Personal therapy and ability to display empathy, warmth and genuineness in psychotherapy.

Abstract

The hypothesis that number of hours of personal therapy would be positively associated with therapists' ability to display empathy, warmth and genuineness in the treatment hour was tested. Seventeen therapists, male and female graduate students in a clinical psychology doctoral program, submitted sample tapes of their therapy sessions and completed questionnaires regarding their therapy experience as a client. The tapes were rated by mental health professionals trained in the use of the Truax and Carkhuffscales for Accurate Empathy, Nonpossessive Warmth and Genuineness. These scores were compared with number of hours of therapy experience as a client using a Spearman rank order correlation. Comparisons were significant for Empathy and Genuineness in the positive direction at the .05 level. Implications for training and suggestions for future research were discussed.

‘The power of being seen’: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of how experienced counselling psychologists describe the meaning and significance of personal therapy in clinical practice

“…However, other studies, examining withinsession experiences of client and therapist, provide equivocal results with some results supporting the view that personal therapy enables the therapist to provide a warm, empathic therapeutic bond (e.g. Peebles, 1980;Wogan & Norcross, 1985) and others finding personal therapy correlates negatively with predictions of therapeutic alliance (Wheeler, 1991).…”

Personal therapy for Israeli school counselors: Prevalence, parameters, and professional difficulties and burnout

“…Still, a causal connection can hardly be concluded from this, because it may be that the therapists who present for treatment are precisely those who have greater openness for interpersonal attachments, so from the outset they possess a greater capacity for empathy (Greenberg & Staller, 1981). Peebles (1980) tested therapists at the training stage and found a positive link between level of empathy shown to their patients and number of hours of their own therapy. Greenberg and Staller (1981) found that therapy had an effect on the verbal behavior of the therapists.…”

“…In light of the inconclusive evidence for the relationship between personal therapy and client outcomes, researchers taking a process perspective have examined the effects of personal therapy on in-therapy process, such as empathy (Strupp, 1958), genuineness (Peebles, 1980), and awareness of countertransference issues (MacDevitt, 1987).…”

The Role of Personal Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in Becoming a Competent Psychiatrist

“…16 One study found that the number of hours of personal therapy correlated with empathy and genuineness as a therapist. 17 Two other studies found personal therapy associated with more concern for the therapeutic relationship and greater awareness of countertransference. 18,19 The sparest sector of this research literature comprises studies that examine the relationship of personal therapy experience to patient outcomes.…”