Personal therapy and ability to display empathy, warmth and genuineness in psychotherapy.

Tested the hypothesis that number of hours of personal therapy would be positively associated with therapists' ability to display empathy, warmth, and genuineness in the treatment hour. 17 therapists, (graduate students in a clinical psychology doctoral program) submitted sample tapes of their therapy sessions and completed the MMPI and questionnaires regarding their therapy experience as a client. The tapes were rated by mental health professionals trained in the use of the Truax and Carkhuff scales for Accurate Empathy, Nonpossessive Warmth, and Genuineness. These scores were compared with number of hours of therapy experience as a client using a Spearman rank order correlation. Comparisons were significant for Empathy and Genuineness. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)