“There’s Beauty in Brokenness”: Teaching Empathy Through Dialogue with Art

ABSTRACT

Empathy, a core element of helping skills training, is vital to the development of the therapeutic alliance and positive counseling outcomes. This article presents a classroom exercise developed to increase students’ empathy. The exercise features imaginative dialogue by members of a counselor education beginning skills class with art works in an exhibit curated by a museum educator. Presented are the details of the teaching exercise, student and faculty reflections on the exercise, and suggestions for further research.

KEYWORDS:

• Affective empathy
• art
• counselor education
• counselors
• creativity in counseling
• imagination
• reflection of feeling
• teaching empathy

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Caroline Gallagher, Assistant Collections Manager at Reynolda House Museum of American Art, for her skillful and timely work arranging for permissions to include the images of the art works in this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine Ziff

Katherine Ziff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Nathaniel Ivers

Nathaniel Ivers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Kathleen Hutton

Kathleen Hutton is Director of Education for Reynolda House Museum of American Art, which is affiliated with Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.