Some sources of variance in "accurate empathy" ratings

A Person-Centered Approach to Multicultural Counseling Competence

This article examines current and historical trends in psychotherapy research and practice with racial/ethnic minority populations. Initially, research on Derald Sue’s multicultural counseling competencies is provided as a foundation to further examine the evidence regarding effective cultural adaptations to mainstream treatment approaches, such as cognitive-behavior therapy and interpersonal psychotherapy. Next, a brief outline of Carl Rogers’s psychotherapy research tradition is presented, with a focus on both past and present evidence suggesting that person-centered therapy may be effective across diagnoses, as well as cultures. Using psychotherapy evidence from both the latter half of the 20th century and the initial decades of the 21st century, cultural adaptations to previously hypothesized person-centered therapy mechanisms of change are proposed. In particular, this culturally adapted person-centered approach is suggested to provide a competent and effective treatment system for racial/ethnic minority clients and families.

Empirical research on empathy in medicine-A critical review

OBJECTIVE

There is a growing amount of empirical research on empathy in medicine. This critical review assesses methodological limitations in this body of research that have not received adequate attention.

METHODS

Scientific publications presenting empirical research on medical students' or physicians' empathy were systematically searched for.

RESULTS

206 publications were identified and critically reviewed. Multiple empirical approaches have been used. However, there are some remarkable tendencies given the complexity of the study object: empathy is often not defined. Qualitative approaches are rarely used and the predominant quantitative instruments have a relatively narrow or peripheral scope. For example, the concrete experiences, feelings, and interpretations of the physician and the patient, and empathy in clinical practice, are often neglected. Furthermore, possible influences of medical training and working conditions on empathy have not been adequately explored.

CONCLUSION

The empirical studies of empathy in medicine tend to separate empathy from main parts of clinical perception, judgment, and communication. Thus, important aspects and influences of empathy have been relatively neglected.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Future studies should include transparent concepts, more than one method and perspective, qualitative approaches, the physician's and the patient's concrete experiences and interpretations, and the context in which empathy is developed and practiced.

A-B similarity-complementarity and accurate empathy

Rated the audio portions of videotaped segments of 32 dyadic interviews between A-type and B-type undergraduate males for accurate empathy using Truax's AE-Scale. Results indicate that the level of empathy displayed by both members of an interactive dyad was influenced by the A-B types of the individuals of the dyad. B-types elicited higher levels of empathy when they interacted with other B-types, while any dyad that contained an A-type resulted in a lower level of empathy when compared to the empathy found in BB dyads. This result better fits a similarity hypothesis than a complementarity hypothesis.

'n Skaal vir die meting van empatiese begrip

Daar kan min twyfel wees dat 'n sekere mate van empatiese begrip grondliggend is aan alle suksesvolle terapeutiese situasies en ander interpersoonlike verhoudings wat konstruktief en opbouend is. Daar word tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat 'n deegelike kennis van die aard van empatie noodsaaklik is. In 'n kort teoretiese bespreking word die volgende aspekte van nader beskou: die verskillende betekenisse wat aan die begrip geheg word; die verskille en ooreenkomste tussen empatie en verwante begrippe soos simpatie, identifikasie en projeksie. 'n Geldige meting van empatie kan van groot betekenis wees. Op grond van 'n kritiese evaluering van die vyf basiese metingsbenaderings tot empatie, kan daar gesê word dat die verskillende metinge nie een onderliggende konstruk verteenwoordig nie en dat skaalmetinge, ondanks die kritiek daarteen, van groot praktiese betekenis is en nog steeds die aanvaarbaarste van al die meetinstrumente is. 'n Empatieskaal met voorbeelde van die verskillende vlakke van die skaal, sowel as die skaal se nagevorsde psigometriese eienskappe word gegee.

Therapists' perceptions of the psychotherapeutic process: development of a psychotherapy process inventory

A psychotherapeutic process inventory of 74 items rated by therapists over an “average” of a series of therapy sessions was developed. Following initial determination of the inventory's reliability, the ratings of 99 patients were factor analyzed. The analysis yielded four meaningful psychotherapeutic process factors, characterized as therapeutic participation, resistance, directive support, and dysphoric concerns. Factor scores were highly reliable and were significantly related to individual differences among therapists, sex differences among patients, outcome of treatment, and pre-treatment MMPI scores.

Measuring medical students' empathy: a validation study

The aim of this study was to validate the empathy scale (Hogan, 1969) for use in the context of medical education in Australia. Empathy Scale scores of students in their first clinical year at Monash University were correlated with patient ratings, self ratings, and peer ratings of empathy. Inter-rater and intra-rater reliability were assessed. Correlations were also obtained between Empathy Scale scores and course marks in psychiatry. Of the empathy ratings only those by peers correlated significantly with Empathy Scale scores (r = 0-45, P less than 0-05, n = 29). Empathy Scale scores were unrelated to academic performance. In a separate part of the study, not connected to the establishing of criterion-related validity, Empathy Scale scores of the medical student group were found to be significantly higher (t=4-44, df = 52, P less than 0-001) than the scores of psychiatric patients with a diagnosis of "personality disorder". This study provides some support for the Empathy Scale as a measure of interpersonal effectiveness, but has not established it as a valid measure of empathy in a clinical setting.