Psychotherapists' Empathy for Childfree Women of Intersecting Age and Socioeconomic Status

The purpose of the study was to discern the empathy ability of psychotherapists for childfree female clients with intersectional identities. Each participating psychotherapist was randomly assigned to view one of four mock video sessions with a childfree woman of varying age and socioeconomic status (SES). Psychotherapists rated their ability to empathize for the woman in their assigned mocked video. An analysis of variance revealed that psychotherapists experienced higher empathy ability for a childfree woman of younger age and lower SES than for an older and upper-SES childfree woman. Implications for research and practice are discussed.