The Empathic Object

Abstract

Empathy undoubtedly occupies a prominent position in contemporary cultural debates. This essay deconstructs its meaning and the commonplaces associated with it. As the original concept of empathy introduced by Heinz Kohut is consistent with the conclusions of this essay, the deconstruction is also presented as a genealogy of the use of the word through Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, contemporary philosophy and recent contributions from neuroscience. It is thus that empathy shifts from the relational dimension, to which it has been bound by tradition and common sense, to the field dimension where Kohut had originally positioned it. At the same time, psychoanalytic clinical practice reveals that empathy is not a matter of gaze or feeling but of touch, or even better, of con-tact between analyst and analysand and, consequently, between all empathic subjects/objects. But if touch is at the core of empathy, so is its elusive nature: in grasping we always lose something, in losing we always grasp something. The missed encounter is the successful one.