| dc.description.abstract | This training study assessed the impact of a newly conceptualized microcounseling skill, the reflection of meaning, on counselor empathy. A further purpose was to determine the impact of counselor empathy on client perceptions of counselor expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness. Twenty-four beginning master's level trainees, twelve each in two microcounseling training conditions utilizing randomly assigned treatments with intact groups, underwent either a microcounseling or a microcounseling plus reflection of meaning training condition. Following a pre-training role-played interview, participants received twelve hours of training, followed by a post-training roleplayed interview. Counselor empathy was evaluated from three perspectives: self-perceived empathy, client-perceived empathy, and empathy as rated by trained raters. No effects for sex or baseline empathy were detected although a treatment effect for age was found. Hypotheses were evaluated by two-tailed t tests for independent groups. No significant main effects were found. Ad hoc correlation and covariance analyses were performed. Implications, limitations of the study, and future research directions were presented. | en_US |
