Volume 34, Issue 1, 2025
DOI: 10.53555/03276716.2025.06
Verbalizações Assertivas E Empáticas De Estagiários De Psicologia Clínica Assertive And Empathetic Expressions Of Clinical Psychology Interns
Abstract
Psychotherapy training presents gaps, especially with regards to interpersonal competencies, such as employing assertive and empathetic skills, which are crucial for a good clinical service. From this context, the present study sought to identify the assertive and empathetic expressions and to verify the differences in how interns of four different therapeutic approaches (Existential Phenomenological Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) deal with interpersonal challenges in the clinical context. The sample comprised 20 interns of the Applied Psychological Services unit from a public university, equally distributed among clinical approaches, and who were undergoing a clinical psychology internship during the time of the study. A sociodemographic questionnaire and a semi-structured interview based on the Difficult-to-Handle Situations in Clinical Psychology Scale, assessed by five judges who are experts on Clinical Psychology and Social Skills and built specifically for the purpose of this research, were employed. From the responses obtained, four judges with expertise on the clinical and interpersonal relationships fields identified and categorized the students' expressions with assertive and empathetic content. The results indicated a general predominance of empathetic over assertive expressions among therapists of the psychoanalytic and cognitive-behavioral approaches. With regards to the existential-phenomenological and gestalt approaches, assertive expressions predominated. The study provides resources for thinking about the clinical training of students, especially in the interpersonal dimension. Future studies that further explore this relationship between interpersonal competencies and clinical practice are suggested, besides proposing and investing possible interventions aiming at the improvement of the professional competence in the psychotherapeutic field among Psychology students.
Keywords
Clinical Psychology, Social Skills, Interpersonal Relationships, Professional Competence, Handling interpersonal matters in the clinic