About Therapeutic Empathy, the Empathic Dialectic and Empathy Circles Shannon McIntyre

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Shannon McIntyre is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology at Antioch University New England. Shannon is broadly interested in adult development from attachment-based and psychoanalytic perspectives, as well as psychotherapy process and outcome. Initially, her research interests were geared toward better understanding how stigmatization impacts identity formation in women.   More recently, however, Shannon  has been focused on the therapist characteristics that facilitate and/or inhibit therapeutic empathy.   She has consequently presented at national conferences and co-authored articles related to the empathic process. As a Research Associate at the Program for Psychotherapy, Dr. McIntyre will continue to conduct research on therapeutic empathy, and on topics related to psychotherapy more generally.   Rogers contended that therapeutic empathy is best described as a multi-dimensional process, which means "being sensitive, moment by moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person... and sensing meanings of which he or she is scarcely aware."

 

 

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Article

• Green With Empathy JUNE 1, 2007

  • A recent study published in Environment and Behavior proposes that people will become more concerned about the environment if they try to take the perspective of animals or plants and imagine how those objects are affected by human activity.

Papers

• Therapist Experience, Personal Therapy, and Distressing States of Mind: Regulation and Resonance as Dialectics of Therapeutic Empathy   (2019)

  • The current study is based on the notion of an empathic dialectic, marked by states of emotional resonance and regulation, which has been described by contemporary theories of therapeutic empathy and empirically supported by research on non-therapists.

   

• An Integrative Review of Therapeutic Empathy The Complex Nature of Therapeutic Empathy  (2020)

  • McIntyre, S. L., & Samstag, L. W. (2020). An integrative review of therapeutic empathy. Psychotherapy Bulletin, 55(1), 12-18.

  • Drawing on contemporary theories and research, the current paper suggested the phrase “empathic dialectic” to refer to therapists’ ability to shift from states of emotional resonance and co-regulation, in order to effectively co-create corrective emotional experiences with (and for) their patients. 
     

• Promoting an Empathic Dialectic for Therapeutic Change: An Integrative Review (2021)

  • This integrative review is focused on a formulation of therapeutic empathy. We describe the “empathic dialectic” as therapists’ capacity to emotionally resonate with patients’ internal states, such as during ruptures, and to coregulate their own and the patients’ states through mentalization.  The current study is based on the notion of an empathic dialectic, marked by states of emotional resonance and regulation, which has been described by contemporary theories of therapeutic empathy and empirically supported by research on non-therapists.