Heinz Kohut systematized the experience-near empathic vantage point as the basic structure upon which the treatment process is built. In other words, there can be no treatment (understanding and explaining) without adhering to and employing this empathic stance: the analyist learns, organizes his theories, and directs his explanations to what the patient is experiencing. He does not attempt to persuade, direct, or impose no matter how convinced he is of his own understandings. The analyst keeps in mind that interventions are at best approximations of the truth, and subject to continuous...