Empathy Training for Helping Professionals

Abstract

This article presents a cognitive oriented training program for enhancing empathy and in-depth understanding of clients among helping professionals. The Empathy Training Program (ETP) was compared with an emotionally oriented training program in an experimental study involving 51 social work students working with clients in their practicum sites. Findings show that although no statistically significant differences in empathy scores at post-test were indicated between the research and comparison groups, there was a statistically significant improvement in the research group’s mean empathy scores. The qualitative data further suggest that the ETP enhances students’ in-depth assessment and understanding of clients, expands their response repertory, and enhances their independence.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pauline I. Erera

This study was supported by the Research Authority, University of Haifa, Israel. The author wishes to express gratitude to Nava Arkin, Shosh Ben-Meir, Ruth Gur, Nurit Nachmani, and Rebecca Resheff. She is also indebted to the supervisors who carried out the empathy training, to the students in her research seminar, and to Richard Weatherley.