The most important study limitations centre upon the validity of responses to vignettes simulating practice situations. As discussed above, simulated practice is not real practice. There are likely to be performance effects related to attempts to be seen to do what is ‘right’. A further limitation is that both HRQ and the PRS ask for specific responses to stimuli: they are not a whole interview. The presence of a client might provoke greater attempts at understanding of their situation and point of view. For instance, social workers may focus on what they see as the main issue in the prompt—and thus appear confrontational—in a way that they would not in real practice. Thus whilst inter-rater reliability has been established, external validation of these findings is needed. Finally, many of the prompts used in this study are difficult or resistant comments: responses may be more empathic for non-challenging comments by service users. Support for this proposition can be found in the more empathic responses to question 3 in the HRQ, which was the least challenging prompt (Tables 1 and 2). The measures used, therefore, may underestimate the level of empathy found in a genuine interview and in the whole gamut of social work practice, and may be more appropriately interpreted as bearing upon how practitioners deal with resistance. Taken together, these limitations suggest that the findings are useful for identifying potential issues for further study of what actually takes place within social work practice.