An Analysis of Domestic and International Research Trends of Counselor Empathy through Topic Modeling

Objectives This study aims to examine domestic and international research trends on counselor empathy using topic modeling and to suggest future research directions. Methods Between 2000 and 2022, a total of 99 studies related to counselor empathy—39 conducted in Korea and 60 internationally—were collected. The abstracts of these papers were preprocessed and analyzed using Python 3.8. After preprocessing, frequency analyses (TF, TF-IDF) were conducted on the extracted keywords, and the results were visualized. In addition, topic modeling was carried out based on these keywords. Using the major terms identified for each topic, topic labels were assigned and then reviewed by two researchers. Results In the keyword frequency analysis, the important words of TF-IDF were ‘compassion’, ‘work’, ‘alliance’, ‘level’, ‘burnout’, and ‘trauma’ in Korea and ‘student’, ‘development’ abroad. In addition, the most commonly appearing upper word was ‘alliance’. Third, the topic modeling results confirmed the topics of ‘empathy fatigue and burnout’, ‘empathy and work alliance’, and ‘self-compassion and empathy’ in Korea and ‘improvement of empathy ability’, ‘empathy and therapeutic alliance’, ‘empathy and counseling outcome’, and ‘mindfulness and empathy’ abroad. Conclusions The results of this study are expected to be helpful in emphasizing the need for a multifaceted approach to counselor empathy by statistically analyzing domestic and international research trends on counselor empathy and suggesting directions for follow-up research based on this.