Marková Ivana S
University of Hull, UK.
Hist Psychiatry. 2024 Jul 23:957154X241261031. doi: 10.1177/0957154X241261031.
As a deeply hybrid discipline, psychiatry demands research that tackles the concepts constituting it and its objects. This is an essential prerequisite to empirical studies, the validity of which are directly dependent on a clear understanding of the underlying concepts. Empathy and sympathy are concepts used variably and inconsistently in clinical practice and research, with ensuing uncertainties around their role and meaning. Using a historical epistemology approach, this paper compares these concepts by examining the structures, intersections, stabilities and factors that shape them. It shows that neither concept is invariant, and, despite overlap, the concepts are essentially different, underpinned by different assumptions, holding different functions and capturing different phenomena. In turn, such differences require apposite approaches to their empirical study.
作为一门深度交叉融合的学科，精神病学需要开展研究来处理构成该学科及其研究对象的概念。这是实证研究的一项基本前提，实证研究的有效性直接取决于对基础概念的清晰理解。同理心和同情心是在临床实践和研究中使用方式多样且不一致的概念，其作用和意义也因此存在不确定性。本文采用历史认识论方法，通过审视塑造这些概念的结构、交叉点、稳定性和因素来对它们进行比较。结果表明，这两个概念都不是一成不变的，尽管存在重叠，但它们本质上是不同的，有着不同的假设基础、发挥着不同的功能并涵盖着不同的现象。相应地，这些差异需要在对它们进行实证研究时采用恰当的方法。
