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Therapist empathy and client outcome: An updated meta-analysis.
Robert Elliott1, Arthur C Bohart2, Jeanne C Watson3
1School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde.
Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.)
|October 19, 2018
Summary
Therapist empathy, the ability to understand a client's experience, significantly predicts psychotherapy outcomes. This meta-analysis confirms empathy as a key factor in successful therapy across diverse clients and orientations.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Psychotherapy Research
Background:
- Therapist empathy is a long-hypothesized key change process in psychotherapy.
- Defining and measuring therapist empathy presents conceptual challenges, particularly separating it from other relationship variables.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review definitional issues and measures of therapist empathy.
- To conduct a meta-analysis on the relationship between therapist empathy and client outcomes.
- To provide practice recommendations for incorporating empathy in therapy.
Main Methods:
- Review of literature on therapist empathy and its measurement.
- Meta-analysis of 82 independent samples (6,138 clients) examining the empathy-outcome link.
- Analysis of different perception measures (client, observer, therapist) versus empathic accuracy.
Main Results:
- Therapist empathy is a moderately strong predictor of therapy outcome (mean weighted r = .28).
- The empathy-outcome relation was consistent across different theoretical orientations and client problems, though heterogeneity was noted.
- Client, observer, and therapist perception measures were better predictors of client outcome than empathic accuracy measures.
Conclusions:
- Empathy is a crucial element for successful psychotherapy.
- Diversity in empathic expression should be considered and endorsed in clinical practice.
- Further research is needed to address limitations in current data and enhance understanding of empathy's role.
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