The Abilities of a Psychotherapist as the Basis of His Emotional Competence

The article contains an analysis of various approaches to studying the emotional competence of psychotherapists and its role in building therapeutic relationships. The work presents the most common contemporary approaches to describing the personality traits underlying emotional intelligence. Theoretical and empirical research has expanded these concepts and described nine abilities of psychotherapists necessary for creating an atmosphere of emotional safety and establishing “helping” relationships. The results of an empirical study involving 71 psychotherapists are presented, leading to the conclusion that it is possible to enhance the emotional competence of psychotherapists through specialized training programs.