Using For Colored Girls as a Creative Way to Help Me Understand How Empathic I Am

ABSTRACT

The author of this mixed-method research study explored the use of the movie, For Colored Girls, as a creative way to promote and understand how empathy emerged among 20 masters-level counseling psychology trainees. The trainees viewed two video monologues from the movie For Colored Girls (Perry, 2010) and then completed the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) (as a pre-and posttest measure and empathy self-rating scale), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), and several open-ended questions and outcome questions. The findings revealed a statistically significant difference between TEQ pre-and posttest measures and a statistically significant positive correlation between self-rating empathy levels on the IRI subscales. Several themes emerged, and the value of using featured films as a creative activity are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• For Colored Girls
• empathy
• creative learning activity
• TEQ
• IRI
• creativity in counseling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by a grant from the UWI Faculty Research Award.