Psychotherapeutic Training Intentions Among Psychology Students in Italy: The Role of Empathy, Personality Traits, and Psychopathology.

Abstract

Objective: The decision to pursue a career as a psychotherapist may be influenced by various psychological dispositions or self-healing motivations. The current study aimed to investigate differences in empathy, personality traits, and psychopathology between psychology students who intend to pursue psychotherapy training and those who do not.

Method: The study involved 1978 psychology students (1764 women, 89.2%), aged between 18 and 30 years (M = 22.72, SD = 2.59), who were attending a Bachelor's or a Master's degree program at Italian universities. Each participant completed self-report instruments assessing dispositional empathy domains, personality traits, and clinical symptoms, as well as a sociodemographic questionnaire. A Multivariate Analysis of Covariance was performed to examine the significant differences on the examined variables between psychology students intending to pursue psychotherapy training (n = 1309) and those without such intentions (n = 669).

Results: Both groups of psychology students reported clinically relevant symptoms across various domains of psychopathology. However, students who expressed an intention to pursue psychotherapy training reported higher levels of empathetic concern, conscientiousness, and openness compared to their peers without such intentions.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that individuals may choose to enroll in a university psychology program for self-healing purposes, and that individual differences in empathy and personality traits may play a role in the decision to pursue a career as a psychotherapist. Universities and psychotherapy training institutes should promote psychology students' access to psychotherapy services. Also, psychotherapy training institutes should consider individual differences in empathy and personality traits within their educational programs.