Does deliberate practice surpass didactic training in learning empathy skills? A randomized controlled studyShow others and affiliations
2023 (English)In: Nordic Psychology, ISSN 1901-2276, E-ISSN 1904-0016Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]
A large body of research identifies therapist expressed empathy as one of the most important predictors of psychotherapy outcome. Deliberate practice (DP) is an effective method to improve skills in many fields. We asked if DP also can be used to enhance the skill of expressing empathy.
Objective: The aim was to compare the efficacy of DP to didactical learning methods (DLM) in enhancing the skill of empathic expression in students.
Method: A repeated measures randomized controlled group design was used. Novice students (N = 36) from psychologist-, medicine-, social work-, and nursing programs received two training sessions of either DP (n = 21) or DLM (n = 15). Participants' skills in empathic expression were assessed with the Measure of Expressed Empathy (MEE) on three occasions: before the first, between, and after the last training session.
Results: Participants in the DP-group showed improved empathic expression, whereas participants in the DLM-group did not.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that DP is an effective training method for therapeutic skills such as empathic expression and holds implications for the future development of educational practices to incorporate active skill training methods.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis Group, 2023.
Keywords [en]
Deliberate practice, empathy, randomized controlled trial, repeated measures, therapeutic skills
National Category
Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-109392DOI: 10.1080/19012276.2023.2247572ISI: 001080155600001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85168672435OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-109392DiVA, id: diva2:1807229
2023-10-252023-10-252023-12-08Bibliographically approved