different between transference vs empathy

English

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /t?æns?f???ns/, /?t?ænsf???ns/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /?t?ansf(?)?(?)ns/, /?t???nsf(?)?(?)ns/, /?t?anzf(?)?(?)ns/, /?t???nzf(?)?(?)ns/

Noun

transference (countable and uncountable, plural transferences)

1. The act of conveying from one place to another; the act of transferring or the fact of being transferred.
2. (psychology) The process by which emotions and desires, originally associated with one person, such as a parent, are unconsciously shifted to another.

   • Furthermore, although probably few analysts still believe
     that transference occurs only in the context of the psycho-
     analytic situation, many hold that this phenomenon pertains
     only to object relationships. I submit, however, that the char-
     acteristic features of transference can be observed in other
     situations as well, especially in the area of learned skills.⁶
     Thus, speaking a language with a foreign accent is one of the
     most striking everyday examples of transference. In the tradi-
     tional concept of transference, one person (the analysand)
     behaves toward another (the analyst) as if the latter were
     someone else, previously familiar to him; and the subject is
     usually unaware of the actual manifestations of his own trans-
     ferred behavior. In exactly the same way, persons who speak
     English (or any other language) with a foreign accent treat
     English as if it were their mother tongue; and they are usually
     unaware of the actual manifestations of their transferred be-
     havior. Such persons think of themselves as speaking unac-
     cented English: they cannot hear their own distortions of the
     language when they speak. Only when their accent is pointed
     out to them, or, better, only when they hear their recorded
     voices played back to them, do they recognize their linguistic
     transferences. These are striking parallels not only between
     the stereotyped behavioral acts due to previous habit, but also
     between the necessity for auxiliary channels of information
     outside the person's own self for recognizing the effects of
     these habits. This view of transference rests on empirical
     observations concerning the basic human tendency to general-
     ize experiences.^?

Derived terms

• counter-transference

Related terms

• transfer
• transferal

Translations

See also

• projection
• Wikipedia article on transference in psychology

English

Etymology

A twentieth-century borrowing from Ancient Greek ???????? (empátheia, literally “passion”) (formed from ?? (en, “in, at”) + ????? (páthos, “feeling”)), coined by Edward Bradford Titchener in 1909 to translate German Einfühlung. The modern word in Greek ???????? (empátheia) has an opposite meaning denoting strong negative feelings and prejudice against someone.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??mp??i/

Noun

empathy (countable and uncountable, plural empathies)

1. Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person.

2. Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding.
3. (parapsychology, science fiction) A paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions.
4. (obsolete slang) MDMA.

   Synonym: ecstasy

Usage notes

Used similarly to sympathy, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, empathy is stronger and more intimate, meaning that the subject understands and shares an emotion with the object—as in “I feel your pain”—while sympathy is weaker and more distant—concern, but not shared emotion: “I care for you”.

Derived terms

• empath

Translations

See also

• telepathy
• biopathy
• cyberpathy
• technopathy
• sympathy

Further reading

• empathy on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• empathy at OneLook Dictionary Search
• empathy in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• empathy in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.