PRIMARY EMPATHY, SECONDARY EMPATHY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY

Nr 20 2009 sid. 39–52

PRIMARY EMPATHY, SECONDARY EMPATHY
AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY
– some thoughts about infantile depression
and autistic mechanisms

Roberta Simas and Bernard Golse

Förstasidan

Roberta Simas, barnpsykiater från Rio de Janeiro, arbetar inom perinatal psykiatri i Paris sedan 2003. Hon har nyligen disputerat vid Denis Diderot universitet om förelöpare till språk hos späda barn. Bernard Golse, pediatriker, professor i barn- och ungdomspsykoterapi vid l'Université René Descartes och psykoanalytiker, är verksamhetchef vid Pédopsychiatrie de l'Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades i Paris. Han är medlem i IACAPAP (Association Internationale de Psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent et des Professions Affiliées) och en av grundarna till l'AEPEA (Association Européenne de Psychopathologie de l'Enfant et de l'Adolescent). Han intresserar sig särskilt för hur tidiga upplevelser av rytm, musik, språk och symboliseringsprocesser kommer till stånd.

Introduction

In this article, a review of recent data on the processes underlying human empathy and intersubjectivity will be presented. This paper especially adresses a number of issues raised by the latest neuroscientific findings, and their possible correspondances with some psychodynamic theories about children’s psychological development, and its troubles.

Recent research on the subject has shown that different levels and kinds of empathy exist (Blair, 2005), as well as different levels and kinds of intersubjectivity (Trevarthen and Aitken, 2001). We think that understanding how these important functions are established, might help us to better understand early psychopathology, and specially the possible links between early infantile depression and autistic functioning. The infantile depressions taken into consideration in the present paper are primitive depressions, before access to an entirely differentiated object, as described by Golse (2006a).

Fig 1. Different forms of empathy: systems involved in cognitive empathy are shown with double arrows; the ones of motor empathy with dashed arrows; depicted with full arrows we find the sub-systems of affective empathy (fear, happiness and sadness through amygdala, disgust through the insula and anger through ventrolateral cortex). All the systems are related to the superior temporal cortex. This figure was inspired by the one by Blair, 2005.

Figure 1 shows that there is not only one single form of empathy, but multiple neural systems which participate in different forms of empathic functions, each of them implicate the participation of the superior temporal cortex (Blair, 2005).

There are also many different definitions of empathy. The one we use here is the ability to reproduce in one’s own psyche the feelings, movements, motives or intentions of another person, either in a conscious or non-conscious way.

A form of primary empathy, especially motor and affective, is probably present from birth but of course in a rudimentary form, which needs further development, before they can achieve the more mature, adult forms.

The works of Threvarthen and Aitken (2001), Meltzoff and Moore (1977) and many others have shown us that newborns are capable of motor imitation, and also affective response to the crying of other babies.

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2011-10-29

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Nr 20 2009 sid. 39–52