Editing Sándor Ferenczi (section)

=== Clinical empathy in psychoanalysis ===

Ferenczi believed the empathic response during therapy was the basis of clinical interaction. He based his intervention on responding to the subjective experience of the analysand. If the more traditional opinion
was that the analyst had the role of a physician, administering a treatment to the patient based upon diagnostic judgment of psychopathology, Ferenczi wanted the analysand to become a co-participant in an encounter created by the therapeutic dyad. This emphasis on empathic reciprocity during the therapeutic encounter was an important contribution to the evolution of psychoanalysis. Ferenczi also believed that self-disclosure of the analyst is an important therapeutic reparative force. The practice of including the therapist's personality in therapy resulted in the development of the idea of mutual encounter: the therapist is allowed to discuss some content from his/her own life and thoughts, as long as it is relevant to the therapy. This is in contrast to the Freudian therapeutic abstinence according to which the therapist should not involve his/her personal life with the therapy, and should remain neutral.{{Citation needed|date=March 2023}} The mutual encounter is a precedent for the psychoanalytic theory of two-person psychology.