Empathy and Biofeedback: A Critical Analysis Through the Lens of Epistemic Injustice

While gaining popularity among scientific and pop literature, empathy lost its definition a long time ago or never gained one. Narrowing to the clinical setting, many are the researchers and approaches whose intent has been defining this concept. This paper’s goal is to insert the notion of empathy into the context of an emerging field: interpersonal biofeedback. Empathy concept and biofeedback techniques intertwine in a way in which biofeedback can be seen as the upgraded tool for the patient-therapist physiological synchronization within the therapeutic setting, to better its use and the therapeutic goals that can be reached. Nevertheless, one of the limits in the use of interpersonal biofeedback could find its ground in the epistemological injustices deriving from it. A review of the literature on empathy and biofeedback will be carried out, followed by an analysis of the potentialities and limits of their bond: this research aims to explain the limits of clinical empathy and the possible ethical concerns regarding the use of interpersonal biofeedback techniques during clinical encounters through the lens of epistemic injustice