Assessing intertrainer effects on the Empathic Understanding Scale: training the trainer

The purpose of this study was to develop a procedure that would provide a preliminary assessment of the level of intertrainer agreement on the Empathic Understanding scale. To illustrate the proposed procedure, a pilot study was undertaken in which 30 excerpts of helping interactions that included the client's statement, therapist response, and client's subsequent response were rated by experienced raters trained by a Carkhuff trainer and a non-Carkhuff trainer. Results indicated that raters trained by different trainers make significantly different judgments about the level of therapist empathy at high levels of empathy. Results of this study were discussed in light of possible scale reliability and construct validity problems. A detailed description and rationale of the proposed procedure was outlined.