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This paper discusses psychoanalytic contributions concerning the development and the facilitation of qualities such as empathy, love for neighbor, social-mindedness, identification, sympathy, and altruism. An early notion of Freud's concerning the original tie between mother and child is seen as the precursor of modern object-relations theory, of the development of language and empathy, the capacity to love, and the capacity to develop altruistic feelings, attitudes, and behavior. The paper also deals with neurotic manifestations of altruism and of other positive qualities. The notion is expressed that perhaps the most valuable contribution that psychoanalysts can make lies in the field of education, the application of psychoanalytic concepts and understanding to the upbringing of the child, to the education and training of the youth. Kindness, thou dear great name that containest nothing in thee demanding loveless esteem, but prayest to be followed; thou dost not menace and needst not establish any law, but of thyself findest entrance into feeling, and willingly art revered; whose smile disarms all sister inclinations; thou art so glorious that we need not ask after thy descent, for whatever be thy origin it is ennobled through thee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the quality of analyst's personality to be able to mobilize on his patient's behalf as a therapeutic factor in analysis. This quality of personality seems to be connected with concern, patience and a capacity to remain-in-being for his patient. Three qualities, genuineness, non-possessive warmth and accurate empathy seems to be essential for to the successful therapist. There is a growing body of experience to suggest that apart from the knowledge, the skill and the personal motivation, the therapeutic set up demands that therapist must be able to mobilize his sentiments, his predisposition and his capacity for concern and openness within the limits of his human personal condition.

Comments on the congruity and incongruity between therapeutic and analytical results. Use of Socratic method of bringing out latent conceptions; Accounts on the understanding of patient's statements in the manifest language; Unity of the surface realities of man into a whole-making factor, halfway between devote empathy and active intervention.

This study investigated 98 undergraduate college couples on the relationship between potential conflict in engagement and perceptual distortion of the intended mate. On the basis of an empathy questionnaire, it was found that the number of disagreements were related to the number of errors in prediction. This was interpreted to mean that a block in communication was taking place where disagreements and errors were high, and free communication was taking place where disagreements and errors were low. Categories of "idealist," "realist," and "pessimist" couples were defined using the empathy questionnaire. A comparison of idealistic and realistic couples suggested that idealistic couples had scores equal to or higher than realistic couples on a standard test of "engagement adjustment." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most recently developed methods in anthropological science has been labeled "The New Ethnography." This approach looks on culture as a cognitive organization of material phenomena, as a way of knowing and ordering reality. The task of the researcher is to unearth and understand the logical organizing principles underlying human behavior. This he does by elicting from his informants the questions they formulate about the world around them as well as the answers they give to them. This method has not been employed in the study of religions on a large scale. The few applications have been encouraging because they have brought into focus the religious experience of a particular people. They also show that greater objectivity and accuracy in the analyses of values, beliefs and ideals can be achieved and thus increase the understanding of other peoples' religious life. The new ethnography can supply us with useful guidelines for the improvement and development of the academic study of religion. It also suggests that "empathy" training for scholars in the field might be pursued with advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the study showing the effects of therapeutic conditions in child therapy. Sixteen practicing child psychotherapists and 16 child patients were used as sample subjects in the study. Each children were evaluated early in therapy and four and a half months later by their respective therapists using the Current Adjustment Rating Scale. The effects of accurate empathy, warmth and genuineness in non-verbal communication of child therapy were also analyzed. Results show that the children receiving higher conditions improved significantly, while the parent's evaluations suggest that the children receiving low levels of empathy, warmth and genuineness showed actual deterioration.

Examines the developmental aspects of socioempathy of high school students. Sociometric status of students; Split-half reliabilities of the socioempathic ability of students; Growth curve of socioempathic ability.

This article reviews current hypotheses and investigations concerning helping behavior. Two areas of helping behavior are focussed upon: donation and rescue responses. Studies concerning the impact of the social responsibility norm, experimenter demand characteristics, and proprieties are reviewed. Additionally, studies concerned with the subject variables associated with aiding activity are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the development of a performance measure of imagining ability. The measure is then related to role taking and imitating ability, measures of "imaginativeness," and self-report of imagining ability as well as other control variables. It is guided by the conviction that modeling and role taking behavior offers the best approach to examining the phenomena of imagining. It has been pointed that there exists a long history of psychological theory on imagining which takes as its point of departure the proposition that imagining can be analyzed in terms of the ability to take the role of the other. This point of view is closely related to the imitation or modeling approach to imagining which is seen as a rebuilt or imitated perception, an imitation of the object. The role taking approach on the other hand has insisted that the imitation is that of another person or of the self in another time or place and not of the object of the image. In this analysis the role taking component appears to have the largest single contribution toward the significant predictive ability.

The article focuses on the measure of emotional empathy and its related validity in settings where such a personality attribute is relevant. An empathic person can imaginatively take the role of another and can understand and accurately predict that person's thoughts, feelings, and actions. Measures of empathic emotional response have typically relied on self-report and physiological indicators. The low validity of the self-ratings is due to their confounding with response styles and the inadequacy of the physiological measures is in part due to their failure to differentiate various facets of emotional experience. In the study, basic hypotheses were that a person who has a high level of emotional empathy is less likely to engage in aggressive behavior, particularly when the pain cues from the victim are immediate, and that he is more likely to engage in helping behavior when he notices distress in another. In other words, the common element in these situations is the heightened responsiveness to another's emotional experience.

The article presents a study to evaluate the significance of variations within groups in levels of therapist-offered conditions by comparing measurements of therapist accurate empathy, non-possessive warmth and genuineness obtained from tape recordings using on the one hand samples of therapist-group interactions, and on the other therapist-patient interactions. In sampling the therapist's interaction with individual patients, two types of samples may be drawn therapist-patient-therapist (TPT) units, and patient-therapist-patient units (PTP). Since TPT samples contain more information about therapist behavior, it was expected that the TPT samples would be more predictive of outcome than the PTP samples.

The article cites a study which determines the relationship between empathy and job performance skills by using a newly designed empathy scale and relating this new scale to the Aide Performance Evaluation Scale, which is used for evaluation and selection for promotion of psychiatric aides. In this study it was assumed that the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) technique would lend itself to assessment of empathy among psychiatric aides. The present TAT technique was designed in response to a need for better selection procedures of good aides to be assigned to supervisory and more sensitive positions in the acute-intensive, psychiatric treatment programs.

The article discusses the limits of symbolic realism. The author held that the views of authors of the book The Limits of Symbolic Realism: Problems of Empathic Field Observation in a Sectarian Context, Thomas Robbins. Dick Anthony, and Thomas F. Curtis about the problems of doing participant observation work among a group such as the Christian World Liberation Front is valid and helpful. However the author is not happy with their handling of the issue of symbolic realism. He held that the authors have somewhat confused symbolic realism as a methodological principle for the interpretation of religious data with its possible uses a methodology of field research. The authors are basically right in seeing in the notion of symbolic realism the contrast between sympathy and empathy which they document in the writings of several other people, and in noting that symbolic realism implies empathy but not necessarily sympathy. The author feels that the writers of the book are logical non sequitur in their argument. This is evident in the notion that because certain types of religious group cannot really accept the notion of empathy nor define a field worker adequately in those terms, the field worker himself cannot be empathic toward the very attitudes which produce a feeling of rejection toward him in the group.

The article presents some methodological considerations of accurate empathy ratings. The examination of rated tape segments from a national sample of qualified psychotherapists suggests that the somewhat amorphous qualities of "Good Therapist" and therapist "Likeability" are related significantly, yet slightly, to ratings of Accurate Empathy. Therapist "Likeability" is related significantly to "Good Therapist", but "Likeability" and empathy have little relationship when the "Good Therapist" quality is partialed out. The reliability of the Accurate Empathy scale is not necessarily a function of number of therapists evaluated.

The article assesses the reliability of process ratings of psychotherapy with children. Videotape segments of the psychotherapeutic activity of 16 therapists during 32 separate sessions with children were rated for accurate empathy (AE), non-possessive warmth (NPW), and genuineness (GEN). The average interrater reliabilities of these ratings were estimated and found to be .72 for AE, .52 for NPW and .34 for GEN. Though moderate, these values were interpreted as a support for the hypothesis that reliable ratings of AE and NPW can be obtained for psychotherapeutic activity with children.

This article discusses various issues related to the identification of the therapeutically facilitative factor in clinical psychology. The symptoms of a successful therapist is known, but not much about their dynamics or genesis is known. Empathy, respect, genuineness and concreteness can be seen as so many symptomatic expression of a successful therapist, and behind these symptoms, by factor analyzing their inter-correlations, the article authors have found a single unitary dimension or entity. This discovery immediately raises some significant questions about how much more there is behind the symptoms.