Relationships among Therapist Presession Mood, Therapist Empathy, and Session Evaluation

Intellectual empathy, operationalized as the counselor's accuracy in perceiving a client's emotions, and empathic emotion, or the similarity between the therapist's and the client's emotions, were examined in relation to therapist presession mood and clients' session evaluations. Fifty-eight client-therapist dyads completed the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (Zuckerman, Lubin, & Rinck, 1983) before and after a midtreatment counseling session. Clients also completed the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (Stiles & Snow, 1984). Results showed that both intellectual empathy and empathic emotion contributed significantly to client-rated session depth but not session smoothness. Counselor presession positive affect was negatively related to empathic emotion, whereas counselor presession anxiety was positively related to intellectual empathy.