Counselors' attitudes toward their crying in session and perceived emotional intelligence: An exploratory study

The purpose of the present study was to validate and determine the reliability of the Tears-Inventory, a 23-item questionnaire that measures the attitudes of counselors and counselors-in-training toward crying. A second instrument, the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal, was also administered to measure participants' emotional intelligence abilities. Scores for emotional intelligence were based on four subscales: Self-awareness, Self-management, Social Awareness, and Social Management as well as an overall EQ score.; Both instruments were sent to 1,500 potential participants via email who were asked to complete both surveys online. The sample consisted of a randomized list of members from the Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors and graduate level counseling students for a response rate of N = 279.; It was hypothesized that the Tears-Inventory would be a reliable and valid instrument to measure attitudes of counselors toward crying. It was also hypothesized that a positive a correlation would exist between counselors' attitudes toward crying in session and their emotional intelligence. Finally, it was hypothesized that a significant relationship would exist between counselors' attitudes toward crying in session and demographic variables.; A principle component analysis was run on the Tears-Inventory , yielding five factors, and Cronbach's alpha measured the internal reliability of each factor. The five factors clustered into (a) therapeutic effectiveness of crying, (b) ethics of crying, (c) subjective perception of crying, (d) health aspects of crying, and (e) social acceptability of crying. ANOVAs and multiple regressions were conducted to determine relationships that existed between counselors' attitudes toward crying and their emotional intelligence.; The results of the study indicated that the TI holds content validity and internal reliability. There were no significant relationships between counselors' emotional intelligence and attitudes toward crying. There was a significant relationship between gender and ethnicity and counselors' attitudes toward crying. Implications of this study suggested that the Tears-Inventory could be used to aid counselors to become more self-aware and could be used to stimulate dialogue on the issue of emotional expression in the form of crying.