67th Annual Conference

Friday, February 26

Morning Workshops

10:00 A.M.-12:30 P.M.

Workshop 47

Training Students to Maximize Opportunities for Empathy in Groups

Chairs:

Alexis D. Abernethy, Ph.D., CGP, Professor, Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California

Sean Michael Love, M.A., Clinical Psychology Graduate Student, Fuller Theological Seminary Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, California

Joseph Thomas Tadie, M.A., Student/Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Candidate, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California

Bikat Tilahun, M.A., Neuropsychology Extern, Olive-View UCLA Medical Center, Sylmar, California

Training students to maximize opportunities and to hone their skills in providing empathy presents challenges and opportunities. One challenge is helping students understand similarities and differences between the concept of empathy in individual and group therapy. An opportunity lies in training students to increase group members’ empathy toward each other.

demonstration-sharing of work experiences-didactic-experiential

Learning Objectives:

The attendee will be able to:

1. Define training approaches that clarify similarities and differences in communicating empathy in interpersonally-oriented groups.

2. Identify specific intervention techniques for facilitating group members' ability to better express empathy toward one another.

3. Differentiate theoretical perspectives on empathy in group psychotherapy including interpersonal, psychodynamic, and group-as-whole.

Course References:

Yalom, I. D., & Leszcz, M.  (2005). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy, 5th edition. NY: Basic Books.

Fishman, G. G. (1999). Knowing another from a dynamic systems point of view: The need for a multimodal concept of empathy. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 68(3), 376-400.

Pines, M., Saiger, G. M., Rubenfeld, S., & Dluhy, M. D. (2008). Group analysis and intimacy: A whole-group approach. In Windows into today's group therapy: The National Group Psychotherapy Institute of the Washington School of Psychiatry. (pp. 67-72). New York, NY US: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.