Clinical trial NCT00620009: The Measurement of Empathy and Its Efficacy in Psychotherapy
Official title: The Measurement of Empathy and Its Efficacy in Psychotherapy
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Psychotherapeutic Processes
Transference (Psychology)
Keywords: Empathy
Feedback
Psychotherapy
Lead sponsor: University of Illinois at Chicago
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2008-02-21
Enrollment: 16
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 65
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: The purpose of the research is to: 1) to test whether psychotherapy including immediate feedback of empathy data is more efficacious than therapy without such an exchange of data, 2) to measure the degree of accuracy of therapist's empathy and its relationship to the patient's estimate of the therapist's empathy.

Detailed description: Objective: To develop and evaluate a feedback method for measuring and increasing therapists' empathic accuracy and reducing empathic errors in psychotherapy. Method: Sixteen (16) patient-therapist pairs were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. All patients rated their own functioning using the GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) and predicted the accuracy with which their therapists would estimate their ratings. Therapists rated the patient's GAF, predicted the patients' ratings of their own GAFs, and rated their confidence in their own predictions. In the intervention condition, therapist and patients discussed the previous session's ratings for a few minutes of the therapy session. Results: Intervention therapists showed greater empathic accuracy relative to controls on our empathy measure (t(14) = 2.69, p \< .01) and increased empathy over time on the Barrett-Lenard Empathy subscale (t(32) = 3.21, p \< .01). We also found significant effects on errors related to perceived accuracy of therapist empathy. Patients in the control group were found to perceive their therapists to be either more or less accurate than was actually the case (over/under-idealization), but such biases were not as strong in the intervention group. Similarly, therapists in the control group were likely to over-estimate their own accuracy (over-confidence) to a greater extent than intervention therapists. Affective responses to the instrument were positive overall and did not differ by condition. Conclusion: Empathy feedback and feedback concerning degrees of patient idealization and therapist confidence may be effective in improving functioning as well as in increasing empathic accuracy in psychotherapy.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Outpatient psychotherapy at University of Illinois at Chicago
* Age 18-65

Exclusion Criteria:

* Psychosis
* Suicidality
* Organic Brain Disorder

Primary outcomes:
measure: Patient Global Assessment of Functioning
timeFrame: 20 psychotherapy sessions
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Barrett-Lenard Relationship Inventory
timeFrame: Every 5th session, 20 sessions of psychotherapy
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Chicago
country: United States
facility: University of Illinois at Chicago
state: Illinois
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Illinois at Chicago
name: Bhaskar N. Sripada, M.D.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: