Counselor empathy training via audiotape, roleplaying and microcounseling.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the effects of three training methods in empathy in order to establish which of the three was most effective in promoting higher levels of empathy in the helper. Forty-two volunteer student-counselors from the University of Ottawa were randomly assigned to four groups: (1) a control group receiving 9 hours of pre-experimental audiotape empathy training (n = 11); (2) an experimental group 1 receiving 9 hours of pre-experimental training plus an additional 9 hours of identical audiotape training ( n = 10); (3) an experimental group 2 receiving the 9 hours of pre-experimental training plus 9 more hours of roleplaying (n = 11); and finally (4) an experimental group 3 receiving the 9 hours of pre-experimental training plus Microcounseling training (n = 10). The experimental design was a pretest-posttest control group design. Empathy was measured by scoring responses to the Index of Communication and rating excerpts from the recorded standard interviews. Independent judges rated the responses to the Index of Communication and the excerpts from the standard interviews, using the Carkhuff Empathic Understanding in Interpersonal Processes: A Scale for Measurement (Carkhuff empathy scale). A multivariate analysis of variance was performed to test for significant differences between the pretest and posttest means of the three groups. Significant differences were found between posttest means on one criterion only, the standard interview. The results indicated that (1) both the roleplaying and the Microcounseling were more effective than the audio only and the no-treatment group in promoting higher levels of empathy in the trainees, and that (2) Microcounseling was as effective as Carkhuff's systematic training approach in training for empathy, but it was not superior to Carkhuff's approach. Several reasons are suggested for these results