Abstract
M.A. (Social Work)
This study concerns empathy as the central skill required by social workers in the development
of helping relationships with their clients,
A literature study enabled the candidate to select an appropriate model within which a
programme directed at the improvement of emphatic skills at the primary level of the helping
process was designed.
An experimental and a control group. each consisting of social work practitioner-s, were tested
for the purposes of ascertaining their initial levels of emphatic response to clients. Trust
was followed by the participation of the experimental group in the programme. A month after
the program was completed both groups were retested and the necessary statistical analysis
applied to the results. The program was found to have had a statistically beneficial effect
on the social workers level of emphatic responses.
Recommendations pertaining to empathy as an essential component in the equipment of a social
worker include the introduction of empathy to students at the undergraduate levelt emphasis
on empathy in the continuing education of all practicing social workers. and that further research.
be done on the use of empathy in the other stages of the helping process.