Empathy: concepts, applications, and research

Empathy and Counseling

Review and Critique of "The Relationship Between Clients' Perceptions of Therapist-Parent Similarity with Respect to Empathy, Regard and Unconditionality and Therapists' Ratings of Client Transference" (1998) by Barrie Mariner Arachtingi and James W. Lichtenberg

From a counseling perspective, it is clearly much easier to have sympathy for others in need, such as "sympathy for the poor," than it is to have empathy, which requires a significant mental and emotional involvement. A study by Barrie Mariner Arachtingi and James W. Lichtenberg (1998) investigated the similarity between clients' perceptions of their therapists and their perceptions of their parents (or early parental figures) in terms of the relationship qualities of empathy, positive regard, and unconditionality of regard and how those perceptions compared with their therapists' ratings of transference.

Hypothesis. The study hypothesis was that there was a positive associated between the similarity of the therapist and parents or parental figures on the relationship dimensions of empathy, regard, and unconditionality and therapist ratings of transference. The researchers cite Freud's (1912) definition of transference as being.".. The experiencing of feelings, drives, attitudes, fantasies, and defenses toward a person in the present that are inappropriate to that person and are a repetition or displacement of reactions that originated regarding significant persons in early childhood" (p. 143).

Study Participants and Methods. The study participants were 62 actual therapy dyads (27 women and 35 men), ranging in age from 19 to 63 years (M = 40.18, SD = 12.01). Clients of varying diagnoses were included in the study; however, clients with thought disorders were eliminated due to potential problems concerning informed consent. The actual number of sessions attended by clients ranged from 5 to 200 (M = 40. 18, SD = 44.77); 29 therapists participated in the study as well (17 women and 12 men) and the therapists' credentials were supplied. The authors report that the therapists' ages ranged from 25 to 61 years (M = 43.59, SD = 10.07). Therapists' descriptions of their theoretical orientations were varied, although the most common orientations included psychodynamic, eclectic, and cognitive behavioral. The average number of clients that were seen by each therapist was 2.14 (SD = 1.62).

Results. The results of the study failed to support their hypothesized positive association between the similarity of the therapist and parents or parental figures on the relationship dimensions of empathy, regard, and unconditionality and therapist ratings of transference. Rather, the researchers suggested that the clients' relationship ratings of their parents and therapists indicated that the therapists' perceptions of transference may more accurately reflect their perceptions of their clients' nontransferential (i.e., real relationship) reactions to the therapist. In summary, Arachtingi and Lichtenberg conclude that the results of their study raise the question of whether therapist-observed transference adequately reflects a distortion of the current therapy relationship and a perceptual repetition of the relationship the client had with earlier parental figures, with such repetition being defined in terms of the perceived similarity of the relationship conditions offered by the clients' therapist and parents. Rather, they suggest that there appears to be the potential that the therapists' own perceptions of transference are a function of clients' reality-based reactions to the therapist; this may result from the contrast between clients' relationships with their parents and current therapy relationship experiences. As a result, they recommend that therapists consider such a possibility when analyzing a perceived transference reaction during therapy. "Specifically," they say, "it may be appropriate for therapists to consider that a client's positive image of