The Psychoneurobiology of Empathic Attunement

Empathic attunement is one of the key components for effecting client change in the psychotherapeutic setting. Recent research across the fields of neuroscience, developmental psychology, and neuropsychoanalysis has suggested the importance of redefining clinical efficacy in terms of empathic attunement that is bodily-based: a connection between the unconscious bodily-based systems of the psychotherapist and client that includes the brain, mind, and body. This book examines mindfulness practices which utilize and emphasize bodily awareness, such as yoga and meditation, and explores their effect on the level of empathic attunement in psychotherapists. Findings suggest that engaging in a mindful bodily-based practice may contribute to the development of empathy, and that maintaining a current practice may play a role in retaining higher empathy levels. This study is unique in that little prior research has been done linking yoga practice to the cultivation of empathy. This work should be of interest to psychotherapists, yoga practitioners, meditators, and those involved in the education and training of psychotherapists due to the resulting potential for the development of empathy.