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This paper suggests that elaborating Winnicott’s idea of “potential space” can provide a conceptual approach to psychotherapy across the cultural divide. The first part of the paper discusses the general problematic of intercultural psychotherapy. This is illustrated with an account of therapeutic work with Ethiopian Jews who have migrated to Israel. There is a significant gap between the Ethiopian cultural codes relevant to psychotherapy and those of the Israeli therapist, who is usually trained in the Western psychotherapeutic tradition. A meaningful and effective therapeutic process can take place if psychotherapist and client cocreate a “mutual creative space.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper employs a proposed alterity discourse analysis (ADA) framework to argue that The Passing of Traditional Society - the bible of the modernization paradigm of development communication research - exemplifies far less a discourse on the relationship between empathy and development, as it does on the political/ideological imperatives governing the construction of the Other (i.e. the Middle East) by the Self (i.e. the US). To substantiate this claim, the paper debunks the book's claim to social scientific objectivity by pinpointing the methodological shortcomings of the empathy model and of the Middle East project from which the model was derived, and highlights the paradigm's dogma by revealing the religious metaphors with which the book's narrative is infused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the hypothesis that the type of social impairment observed in children with autism is evidence of an underlying malfunction in their 'Theory of Mind', resulting in 'mindblindness'. To establish this point, the paper takes up two interesting ideas in the Theory of Mind literature, purged of their Cartesianism: first, that the study of autism does indeed provide us with critical insights into the development of social understanding and empathy; and, second, that no meaningful distinction can be drawn between a child's interpersonal and intrapersonal development. The paper seeks to show how the ability to understand someone else's thoughts and emotions is a product of endless co-regulated interactions in which the child's own emotions and sense of self develop. The reason why children with autism so frequently exhibit impaired social relatedness is because basic biological challenges—such as sensory over- and under-reactivity—inhibit their ability to engage in these co-regulated interactive experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses kinaesthetic empathy based on the German philosopher Edith Stein's theory of empathy. Applying Stein's study of empathy, the paper examines empathy as a particular form of the act of knowing. Instead of a mere emotion, empathy entails a re-living or a placing of ourselves 'inside' the another's experience. We may grasp another's living, moving body as another center orientation of the world through our own kinaesthetic sense and body topography. Kinaesthetic empathy seems to have a partial capacity to make sense of others' experiential movements and reciprocally our own bodily movements. It makes it possible to understand the non-verbal kinetic experiences through which we may acquire knowledge of the other's bodily movements on the basis of our own body topography. There is recognition that we can never reach the other's primordial movement experience.

Mimicry is functional for empathy and bonding purposes. Studies on the consequences of mimicry at a behavioral level demonstrated that mimicry increases prosocial behavior. However, these previous studies focused on the mimickee. In the present paper, we investigated whether mimickers also become more helpful due to mimicry. In two studies, we have demonstrated that participants, who mimicked expressions of a person shown on a video, donated more money to a charity than participants who did not mimic. Moreover, the processes by which mimicry and prosocial behavior are related largely remain empirically unexamined in existing literature. The results of Study 2 confirmed our hypothesis that affective empathy mediates the relationship between mimicry and prosocial behavior. This suggests that mimicry created an affective empathic mindset, which activated prosocial behaviors directed toward others. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the present time there are a large number of adults who have suspected Asperger syndrome (AS). In this paper we describe a new instrument, the Adult Asperger Assessment (AAA), developed in our clinic for adults with AS. The need for a new instrument relevant to the diagnosis of AS in adulthood arises because existing instruments are designed for use with children. Properties of the AAA include (1) being electronic, data-based, and computer-scorable; (2) linking with two screening instruments [the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and the Empathy Quotient (EQ)]; and (3) employing a more stringent set of diagnostic criteria than DSM-IV, in order to avoid false positives. The AAA is described, and its use with a series of n = 42 clinic-patients is reported. Thirty-seven of these (88%) met DSM-IV criteria, but only 34 of these (80%) met AAA criteria. The AAA is therefore more conservative than DSM-IV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, I introduce the hypothesis that there are two levels of mindreading. The first level refers to automatic-preconceptual phenomena that specify a primitive understanding of another person''s mind. It is based on early-imitation, action and emotion recognition. The second level of mindreading is conceptual and voluntary. It is based on intentionality, empathy, and higher depths of reasoning. The activities in both levels are generated by internal simulative mechanisms. This hypothesis is based on human and nonhuman neuroscientific evidence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]