Empathy and the counselor's experience of the client's problem

Studied the relationship between a counselor's own experience with a problem and his or her empathy in responding to a client with the same problem. 36 counseling students responded to recorded excerpts of a client's expression of a grade problem. The empathy level of the responses was rated on Truax's Accurate Empathy Scale, as was empathy to a control problem. Each S's own history of grade problems was indexed by his lowest past semester GPA. As hypothesized, Ss with lower GPA low points responded with relatively greater empathy to the grade problem. This did not reflect a greater absolute level of empathy by those who had themselves experienced more difficulty with grades, but was due rather to these Ss' lesser empathy to the control problem. The findings may indicate that persons with a problem history are empathic when another's problem relates to their own, but less empathic in general, with implications for selection and assignment of nonprofessional and professional helpers. (21 ref)