic rapport, the client develops a sense of

realness, an awareness of being alive, personally present, and invested (Geist,

2009, p. 64) to the point when the accuracy of the intervention is less impor-

tant (with both right or wrong commentaries serving as an invitation for

exploration, and each responsible for personal growth).

For example, Rogers (Bozarth, 2009, p. 103, cf. Rogers, 1959, p. 210) pro-

poses that experiencing an accurate, empathic understanding of the clients

awareness of his own experience is a necessary condition for the success of

therapy. For him, empathy is sensing, perceiving (Steins level 1) and as if

experiencing (Steins quasi quality of level 2) the clients experience and

meaning:

The state of empathy, or being empathic, is to perceive the internal frame of

reference of another with accuracy, and with the emotional components and

meanings that pertain thereto, as if one were the other person, but without

losing the as if condition.

For Rogers, empathy is the perceptive ability of knowing anothers experi-

ential meaning; and it involves an experiential resonance side that is never

to be confused with a genuinely personal experience. Barrett-Lennards

(1981) description of empathy also seems to t with Steins views on inter-

subjectivity: It [empathy] is an experiencing of the consciousness behind

anothers outward communication, but with continuous awareness that this

consciousness is originating and proceeding in the other. (p. 92). A core

aspect of Barrett-Lennards understanding of empathy is precisely this

direct immediate relationship between beings. For Freud, this experience

corresponds perhaps to a temporary, partial, identication mechanism,


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used to get into anothers feelings without being directly implicated; and a

mechanism helpful for the psychoanalysts comprehension of what is felt

as foreign in the self of another person (e.g., Boulanger & Lanon, 2006;Zepf & Hartmann, 2008). Similarly, for Reik (1948; Arnold, 2006), psycho-

analytic listening involves an intuitive detection of the clients experiential

meanings, a perceiving of the tip of the iceberg of anothers initially

unknown psychic dynamics. From these perspectives, as with phenome-

nology, empathy fosters a moment-to-moment understanding of that eluding

otherness, that foreign, hence strange and perhaps estranged, experience.

A moment-to-moment awareness, from these perspectives, involves an

experiential resonation, an emotional (though the emotional adjectivefalls shorts of the meaning of experiential) and personal side, where the

impressions aroused in the individual are experienced as belonging to an

object (Zepf & Hartmann, 2008, p. 749), the location of clients and thera-

pists experiences are clearly diffferentiated, their belongingness clearly

given to the therapist throughout the empathic experience.

Thus, in the light of Steins work and these approaches, there is no need

to become an emotional stone-therapist, or to introduce a distance between

subject and object, as some have proposed (e.g., in the experience of empa-

thy, individuals must be able to disentangle themselves from others. This

distance is a key characteristic in psychotherapy, Decety & Jackson, 2006,

p. 56). Since there is no merging to begin with, any defusing or distancing

is irrelevant.

To conclude, Steins writings, thorough and detailed, can inform the

research, practice and teaching of psychotherapy, by illuminating empa-

thys lived experience, from the empathees side, one which is not com-

monly studied in this area (Greenberg et al., 2001).

Limits and Deception in Empathy

Stein answers to the question of authenticity by offfering that it is possible

to experientially distinguish between fake, or empty (p. 62; p. 77) expres-

sions; and genuine ones. Faking is in itself an experience, and one which is

empathically given to the empathizer as an empty one, we then generally

assume that empathy is about the givenness of anothers genuine present

experience.

However the empathic act is not free from error. Empathic experiencesare shaped by the empathizers life-long habits of intuiting and thinking


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(p. 62). That is, the intuitive and the interpretative acts are subjected to

habits, hence permeable to the empathizers past experiences and knowl-

edge, more vulnerable to the inuence of idiographic perspectives, precon-ceptions, or habits. Although these habits are not necessarily responsible

for inaccurate knowing (for example, they may just condition the selective-

ness of the empathizers attention), through them, empathy becomes sus-

ceptible to inaccurate or deceptive knowledge.

This potential inaccuracy is not restricted to empathic acts. Indeed, for

Stein, non-empathic acts more frequently generate deceptive knowledge.

For example, if the interpretation draws upon ones similar past experi-

ences (analogy) there is a heightened risk of deception: we come to falseconclusions if we empathically take our own individual characteristics as a

basis (p. 87).

Stein wishes to emphasize that the odds of inaccuracy can be reduced by

combining empathic acts and inferential, intellectual acts. For example,

the perceiver wonders whether pain (p. 85) is a good interpretation of the

others experience, and looks elsewhere for intellectual conrmation (as

offfered by external cues such as expressive behaviour and the context of

the experience). It is the content of the intuitive act that requires interpre-

tation, but it is the interpretation itself (level 3) that is usually prone to

evaluations of accuracy or falsity. This combination of acts helps us in

accurately interpreting equivocal expressions (p. 85).

Empathy does not necessarily reveal to oneself the foreign experience in

its entireness, as there is perhaps as well a sphere of absolute privacy

(Scheler, 1913, p. 10). Both self and other are never perceived as complete.

To use Steins expression, each is always absently available (Stein, p. 19),

to oneself and to another. Nevertheless, to only be given a partial aspect of

anothers experience does not make our access less direct, less experiential,less accurate, or less empathic: there is so to speak more to the mind of the

other than what we are grasping, but this does not make our understanding

non-experiential (Zahavi, 2008, p. 520).

As Barrett-Lennard (1981, p. 92) noted, empathic understandings are

about the knowing of at least those aspects of his awareness that are most

important to him at the moment. In fact, it is exactly this inaccessibility, this

limit, which I can experience (cf. Husserl, 1973a, p. 144). And when I do have an

authentic experience of another subject, I am exactly experiencing that the

other eludes me (Zahavi, 2001, p. 153). There is then a limit to that which


30/35


can be accessed through empathy. Imagine that the acrobat was fearful,

but also thrilled with the performances suspense. By noticing only the fear,

the observer is still having an experience that is suitably described as anempathic experience.

In conclusion, empathic knowing can be inaccurately interpreted and

subjected to intuiting habits; and it does not necessarily reveal to the

empathizer all there is to know about the foreign experience. Despite this,

accuracy can be enhanced by complementing consecutive empathic acts

(moment-to-moment empathy) with non-empathic intellectual acts. They

can be used in a complementary fashion, with the goal of correctly inter-

preting that which was empathically experienced, but they are to be distin-guished by their nature.

Conclusion

Taken together, our argument suggests that conceptually, and in the light

of the lived experience, there is a social intuitive understanding that is not

properly explained by current empathy models. These models propose that

empathy may be understood as if it were a case of perspective-taking, anal-ogy, sympathy, mimicking, contagion, and/or fusion. These are alternative

forms of understanding that Stein does not accept as empathic, and their

distinctive nature is part of the experience itself (Stein, 1917, p. 62). Further-

more, many of these models seem to merge together several of the many

phenomena which empathy has been claimed to be (Batson, 2009), or

argue against each other (e.g., the feedback given to Preston & Waal, 2002)

as if they were referring to one and the same phenomenon.

For Stein, an empathic understanding is an experiential intuitive know-

ing of someone elses present experience that is not lived as a personal,

sympathetic or intellectual form of social understanding. This form of

interpersonal understanding is a natural everyday form of relating with

other people and their experiences. Recently there has been a revived interest

in Steins phenomenological claims about the nature of empathy, principally

in phenomenological and phenomenology-informed theories. For example,

Deprazs (2001) empathy levels; Gallaghers (2007) situated cognition;

Prinz (2006) perception of abstract content; and Zahavis (2008, 2001) non-

simulative direct perceptive access all draw upon Stein.Then, the empathy eld would benet from some conceptual revision and


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that might deserve to be empirically investigated, rstly qualitatively, to

gather evidence of its presence in peoples experiences of their social

understandings; and then also from within experimental and neuropsy-chology paradigms, so that the underlying processes may be put to test. As

Gurmin (2007), we propose that Steins phenomenological approach can

offfer neurologists a comprehensive account of empathy that will aid them

insofar as they relect on scientic explanations(p. 100), and that its impli-

cations have the potential to extend some way beyond this.9

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