Jungian Therapy, Jungian Analysis, New York

Empathy

from Jung Lexicon by Daryl Sharp

Empathy. An introjection of the object, based on the unconscious projection of subjective contents. (Compare identification.)

Empathy presupposes a subjective attitude of confidence, or trustfulness towards the object. It is a readiness to meet the object halfway, a subjective assimilation that brings about a good understanding between subject and object, or at least simulates it. [“The Type Problem in Aesthetics,” CW 6, par. 489.]

In contrast to abstraction, associated with introversion, empathy corresponds to the attitude of extraversion.

The man with the empathetic attitude finds himself . . . in a world that needs his subjective feeling to give it life and soul. He animates it with himself. [Ibid, par. 492.]