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Empathy is more important than ever to a national population worried about difficult political and socioeconomic situations. During the last 10 years, an enormous amount of research has been carried out to elucidate the nature, mechanism, and function of empathy. New research from social-cognitive neuroscience and related fields indicates that, like language or eye-hand coordination, empathy is an innate human capability that can be greatly enhanced by purposeful and informed guidance. Empathy is particularly important to social work practice. Clients experiencing empathy through treatment have improved outcomes. Empathic social work practitioners are more effective and can balance their roles better. Social work practitioners can and should learn about emerging research on empathy and use that information to better serve their client populations. This article, emphasizing research of the past decade, focuses on empathy and its benefits as an asset to social work practitioners. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

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Empathy is more important than ever to a national population worried about difficult political and socioeconomic situations. During the last 10 years, an enormous amount of research has been carried out to elucidate the nature, mechanism, and function of empathy. New research from social-cognitive neuroscience and related fields indicates that, like language or eye-hand coordination, empathy is an innate human capability that can be greatly enhanced by purposeful and informed guidance. Empathy is particularly important to social work practice. Clients experiencing empathy through treatment have improved outcomes. Empathic social work practitioners are more effective and can balance their roles better. Social work practitioners can and should learn about emerging research on empathy and use that information to better serve their client populations. This article, emphasizing research of the past decade, focuses on empathy and its benefits as an asset to social work practitioners.

KEY WORDS: affective sharing; emotion regulation; empathy; perception-action coupling; social-cognitive neuroscience

During the last decade of the 20th century, then-President Bill Clinton made a political catch phrase of the term "I feel your pain." As mawkish as this may have sounded to cynics, it resonated with voters. Eight years after Clinton left office, Barack Obama won the presidency in part by calling attention to an "empathy deficit" in government and public service. Identifying with another person's emotions - the phenomenon we call empathy - is the foundation on which all useful public service and, indeed, the social contract itself is predicated.

Empathy is particularly important to social work practice. Clients experiencing empathy through treatment have improved outcomes. Empathie social work practitioners are more effective and can balance their roles better. Social work practitioners can and should learn about emerging social- cognitive neuroscience research on empathy and use that information to better serve their client populations. This article focuses on empathy as an asset to practitioners.

WHAT IS EMPATHY?

Barker (2003), in the Social Work Dictionary, defined empathy as "the act of perceiving, understanding, experiencing, and responding to the emotional state and ideas of another person" (p. 141). Barker's definition is an abbreviated summary of the numerous definitions that have been put forward by influential thinkers over the past 90 years. These luminaries include psychoanalysts (Freud,1921; Kohut, 1959; Reik, 1948), humanistic therapists (Rogers, 1957), psychologists (Davis, 1994), and social and developmental psychologists (Batson, 1987; Hoffman, 2000;Ickes, 1997).

In 2004,Decety and Jackson surveyed the numerous definitions and conceptualizations of empathy found in academic and professional literature. They identified three subjective experiences and three communicative abilities that, in one form or another, are universally cited as signature ingrethents of empathy (see Table 1).

As Table 1 reveals, there are two components to empathy: the emotional and the cognitive. Vinton and Harrington (1994) noted the difference between the two elements, as have many others (for example, Davis et al., 2004). They labeled them (1) emotional empathy - the ability to be affected by the client's emotions - and (2) expressed [cognitive I empathy - the translation of such feelings into words.

Historically, there has been some controversy as to the relative primacy of the emotional/affective elements of empathy and the expressed/cognitive elements (Cliffordson, 2001; Decety & Jackson, 2004; Funk, Fox, Chan, & Curtiss, 2008). For example, Rogers (1957) and Hoffman (1981) focused more on empathy as an innate and involuntary response to an affective signal or prompt, whereas behaviorists focused more on empathy as a learned communication, or as conscious role taking (Batson, 1991; Davis, 1996). Kohut (1959) was one of the first to articulate that both the conscious (for example, perspective taking) and implicit or unconscious (for example, emotion sharing) processes are vital to empathy and must be integrated to achieve a true empathie reaction or response.

EMPATHY IN EXISTING SOCIAL WORK LITERATURE

It is hardly new to proclaim that empathy is a critical and essential ability for effective social work practice; this has been stated explicitly by many social work educators (for example, Hepworth, Rooney, Rooney, Strom-Gottfried, & Larsen, 2006; Orlinsky & Howard, 1975;Shulman,2009). Yet actual research on empathy, as well as evidence of empathy training in the social work curriculum, remains scarce and sketchy. NASWs Encyclopedia of Social Work (Mizrahi & Davis, 2008) contains no entry for"empathy" - a glaring omission that illustrates the generally narrow and haphazard consideration of empathy in the social work literature (Freedberg, 2007; Raines, 1990).

A generation of social workers, including the present authors, were schooled using Rogers's (1959) conceptualization of empathy as the ability to perceive the internal emotional state of another "as if" they were that person. A nonjudgmental, accepting reflection of the client's emotional state was critical to the effectiveness of the practitionerclient relationship. Later, Rogers (1975) revised his conceptualization of empathy from a "state" to more of a "moment-to-moment process of felt meaning," in which the practitioner was constantly checking the accuracy of his or her interpretation of the client's "felt meaning."

In the 1980s, Rogers' conceptualization of empathy was overshadowed by psychologists and social workers who were more concerned with implementing cognitive- behavioral interventions and wanted empirical measurements for both affective and cognitive components of empathy (Bryant, 1 982; Davis, 1983). The glaring problem in the current clinical outcome literature is that there is still no agreed-on conceptualization of empathy. As a result, "operational definitions of empathy are not consistent across studies" (Pithers, 1999, p. 258). Measurement techniques for empathy vary so much that it has been difficult to engage in meaningful comparisons or make significant conclusions about empathy and how to cultivate it effectively in social workers and clients (Cliffordson, 2001).

Today, numerous disciplines are researching and analyzing empathy. Recent groundbreaking research on this issue has emerged from primatology and ethology (de Waal, 2003); neuroscience (Ramachandran, 2000); developmental psychology (Batson, 2006; Batson et al., 2003); and, perhaps most important, the nascent field of social- cognitive neuroscience (Decety & Jackson, 2004; Decety & Lamm, 2006). This article is meant to bring findings from this last field into social work's body of literature, thus reopening a discussion that could have powerful influence on the way social workers conceptualize and measure empathy and, more important, how they practice it.

IMPORTANCE OF EMPATHY TO SOCIAL WORK

Research demonstrates that empathy is an important tool for positive therapeutic intervention (Watson, 2002). Clients experiencing empathy through treatment by others inhibits antisocial behavior in children and adolescents (Eisenberg, Spinard, & Sadovsky, 2005; Hoffman, 2000). Empathy inhibits aggression toward others (Weisner & Silbereisen, 2003) and promotes healthy personal development (Hoffman, 2001). The lack of empathy is correlated with bullying, aggressive behavior, violent crime, and sexual offending (Gini,Albieri,Benelli,& Altoe, 2008JoHfFe & Farrington,2004;Loper, Hoffschmidt, & Ash, 2001 ; Sams & Truscott, 2004).

A practitioner's own level of empathy is correlated with positive client outcomes (Forrester, Kershaw, Moss, & Hughes, 2008). Jensen, Weersing, Hoagwood, and Goldman (2005) completed a review of 52 child psychotherapy treatment studies and concluded that therapist empathy, attention, and positive regard are essential to effective outcomes. Forrester et al. (2008) found that empathy is central to effective communication in child protection situations. Empathy is critical to both practitioner and client outcomes.

SCIENCE OF EMPATHY: NEW FINDINGS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS

New research on empathy is rich and varied. Some of the emerging research is highlighted in Table 2. An exhaustive analysis of all findings falls well beyond the scope of a single article. This article focuses on what we believe to be one of the most important bodies of work, the comparatively new field of social- cognitive neuroscience, and its implications for social work practice. Researchers in this field, basing their work on observations from primatology, have identified the major physiological mechanism of empathy and begun to elucidate how the experience of empathy actually occurs in the brain. Their findings give empirical support to research on empathy in social interactions.

Connecting these areas of research yields an important and exciting conclusion: Empathy can be taught, increased, refined, and mediated to make helping professionals more skillful and resilient. Understanding how empathy works can help social workers "in the trenches" connect more empathically with clients from a wider range of socioculturel backgrounds while making them less vulnerable to becoming overwhelmed, burnt out, or dysfunctionally enmeshed with clients.

MIRROR, MIRROR: HOW EMPATHY OCCURS IN THE BRAIN

One day, a researcher who was studying brain activity in monkeys stumbled on a strange phenomenon: The monkey the researcher was studying showed brain activity that indicated he was eating when in fact he was motionless. After some investigation, the researcher realized that the monkey's brain was reacting to seeing another animal eat. In short, part of the motionless monkey's brain appeared to be actually experiencing the other monkey's sensations (Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 1996).

Much more research followed, with socialcognitive neuroscientists picking up on the results from primatology. Ultimately, the neuroscientists identified a class of cells in the brain (both animal and human) that they named "mirror neurons." These cells fire when an individual observes another person or animal having some sort of experience or sensation. The discovery of mirror neurons shows that the phrase "I feel your pain" may be literally true - not that the speaker is actually experiencing the other person's feelings, but that the speaker's brain creates very real sensations in response to that other person's experience (Kaplan & Iacoboni, 2006). Mirror neurons appear to be the primary physiological mechanism of empathy (Wolf, Gales, Shane, & Shane, 2001).

Is this innate physiological ability mutable? Can people lacking sufficient empathy be taught to be more empathie? Further research has shown that the brain is changeable, a phenomenon known as "neuroplasticity," and deliberately changing one's mental state begins with observing that mental state. Social workers are trained to be self-reflective, and this ability is central to enhancing empathy. Cognitively adopting the perspective of another evokes stronger empathie concern. In other words, thinking about another's experience adds more empathy than simply observing it (Batson et al., 2003; Jackson, Brunei, Meltzoff & Decety, 2006; Lamm, Batson, & Decety, 2007). The practice of actively observing clients' behaviors and simultaneously processing those behaviors cognitively are not new to social work practice, but they have not been identified as critical to developing practitioner empathy.

COMPONENTS NECESSARY TO GENERATE EMPATHY

Following Kohut's lead in combining the affective and cognitive aspects of empathy, Decety and Jackson (2004) and Decety and Lamm (2006) proposed the first truly interdisciplinary conceptualization of the phenomenon. There are three necessary, functional components that dynamically interact to generate the subjective experience of empathy. Any one component on its own, the authors claimed, is insufficient to produce empathy. Those components are as follows:

* affective sharing between the self and the other, based on perception- action coupling that leadfs] to shared representations;

* self- other awareness. Even when there is some temporary identification, there is no confusion between self and other; [and]

* mental flexibility [that is, emotion regulation] to adopt the subjective perspective of the other and also regulatory processes. (Decety & Jackson, 2004)

The first component of the model, affective sharing with others, is largely an unconscious or automatic experience. When we listen to someone describe his or her feelings verbally or observe gestures, facial expressions, and vocal tone, and so forth (that is, perception and action coupling), neural networks in our brains are stimulated by the "shared representations" and generate similar feelings within us. This is the involuntary action of mirror neurons and is therefore automatic.

Unlike affective sharing, the second and third components of the empathy model - self- other awareness and the mental flexibility to regulate one's own emotions - are not automatic. On the contrary, they are sophisticated cognitive skills that allow humans to voluntarily take the perspective of others - and like other sophisticated cognitive skills, they can be learned, increased, and perhaps ultimately even mastered (Decety & Lamm, 2006). Social workers can benefit enormously from being educated to modulate their own experience of empathy cognitively. They can then both connect with others - even those whose socioeconomic, cultural, or physiological experience is very different from their own - and prevent "empathie overarousal," which can lead to personal distress, egoistic behaviors, or burnout (Eisenberg, 2000).

GUIDE FOR PRACTITIONERS: ENHANCING EMPATHY

Component 1: Affective Sharing/Perception and Action Coupling

Establishing empathy is simple, though not always easy. We now know that the brain inherently and involuntarily triggers shared reactions neurologically when we are observing others' experiences. This is most likely due to the involuntary firing of mirror neurons, the "brain cells that reflect the activity of another's brain cells" (Rothschild, 2006, p. 42). Beginning in infancy, mirror neurons help each human's brain map the orafacial and manual gestures of others onto the baby's own motor systems (Kaplan & Iacoboni, 2006). These shared representations are stored or encoded in our neural networks and, when stimulated, automatically enable us to empathize with or share the feelings of another (Decety & Lamm, 2006). Researchers now believe that autism may in part be explained by a failure to develop or form adequate neural circuitry or mirror neurons that enable language and social brain pathways to mature (Iacoboni & Dapretto, 2006).

The neural networks created by the shared representation process of gestures, body language, and vocal tone are like the "hardware" of the human brain. Other shared representations, such as words, are more like"software."They capitalize on the innate capacity for empathy to create affective sharing through deliberate communication of feelings. Of course, such representations are more specific and controllable than the visceral, automatic empathie reactions arising from hardwired somatic responses.

Both of these neurological pathways to empathy involve paying close attention to another person: not theorizing or analyzing, but being fully attentive to another's behavior, facial expression, tone of voice, choice of words, and so on. It is empirical observation at its purest. This means that while theory is necessary for analyzing and initiating solutions to a problem, the only thing a social worker must do to experience affective sharing or perception with a client is to truly see the client's actions, gestures, facial expressions, and other behaviors and to truly hear the words, tone of voice, and content of the client's story. This is referred to as "perception and action coupling" (Kaplan & Iacoboni, 2006).

Too often, educational systems focus on cognitive understanding at the expense of clear, uncomplicated perception. Training of social workers should include alerting them to the dangers of blunting or blocking their observational powers. Instructing them to observe their clients mindfully - that is, without imposing immediate cognitive categories on their behavior - can help free social workers' brains to automatically mirror a client's subjective experience.

For example, a male social worker who deliberately puts aside his own intellectual constructs and deeply listens to a woman's story of a difficult childbirth, noticing her tone and words and watching her nonverbal gestures, might begin to experience the feelings of pain, fear, and joy that are associated with giving birth. Like anyone who pays close empathie attention, he may also unconsciously mimic her facial expression and body positions, a somatic "echo" of feelings that he himself could never physically experience except through empathy. Educators who familiarize social workers to the concepts of affective sharing and perception-action coupling will facilitate a more rewarding and productive experience for both the social workers and their clients.

Component 2: Self-Other Awareness

Affective sharing is crucial in all the helping professions, but as documented in the social work literature, it can also lead to emotional and physical burnout (Eisenberg, 2000). Many social workers who have a very strong capacity to share their clients' feelings have trouble disengaging from the clients and, thus, take on many of the very burdens they are trying to ease.This degree of enmeshment is not constructive; it prevents clear and constructive action. Surgeons are not allowed to operate on people with whom they share deep emotional bonds precisely because objectivity is required as a foundation for offering help. A surgeon who fully identified with the pain of a patient's gunshot wound or shattered bones would require help rather than be able to give it.The same is true of social workers who hope to heal the wounds of poverty, violence, or mental illness.

From an educational perspective, social workers should be taught that, counterintuitively, true empathy cannot exist without a strong sense of self as separate from other. Self-awareness allows us to disentangle our own feelings from the feelings of others, prevents empathie overarousal in emotion sharing, and allows us to make cognitive inferences about the mental state or perspective of others (Decety 6k" Lamm, 2006). In other words, selfother awareness acts as a brake on the automatic link between perception and emotion that occurs in affective sharing and allows us to take a more detached perspective.

Social workers who lack the awareness of being separate from clients turn the reflexive aspects of empathy into an intolerable burden for themselves. Without perceptual boundaries, they risk experiencing a client's feelings of anger, depression, anxiety, or joy as their own feelings.With self-other boundaries distinct, one person's reactions to another's suffering are typically altruistic; in the absence of such perceptual boundaries, observation of another's suffering can cause the observer severe distress.

The confusion of blending self and other works both ways; social workers who lack clearly perceived self-other distinction may not only experience others' experiences as their own, but also project their own motivations onto others, misconstruing the other's experience (for example, someone who usually weeps when angry may project anger onto another person who is weeping with grief or joy). This results not in the deep understanding of real empathy but in the confusion and misunderstanding of overidentification.

Again, mindful observation of reality can help social workers achieve clear self- other awareness while also experiencing affective sharing. If I truly see what is happening in a given situation, I not only experience empathy for others, I also remain conscious of the fact that another's pain, confusion, or sense of disempowerment are not my own. Simply voicing this fact and teaching aspiring social workers to articulate it for themselves can help them modulate their experience of empathy later as they deal with clients.

Component 3: Mental Flexibility and Self-/ Emotion Regulation

Mental flexibility is a sophisticated cognitive ability that allows us to toggle back and forth between absorbing another's perspective and shutting it out, between identifying with the other and identifying solely with the self (Decety & Lamm, 2006). Eisenberg, Smith, Sadovsky, and Spinard (2004) defined emotion regulation as "the process of initiating, avoiding, inhibiting, maintaining, or modulating the occurrence, form, intensity, or duration of internal feeling states, emotion-related physiological processes, emotion-related goals, and/or behavioral concomitants of emotion, generally in the service of accomplishing one's goals" (p. 260).

This, too, is a fundamental key to using empathy effectively and beneficially. A social worker who cannot "turn on" receptiveness to others' experiences will never bridge the gap between his or her own experience and that of a client. By the same token, a social worker who cannot turn off the empathie awareness of a client's despair or anxiety after the workday quickly experiences emotional burnout and can no longer serve that client.

Self-regulation is typically conceptualized as a conscious, intentional effort to control one's thoughts, emotions, or behaviors. As a result, most theorists have emphasized that people who wish to control or change their behavior must pay close conscious attention to their behavior and exert deliberate control over it (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994; Carver & Scheier, 1981; Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Mischel, 1996).

Mindfulness studies suggest that self-observation is the key to controlling one's own emotional state (Langer, 1989) .Trying to force a degree of feeling or detachment is less effective than taking an observing position in regard to one's own emotions. In other words, the way for social workers to modulate affective sharing and achieve healthy self- other awareness is to observe both the client and his or her own thoughts and feelings. The part of the brain that self-observes is the part that can successfully toggle between affective sharing and healthy detachment (Schwartz & Begley, 2003).

CONCLUSION

Empathy in social work practice is not new, but it has not been stressed recently in the literature. In light of new research and interdisciplinary findings, the value and importance of empathy is critical. Research documents the value of empathy, our innate abilities to be empathie, and the need to tap those innate abilities, and that this process can be learned. The three components described in this article, are a start toward enhancing empathy for social work practitioners. Social work practitioners need to develop their own empathie abilities to enhance their effectiveness with clients and to protect themselves from compassion or practice fatigue and burnout. Awareness and active use of the three components of affective sharing, self- other awareness, and emotion regulation/mental flexibility will enhance empathy. With emerging research and political commitment, now is the right time to emphasize the place of empathy in social work practice.

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AuthorAffiliation

Karen E. Gerdes, PhD, is associate professor, and Elizabeth Segal, PhD, is professor, College of Public Programs, Sctiool of Social Work, Arizona State University, 411 North Central Avenue, Suite 800, Phoenix, AZ 85004; e-mail: kegerdes(i asu.edu.

Original manuscript received January 26, 2009

Final revision received August 7, 2009

Accepted September 24, 2009

Word count: 4954

Copyright National Association of Social Workers, Incorporated Apr 2011

Cites:

Gerdes, K. E., & Segal, E. (2011). Importance of empathy for social work practice: Integrating new science. Social Work, 56(2), 141-8. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezp-01.lirn.net/docview/863249337?accountid=158399

IS LOVE BLIND? THE EFFECTS OF EXPERIENCE AND INFATUATION ON THE PERCEPTION OF LOVE Maya Aloni and Frank J. Bernieri ABSTRACT: We hypothesized that participants in love and more experienced in romantic love (e.g., schematics) would perceive love more accurately than those who were not in love and less experienced. Judges viewed and rated a series of 25 thin-slice video clips of couples for whom their love for another was known via Sternberg’s (Psychological Review, 93, 119–135) love scale. Individual differences in love judgment accuracy were large. Not surprisingly, participants who were in love at the time of the study and who reported having had a lengthy romantic relationship were more confident in their love judgment accuracy but, in fact, were less accurate. Apparently the love schemas people develop subjectively may not adequately represent the way in which the construct manifests among the population in general. Although love judgments may come easier to those in love, their perceptions of the love around them may be biased and inaccurate. KEY WORDS: interpersonal perception accuracy; love; thin-slice. Are expert lovers more attuned to the love around them? Do those who read romantic novels, watch romantic movies, and who have had long term romantic relationships have a special perceptual acuity for love? When we are in love, are our senses more attuned to the love cues manifest by lovers? One could argue so. Generally, one of the important determinants of how accurately people make judgments is their experience and knowledge with the given domain, and how frequently they tend to think about the subject matter (Higgins, 1995; Higgins, King, & Mavin, 1982). We hypothesized that experience with romantic relationships and the extent to which perceivers were currently in love (e.g., infatuated with, thinking about a love object frequently, or obsessing about the construct of love generally), would increase the accuracy with which they would judge the love within a sample of couples engaged in a neutral conversation.

Maya Aloni is affiliated with the University of Toledo. Frank J. Bernieri is affliated with the Oregon State University, Corvallis. Address correspondence to Frank J. Bernieri, Department of Psychology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97330; e-mail: [email protected].

Aloni, M., & Bernieri, F. J. (2004). Is love blind? the effects of experience and infatuation on the perception of love. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 28(4), 287-296. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezp-01.lirn.net/docview/229274980?accountid=158399

LOVE

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LOVE Love at First Sight: Why You Love Who You Love, by Suzi Malin. New York, DKPublishing, 2004,176 pp., $20.00 (paper).

The human face, arguably the most obvious object of psychiatric study, has been overlooked by psychiatry. Perhaps it is because Freud and many of his followers have had an obsessive dislike of looking people in the eye and have preferred to keep faces out of sight on the couch (1). Ekman and Friesen (2) picked up on Darwin's observations of similarities between the expressions of humans and great apes and devised a scoring system for the major affects plus surprise and disgust, which physicians might consider somewhat more autonomie. Beebe and Lachman (3) investigated the facial affective rapport between infant and mother. If Freud had looked a hit more at faces, he might have solved one of his great enigmas: the nature of love.

Suzi Malin, the author of Love at First Sight, is a portrait painter in London; she is a colleague of Freud's grandson Lucien. (Lucien Freud's latest show [in New York through May 2004], by the way, featured scabrous and florid humans and sleek animals.) This is a book of astonishing photos of mostly beautiful and all famous people in pair bondings. It purports to demonstrate the ways we fall in love visually with our lover's face. The first way, called "harmonism," involves shared facial proportions-"the relative distances between the forehead and bridge of nose, base of nose and mouth, and mouth and chin" (p. 10). An example given is Charles and Diana. The second way is "echoism," an echoed shape of the upper eyelid line, the upper lip line, and the sweep of the eyebrow. Yoko and John had echoism, as do Brad and Jennifer; Marilyn had harmonism with Robert but both echoism and harmonism, and probably a stronger bond, with Jack. In addition to these two ways, which one might suggest are narcissistic mechanisms because they involve loving aspects of one's own image, Malin terms a third way "prima copulism"-falling in love with one's first bond: the mother or nanny for men and the father or other close male relative for women. Leonardo and Mona, Charles and Camilla, and John Jr. and Carolyn are examples. Liz resembles Dick's much older sister Cecilia, who brought him up when his mother died when he was 2. Strong love attraction occurs when all three ways of falling in love at first sight are present, as in Bill and Monica and Elton and David.

One might object that a little girl's first love object is her mother or nanny, not her father. Maybe men are more visually determined than women, but girls' crushes on movie stars and boyfriends are intense. Malin provides instructions on scaling and comparing photos. Fortunately for those who might not fit the theses, she offers a nonvisual category called "slow love" in which the basis is warmth and friendship and shared interests and lifestyles, a more "rational" love, "grounded in reality" (p. 11).

One critique might he that the photos may be highly selected and atypical. Or limited to the superficialities of popular culture, which includes not just movie stars but the similarly envied and misbehaving European royalty. Would it work for genius and high art-beyond the Leonardo speculations? Balanchine was a man who looked constantly at a lot of women. A photo from 1967 shows him holding Suzanne Farrell's hand, she in her Diamonds costume for his then new ballet masterpiece Jewels, and both facing forward. The arch of the brows and the line of the mouths, the elegant nosesinescapable! Scientific claims for this book would be premature, but it will be difficult tor me to view a couple from now on without thinking of it, and the hypotheses are testable.

Any psychiatric interest in the face would be welcome and overdue. The genetically determined and fixed aspects of physiognomy shown in this book are the basis of facial identification as well as object choice. security concerns have prompted the development of recognition software for these static data. Beyond this, facial movements, expressive or merely indicative, are exquisitely connected to affective and cognitive brain function. They more truly convey personality in relationships and remain the largest and most vital trove of unmined physiologic data in humans for psychiatry and neurology.

References

References

1. Forrest DV: Elements of dynamics III: the face and the couch. J Am Acad Psychoanal Dyn Psychiatry 2004; 32:551-564

2. Ekman P, Friesen WV: Unmasking the Face: A Guide to Recognizing Emotions From Facial Clues. Cambridge, Mass, Malor Books, 2003

3. Beebe B, Lachman FM: Infant Research and Adult Treatment: Co-Constructing Interactions. Hillsdale, NY, Analytic Press, 2002

AuthorAffiliation

DAVID V. FORREST, M.D.

New York, N. Y.

Forrest, D. V. (2004). Love at first sight: Why you love who you love. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 161(12), 2337-2338. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezp-01.lirn.net/docview/220473064?accountid=158399