Empathy as a Method: from the Stainpoint of Modern Humanistic Psychotherapy

The article deals with an understanding of empathy in the context of the the prob- lems of subject matter and the method of psychotherapy. The focus is on the current state and development approaches in the branch traditionally called as humanistic or existential-humanistic psychotherapy. Status of empathy as a method of therapy is associated with the concept of the subject matter of work in a particular approach or school. Most often, the empathy is recognized as the method when the recogni- tion of experience as the subject matter of psychotherapeutic work takes place. Most obviously, this is done in modern experiantial approaches. We consider the specif- ics of experiantial methods in focusing-oriented therapy (E. Gendlin), emotiona — focused therapy (L. Greenberg, R. Elliott et al.), coexperiencing psychotherapy (F.E. Vasilyuk).