DIGEST - Volume 8, Issue 4-FULL

8 TPC Digest A Comparison of Empathy and Sympathy Between Counselors-in-Training and Their Non-Counseling Academic Peers Zachary D. Bloom, Victoria A. McNeil, Paulina Flasch, Faith Sanders E mpathy can be difficult to define, but there is agreement among researchers that it relates to how individuals socially and emotionally connect to one another. As such, empathy plays an essential role in the formation and maintenance of relationships. In a clinical setting, empathy also appears to be a vital component of the counseling process and the promotion of positive client outcomes. Indeed, the counseling profession calls for counselors to experience and demonstrate empathic reactions to their clients—not to be confused with sympathetic responses, which might have negative consequences in a counseling context. Yet, empathy development is not necessarily an explicit focus of clinical training programs. Empathy appears to be taught in counselor education programs as a microskill (e.g., reflection of feeling and meaning) rather than as its own construct. But empathy is more than a component of a skillset, and a counselor’s use of empathy-based responses in a therapeutic relationship requires skill and practice. Although there is evidence that some aspects of empathy are dispositional in nature, which might make the counseling field a strong fit for empathic individuals, empathy training in counseling programs can increase students’ levels of empathy. However, little is known about the training aspect of empathy and whether or not counselor training programs are effective in enhancing empathy or reducing sympathy among counselors-in-training (CITs). The purpose of the present study was to (a) examine differences in empathy (i.e., affective empathy and cognitive empathy) and sympathy levels among emerging adult college students, and (b) determine whether CITs demonstrate different levels of empathy and sympathy when compared to their academic peers. CITs did not exhibit statistically significant differences in levels of empathy or sympathy when compared to students from other academic programs. In fact, CITs recorded levels of empathy that appeared comparable to students from other academic disciplines. This finding is consistent with literature indicating that even if empathy training is effective, counselor education programs might not be emphasizing empathy development in CITs or employing empathy training sufficiently. Furthermore, the results from this study indicated that CITs possess higher levels of sympathy than both cognitive and affective components of empathy. We recommend that counselor educators facilitate CITs’ understanding of the differences between empathy and sympathy and bring awareness to their use of sympathetic responses rather than empathetic responses. It is our hope that CITs will possess a strong enough understanding between empathy and sympathy to be able to choose to use either response as it fits within a counseling context. Zachary D. Bloom is an assistant professor at Northeastern Illinois University. Victoria A. McNeil is a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida. Paulina Flasch is an assistant professor at Texas State University. Faith Sanders is a mental health counselor at Neuropeace Wellness Counseling in Orlando, Florida. Correspondence can be addressed to Zachary Bloom, 5500 North St. Louis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60625, z-bloom@neiu.edu.