From “Einfühlung” to empathy: exploring the relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience

Is there a relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience? This question is motivated not only by the fact that historically experiences of both kinds have often been accounted for in terms of “empathy”, the English translation of the German term “Einfühlung”, but also by the fact that some contemporary theories refer to mechanisms underlying both aesthetic and interpersonal experience. In this Editorial introducing the special section titled “From ‘Einfühlung’ to empathy: exploring the relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience”, we briefly sketch these two motivations and the relationship between the different mechanisms that have been associated with both aesthetic and interpersonal experience.     

Empathy,Einfühlung,and aesthetic experience: the effect of emotion contagion on appreciation of representational and abstract art using fEMG and SCR

Since the advent of the concept of empathy in the scientific literature, it has been hypothesized, although not necessarily empirically verified, that empathic processes are essential to aesthetic experiences of visual art. We tested how the ability to “feel into” (“Einfühlung”) emotional content—a central aspect of art empathy theories—affects the bodily responses to and the subjective judgments of representational and abstract paintings. The ability to feel into was measured by a standardized pre-survey on “emotional contagion”—the ability to pick up and mirror, or in short to “feel into”, emotions, which often overlaps with higher general or interpersonal empathetic abilities. Participants evaluated the artworks on several aesthetic dimensions (liking, valence, moving, and interest), while their bodily reactions indicative of empathetic engagement (facial electromyography—EMG, and skin conductance responses—SCR) were recorded. High compared to low emotion contagion participants showed both more congruent and more intense bodily reactions (EMG and SCR) and aesthetic evaluations (higher being moved, valence, and interest) and also liked the art more. This was largely the case for both representational and abstract art, although stronger with the representational category. Our findings provide tentative evidence for recent arguments by art theorists for a close “empathic” mirroring of emotional content. We discuss this interpretation, as well as a potential tie between emotion contagion and a general increase in emotion intensity, both of which may impact, in tandem, the experience and evaluation of art.     

Einfühlung as the breath of art: six modes of embodiment

Robert Vischer’s concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as the departure point for a proposal about viewing art using the body for a non-imitative form of empathy termed a transomatization and for other embodied operations. A transomatization occurs when viewers reinterpret a component or process of their own bodies to serve as a non-imitative stand-in, or correlate, for something outside of the self, specifically, some quality of an art work or its production. This creates an overlap of the self and other that might be experienced subjectively as a feeling of projection, an operation characteristic of empathy. Transomatizations and other embodied experiences are grounded in empathic, intersubjective modes of engaging others that begin in early life. As applications of the proposed concepts, six different embodiments of the viewer’s breathing are explored in regard to Friedrich E. Church’s 1848 oil painting Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from the Catskill Mountains. Support for elements of the proposed concepts and applications is drawn from research in the biological and social sciences and from first person, embodied accounts of viewing.     

Einfühlung: Über Empathie

Zusammenfassung. Die F?higkeit zur Empathie setzt sich aus unterschiedlichen Kompetenzen zusammen: Der Gefühlsansteckung, der Perspektivenübernahme und der F?higkeit, den Kontext sozialer Situationen zu verstehen. Alle drei Kompetenzen müssen in sozialer Erfahrung gelernt werden. Eine Theorie des empathischen Prozesses hat darzustellen, wie es m?glich ist, im Selbst die Gefühle und Phantasien eines Anderen zu erfahren und ihm auch zuzuordnen. Hier zeigt sich, da? der theoretisch begründete Versuch, zwischen Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung zu unterscheiden, in eine Sackgasse führen mu?. Angemessener erscheint eine konstruktivistisch orientierte Hypothese, die die Einfühlung als einen pers?nlichen Entwurf versteht. Dieser Entwurf orientiert sich sowohl an den eigenen inneren Objekten als auch an den konkreten Erfahrungen mit dem Gegenüber. Im psychoanalytischen Dialog bringen beide Beteiligte, Patienten und Psychoanalytiker, ihre empathischen Entwürfe zur Geltung und suchen darüber eine Verst?ndigung.

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The ability to share another person's feelings: About empathy

Summary. The ability of empathy includes different competences: being infected by emotions, the adoption of another person's perspective and the capability to understand the social context. All three competences have to be learned through social experiences. A theory of the empathic process has to describe, how it is possible to experience emotions and phantasies of another person in the self as one's own and to recognize them as belonging to the other. The theoretically founded attempt to differentiate between self-perception and the perception of the other proves necessarily to reach an impass. A constructivistic hypothesis seems to be more appropriate here, that conceives empathy as a personal draft. This draft is directed by one's own inner objects and by concrete experiences with the other as well. In the psychoanalytic dialogue both participants, patient and analyst, develop their empathic drafts and try to reach through them an understanding.

     

Searching for the Self: Early Phenomenological Accounts of Self-Consciousness from Lotze to Scheler

Abstract

Phenomenological accounts of self-consciousness are often said to combine two elements by means of a necessary connection: the primitive and irreducible subjective character of experiences and the idealist transcendental constitution of consciousness. In what follows I argue that this connection is not necessary in order for an account of self-consciousness to be phenomenological, as shown by early phenomenological accounts of self-consciousness – particularly in Munich phenomenology. First of all, I show that the account of self-consciousness defended by these phenomenologists was not influenced as much by Husserl as by two important figures in the prehistory of phenomenology: their teacher Theodor Lipps, and – indirectly, through Lipps’ influence – Hermann Lotze. Second, I show that their account of self-consciousness takes the metaphysical realism underlying Lotze’s and Lipps’ views on the distinction between feeling and sensations seriously. I argue that this distinction played a central role in the development of many early phenomenological accounts of self-consciousness.     

Die Handhabung der Übertragung

Zusammenfassung. Freud hat die Handhabung der übertragung als das schwierigste wie das wichtigste Stück der analytischen Technik bezeichnet. Mit Handhabung meinte er nicht den Umgang mit der übertragung im allgemeinen einschlie?lich der übertragungsdeutungen, sondern etwas Spezifischeres und Zupackendes, das sp?ter den Ruch des Nicht-Analytischen bekam. Der Autor zeigt den wichtigen Stellenwert des Terminus bei Freud und untersucht seine Entwicklung von der Ichpsychologie über Ferenczi und A. Balint bis hin zu Gill und Thom?. Er konstatiert eine erhebliche Bedeutungsverschiebung und -erweiterung. W?hrend Freud damit das energische Eingreifen des Analytikers an dramatischen Wendepunkten der Analyse gemeint hatte, schl?gt der Autor vor, die Handhabung der übertragung heute als eine ubiquit?re Dimension des analytischen Arbeitens zu betrachten. Sie bezieht sich auf den Handlungsaspekt des analytischen Tuns und nicht auf das Deuten im engeren Sinn. Damit wird der Beitrag des Analytikers zur Interaktion thematisiert. Wenn wir diesen Beitrag, d.h. alle Aspekte des Analytikerverhaltens, als Handhabung der übertragung qualifizieren, so erschlie?en wir sie als Elemente des intersubjektiven Geschehens und der übertragungsbeziehung und machen sie der Deutungsarbeit zug?nglich. Die Handhabung der übertragung ist der genuin Freud’sche Ausdruck für das, was Balint und Loch die psychoanalytische Beziehungskunst genannt haben – komplement?r zur Deutungskunst.

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The handling of transference

Summary. In Freuds opinion the handling of transference is the most difficult and important part of psychoanalytic technique. By handling he did not mean dealing with transference and transference-interpretations in general but something more specific and grasping, that has been regarded as non-analytic later on. The author shows, how important the term was to Freud, and explores its development from ego psychology, Ferenczi and A. Balint to Gill and Thom?. He finds a lot of changes and conceptual clarification. Whereas Freud used the term for the vigorous interventions of the analyst at dramatic turning points of analysis, the author suggests to consider the handling of transference as a ubiquitous dimension of analytic work. It refers to the aspect of action in analysis, not to interpretation, and therefore means the contribution of the analyst to interaction. In qualifying this contribution, that is all aspects of the analysts be- haviour as a handling of transference, we make them accessible as elements of the intersubjective process and the transference relationship, and with that we become able to analyse them. The handling of transference is the genuine Freudian term for what Balint and Loch called the art of relating (Beziehungskunst) – complementary to the art of interpretation (Deutungskunst).

     

Moderne Antidepressivatherapie

In den letzten drei Jahrzehnten ist es, mit der Entwicklung der so genannten selektiven Serotonin-Wiederaufnahmehemmer (SSRI), zu einer Revolution in der Behandlung der Depression gekommen. Mit dieser Produktgruppe war es erstmals m?glich, depressive Erkrankungen mittels einfacher Strategien (1 × 1 Dosierung) bei hoher Effektivit?t durchzuführen. So haben die Antidepressiva einen Siegeszug um die Welt angetreten und geh?ren heute zu den am h?ufigsten verschriebenen Medikamenten überhaupt. Gerade dadurch wurde eine neue ?ra moderner, antidepressiver Pharmakotherapie eingeleitet. Einer der wesentlichen Effekte dürfte darin liegen, dass in den industrialisierten Staaten seit der Einführung der SSRI die Suizidraten rückl?ufig sind - was eine sensationelle Entwicklung moderner Behandlungsstrategien in der Psychiatrie reflektiert.     

‘There is no brute world,only an elaborated world’: Merleau-Ponty on the intersubjective constitution of the world

In his later works, Merleau-Ponty proposes the notion of ‘the flesh’ (la chair) as a new ‘element’, as he put it, in his ontological monism designed to overcome the legacy of Cartesian dualism with its bifurcation of all things into matter or spirit. Most Merleau-Ponty commentators recognise that Merleau-Ponty's notion of ‘flesh’ is inspired by Edmund Husserl's conceptions of ‘lived body’ (Leib) and ‘vivacity’ or ‘liveliness’ (Leiblichkeit). But it is not always recognised that, for Merleau-Ponty, the constitution of the world of perception, the problem of embodiment or incarnation, is at the very same time one with the problem of the experience of others in what Husserl called Einfühlung or Fremderfahung and indeed one with the problem of the constitution of the commonly shared world ‘for all’. As Merleau-Ponty put it in his late essay ‘The Philosopher and His Shadow’ in Signs, ‘the problem of Einfühlung, like that of my incarnation, opens on the meditation of sensible being, or, if you prefer, it betakes itself there’. In other words, the problem of the apprehension of the other is part of the overall apprehension of the transcendent world. In this paper I want to meditate on the relations between embodiment, experience of others, and experience of the world in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. I will take particular note, as in the title of this presentation, of the claim made by Merleau-Ponty in The Visible and the Invisible that ‘there is no brute world, only an elaborated world’ (il n'y a pas de monde brut, il n'y a qu'un monde élaboré).     

Empathy and Other-Directed Intentionality

The article explores and compares the accounts of empathy found in Lipps, Scheler, Stein and Husserl and argues that the three latter phenomenological thinkers offer a model of empathy, which is not only distinctly different from Lipps’, but which also diverge from the currently dominant models.     

Book Review

Abstract

Walter Hans Joerg ed., Psychoanalyse und Universität. Wien: Passagen Verlag, 1994.

“Even In the Night You See The Papaya Shining” Reichmayr J: Einführung in die Ethnopsychoanalyse, Geschichte, Theorien und Methoden. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995.     

The Art Type Theory of Art

Abstract

The theory I present and defend in this paper—what I term the art type theory— holds that something is a work of art iff it belongs to an established art type. Something is an established art type, in turn, either because its paradigmatic instances standardly satisfy eight art-making conditions, or because the art world has seen fit to enfranchise it as such. It follows that the art status of certain objects is independent of what any individual or culture might say about it, while the art status of others fundamentally depends on the judgment of the art world. Because of the theory's quasi-institutional component, I conclude by defending it against four objections that have been raised against institutional definitions.     

THINKING THROUGH KIERKEGAARD'S ANTI-CLIMACUS: ART, IMAGINATION, AND IMITATION

What place do imagination and art have in Christian existence? This paper examines this question through the writings of Kierkegaard's pseudonym Anti‐Climacus: The Sickness Unto Death and Practice in Christianity. I focus on the latter work in particular because it best illustrates the importance of imagination in following after (Efterfølgelse) Christ in imitation, which Anti‐Climacus presents as the proper task of faithful Christian existence. After outlining both his critique and his affirmation of the imagination, I then consider what role the notion of ‘Christian art’ might play in his account of the imitation of Christ. Anti‐Climacus gives a severe critique of Christian art, insofar as it disposes the viewer to detached observation and admiration – rather than imitation – of Christ. However, an earlier passage in the same text gives a provocative yet cryptic indication of the sort of art that would not succumb to this danger. Taking a cue from the phenomenology of Jean‐Luc Marion, I draw out this suggestion and argue for the important role that visual art can play in imitating Christ. The final section illustrates this point briefly with three paintings: Matthias Grünewald's Crucifixion, Hans Holbein's The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, and Albrecht Dürer's Self‐Portrait (1500).     

Heidegger's Early Critique of Husserl

This paper examines Heidegger's critique of Husserl in its earliest extant formulation, viz. the lecture courses Ontologie from 1923 and Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung from 1923/4. Commentators frequently ignore these lectures, but I try to show that a study of them can reveal both the extent to which Heidegger remains committed to phenomenological research in something like its Husserlian form, and when and why Heidegger must part with Husserl. More specifically, I claim that Heidegger rightly criticizes Husserl's account of 'equipmental objects', and that he is especially unsatisfied with the terminology in which Husserl presents his phenomenological analyses, not only of 'equipment', but of other types of entities as well. However, it will also emerge that Heidegger's own phenomenological work presupposes the performance of what Husserl calls the 'epoch 7 ', the method of 'bracketing' natural knowledge. In this way, Heidegger's sometimes very severe critique must be understood as an internal critique.     

Off the beaten track: Freud,sound and music.Statement of a problem and some historico‐critical notes1

The authors note that the element of sound and music has no place in the model of mental functioning bequeathed to us by Freud, which is dominated by the visual and the representational. They consider the reasons for this exclusion and its consequences, and ask whether the simple biographical explanation offered by Freud himself is acceptable. This contribution reconstructs the historical and cultural background to that exclusion, cites some relevant emblematic passages, and discusses Freud’s position on music and on the aesthetic experience in general. Particular attention is devoted to the relationship between Freud and Lipps, which is important both for the originality of Lipps’s thinking in the turn‐of‐the‐century debate and for his ideas on the musical aspects of the foundations of psychic life, at which Freud ‘stopped’, as he himself wrote. Moreover, the shade of Lipps accompanied Freud throughout his scientific career from 1898 to 1938. Like all foundations, that of psychoanalysis was shaped by a system of inclusions and exclusions. The exclusion of the element of sound and music is understandable in view of the cultural background to the development of the concepts of the representational unconscious and infantile sexuality. While the consequences have been far reaching, the knowledge accumulated since that exclusion enables us to resume, albeit on a different basis, the composition of the ‘unfinished symphony’ of the relationship between psychoanalysis and music.     

Die Unaufrichtigkeit als Neurose und als Verbrechen

Zusammenfassung. Die Autorin stellt einige überlegungen bezüglich einer arglistigen, sch?dlichen und, ihrem Eindruck nach, heutzutage weit verbreiteten Pathologie vor, die sich von F?llen entschiedener klinischer H?rte bis zu anderen an der Grenze der Normalit?t, erstreckt. Sie verwendet von Beginn an den Terminus der Unaufrichtigkeit (italienisch: malafede; spanisch: mala fe’), den sie von Madeleine Baranger entlehnt, wobei sie betont, dass er der Bedeutung der von ihr vorgestellten St?rung nur ann?herungsweise entspricht. Ausgangspunkt für ihre überlegungen bildeten Behandlungsschwierigkeiten mit Patienten, die stark widersprüchliche Aspekte in sich vereinigten, ohne Anzeichen von Konfliktualit?t oder Unbehagen zu manifestieren. Diese Besonderheit tritt vor allem bezüglich moralischer Fragestellungen in Erscheinung, bezüglich abstrakter Moralvorstellungen oder Ideologien, die von einigen Patienten in scharfem Kontrast zu ihrem Verhalten und ihren Gefühlen verkündet werden.

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Dishonesty as a neurosis and as a crime

Summary. In this essay, reflections about a malicious and in the view of the author nowadays wide-spread pathology are presented. It occurs in a large variety of forms from serious clinical disturbances to almost-normality. The author designates this pathology by the term „dishonesty”, a term borrowed from Madeleine Baranger, emphasizing however, that it is merely an approximation to the presented disorder. The starting-point for her reflections were the difficulties she has experienced with patients having strongly contradictory aspects in their personality without the slightest sign of conflict or uneasiness. This peculiarity manifested itself first of all in moral questions as a contradiction between the abstract moral concepts and ideologies and the behaviour and emotions of the patient.

     

Adolf Strümpell and the issue of "traumatic neurosis"

By his introduction of the term "psychisches Trauma", Strümpell exerted an influence on Oppenheims concept of traumatic neurosis. What he termed "Begehrensvorstellungen", too, had an important part to play in the ensuing discussion on the origin of traumatic neuroses. That the two sides in dispute nonetheless appealed to the authority of the internist and neurologist Strümpell in matters of expert opinion, is an indication of his discernment in these problematic open questions.     

THE OUTCOME OF SHORT‐TERM PSYCHODYNAMIC ART THERAPY COMPARED TO SHORT‐TERM PSYCHODYNAMIC VERBAL THERAPY FOR DEPRESSED WOMEN

The primary aim of this randomized controlled clinical trial was to compare the outcome from two types of short‐term psychodynamic psychotherapy. The participants were thirty‐nine women with depression. Half of the participants (n = 18) received art psychotherapy and the other half received verbal psychotherapy (n = 21). Data was collected before and after psychotherapy, and at a 3‐month follow‐up using self‐rating scales and interviewer‐based ratings. Results showed that art and verbal psychotherapies were comparable, and at follow‐up, the average participant in both groups had few depressive symptoms and stress‐related symptoms. The conclusion was that short‐term psychodynamic art therapy could be a valuable treatment for depressed women.     

Introductory commentary

Abstract

Harriet Pappenheim. Einführender Kommentar.

Seit zwanzig Jahren führte die Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society jedes Jahr eine Konferenz durch, zu der die Psychoanalytiker der Umgebung eingeladen wurden. Gut bekannte Gelehrte und Kliniker aus den Vereinigten Staaten wurden zum Vortragen ihrer Arbeiten eingeladen. Die Schwerpunkte waren auf neue, im Entstehen begriffene Aspekte der Psychoanalyse gerichtet, die nach unserer Meinung weiter studiert und beleuchtet werden sollten.

Harriet Pappenheim. Un Comentario introductorio

En cada uno de los últimos veinte años, la Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society ha organizado la Conferencia Científica Anual en la ciudad de Nueva York a la cual la comunidad psicoanalítica del área ha sido invitada. Clínicos y colegiales prestigiados de todas partes de Estados Unidos han sido invitados a presentar trabajos y en todas las conferencias el foco ha sido las nuevas áreas que van emergiendo en psicoanalisis, que desde nuestro punto de vista, requirieron mayor elucidación y estudio.