Empathy-Based Stress in Counselling Practice: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study

Empathy-Based Stress in Counselling Practice: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study

Empathy-Based Stress refers to the unpleasant emotional, cognitive, and relational responses counsellors may experience through sustained empathic engagement with clients’ distress.
While empathy is central to counselling practice, working closely with clients’ suffering can sometimes create emotional strain for practitioners.

This study aims to explore how counsellors understand empathy-based stress, how they experience it in their practice, and how they work with it within the counselling relationship. The research is interested in counsellors’ personal meanings, reflections, and lived experiences.

The study is situated within a constructivist framework, recognising that understanding is shaped through personal, relational, and professional contexts and co-created between researcher and participant. A constructivist grounded theory approach will be used to explore participants’ experiences and to develop a framework grounded in counsellors’ own accounts.

Participants will be counsellors working within the Â鶹ԭ´´ framework, including trainees and qualified practitioners, who recognise that empathic work with clients has at times been emotionally challenging. Participation involves a one-to-one, semi-structured interview conducted online via Microsoft Teams.

The interview will last approximately one hour and will provide space to reflect on your experiences of empathy in practice, moments of emotional impact, and how you make sense of and manage these experiences. With consent, interviews will be audio-recorded and transcribed. All identifying information will be removed, pseudonyms will be used, and data will be stored securely in line with ethical and data protection requirements.

Your contribution will help develop a richer understanding of empathy-based stress and support ongoing conversations about counsellor wellbeing and reflective practice.

For more information or to take part, please see here.
Please see here for the participant information sheet.