Countertransference and empathy: The complex relationship between two divergent concepts in counseling.

Examined the relationship of 20 male counselor trainees' empathic ability (the Barret-Lennard Relationship Inventory) to measures of countertransference behavior and countertransference feelings toward 20 undergraduate female clients. It was expected that empathic ability would be negatively related to the manifestation of countertransference behavior, operationalized as the withdrawal of personal involvement, but positively related to self-reports of openness to countertransference feelings. Empathy was found to be negatively related to countertransference behavior with seductive female clients but not with hostile or neutral clients. Counselor empathic ability was positively related to counselor reports of openness to countertransference feelings. Findings suggest, however, that there was a limit to how often countertransference feelings could be experienced in a given counseling session without spilling over into countertransference behavior. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)