The impact of therapists' personal practice of mindfulness meditation on clients' experience of received empathy

The purpose of this study was to compare the level of empathy received by clients to their therapist's level of mindfulness and personal meditation practice. Clients' subjective experience of received empathy was correlated with therapists' subjective level of mindfulness and aspects of therapist's meditation practice including frequency of meditation and length of time sitting per meditation.;The literature review suggests that higher levels of empathy expressed by therapists promotes better therapeutic outcome. In fact, empathy predicts more variance in therapy outcome than specific intervention type. Research suggests learning mindfulness meditation increases scores on an objective measure of empathy. Practicing mindfulness meditation requires the meditator to practice empathy, compassion, and acceptance towards each thought and feeling that arises. Practicing self-empathy may increase a person's capacity to be empathic with others.;On-line surveys were used to collect the data for this project. Twenty-five therapists and forty-three of their clients participated by completing the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI), respectively. The BLRI yields four scores about the client's experience of receiving empathy, congruence, regard, and unconditionality from his or her therapist. The therapist also provided information about his or her experience with meditation and current practice, if they had one.;The results showed therapist's level of mindfulness, as assessed by the FFMQ, does not predict any of the four relationship variables assessed by the BLRI. Therapists who report having experience with mindfulness meditation are received by clients as less empathic than therapists who do not report experience with mindfulness meditation. The more time a meditating therapist spends meditating per sitting negatively affects the client's experience of the overall relationship and perceived genuineness of the therapist.;In conclusion, this study found the length of time a therapist spends meditating negatively impacts the client's perception of the therapist, and therapists who have experience with mindfulness meditation are received as less empathic. However, many reasons for these findings exist and the results should not be interpreted as reason not to meditate. Rather, meditation and empathy need to be explored further.