Relative empathy mediatory role between levels of forgiveness and psychological symptoms of counselor trainees

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediatory role of empathy in relation to the level of forgiveness of counselor trainees and psychological symptoms. The theoretical model developed in this direction is tested by the structural equality model. Attempts are made to determine whether there is a relationship between forgiveness, psychological symptoms and empathy, and whether these variables differ according to the demographic characteristics of the participants. Participants of the study consisted of first, second and third year students in the Faculty of Education, division of Guidance and Psychological Counseling Graduate Program in Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Dokuz Eylül University and Necmettin Erbakan University in 2017-2018 academic year. With a questionnaire, Heartland Forgiveness Scale, Brief Symptom Inventory and Basic Empathy Scale were used as data collection tools in the study. Data analysis was performed with SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 22.0 programs. Confirmatory factor analysis and item analysis (Total Item Correlation and Cronbach Alpha) were applied to test construct validity in the reliability and validity of the scales. The results of demographic data indicate that there are statistically; a) significant differences in the sub-dimension of forgiveness of others, cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and empathy total scores according to gender; b) psychological symptoms according to class level (1., 2. or 3. year students) in somatization scores; c) self-forgiveness, status forgiveness, forgiveness; anxiety, depression, negative self-esteem, somatization psychological symptom scores according to status of receiving psychological help; d) hostilite psychological symptom score and cognitive empathy scores according to mothers level of education; e) cognitive empathy and total empathy scores according to number of siblings; f) cognitive empathy scores, negative self-perception and somatization symptom scores according to the monthly income of the family. The results of the analysis of correlation between 'empathy' and 'forgiveness and psychological symptoms' indicate a significant positive correlation between empathy total score and total forgiveness and forgiveness of others, between cognitive empathy and status forgiveness and forgiveness total scores, between emotional empathy and depression and forgiveness. There was a significant negative correlation between psychological symptoms and anxiety, depression, negative self-perception, somatization and hostility, self-forgiveness, forgiveness, status forgiveness and forgiveness. In addition, there was a significant negative correlation between emotional empathy and self-forgiveness between cognitive empathy and negative self-perception. The effect of the psychological symptoms of the research model test on the levels of forgiveness of the psychological advisor candidates was negative and meaningful; the level of empathy does not have a significant effect on forgiveness; psychological symptom levels have no significant effect on empathy levels; it has been found that there is no mediation effect of empathy levels between the levels of forgiveness and psychological symptom levels. Key Words : Forgiveness, Psychological Symptoms, Empathy, Psychological Counselor Candidates.