The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between dispositional
self-focused attention, empathy, and burnout of music therapists and the mediating
effects of empathy on the variables. In this study, dispositional self-focused attention,
empathy, and burnout were measured in 95 music therapy professionals in clinical practice
and the following results were obtained. First, burnout was most significantly positively
associated with self-committed disposition and was negatively affected by general
dispositional self-focused attention. Self-committed disposition significantly affected all the
subscales of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and the decreased personal
accomplishment) and general dispositional self-focused attention significantly affected
emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Secondly, both general dispositional self-focused
attention and self-committed disposition significantly affected empathy. Thirdly, empathy
significantly negatively affected burnout. Lastly, empathy completely mediated the
relationships between self-committed disposition and burnout.