Empathy and other minds – a neuropsychoanalytic perspective and a clinical vignette
pp. 93-114
in: Vanessa Lux, Sigrid Weigel (eds), Empathy, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
If one has access only to one's own mind – since the mind is intrinsically subjective – then how does one know the mental state of others? One does so by empathy, to the extent that one does so at all. However, the basic mechanism of embodied simulation describes only a form of proto-empathy. In this chapter, Solms discusses empathy as process with affective and spatial components: the empathic subject projects ("feels") itself into the object. The crux of the problem of empathy is the accurate spatial attribution of affect. Here, the psychoanalytic account of affect and the theory of narcissism help to shed light on the underlying mental processes. Finally, the author illustrates this with a case of anosognosia.