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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Kirsty Bucknell: Improving self reflection to strengthen resilience in ministry workers
A new study shows that training in systematic self reflection will develop resilience among ministry workers, who are at risk of stress related ill health.
Self reflective resilience training is beneficial to those in ministry roles and programs in this area can minimise stress related ill health.
BUT, Not all self reflection is equal.
Organisational Psychologist with Sydney’s Center for Ministry Development Kirsty Bucknell has surveyed and tested a significant number of Australian Protestant Ministry workers to analyse the relationship between self reflection and mental health outcomes.
Kirsty’s just completed her PhD on this subject and says while there is a high sense of purpose and personal satisfaction in ministry work the stressors and strains of the role have been associated with burnout and stress related ill health.
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it is the pastor's heart and today, improving self-reflection to strengthen resilience in ministry workers with kirsty bucknell. A new study shows the training in systematic self-reflection will work for the development of resilience among ministry workers. Ministry workers are at risk of stress-related ill health. Self-reflective resilience training is beneficial to those in ministry roles and programs in this area can minimise the risk of stress-related ill health. But not all self-reflection is equalie Bucknell has engaged in a survey and a trial of a significant number of Australian Protestant ministry workers, analysing the relationship between self-reflection and mental health outcomes. She's also explored the relationship between self-reflective writings and successful coping and unsuccessful coping. She works as an organisational psychologist at the Centre for Ministry Development at Sydney's Moore Theological College. She's just completed her PhD on this subject and she's here with us on the Pastor's Heart to share her findings. Kirsty, let's start with your pastor's heart, and you have spent a significant amount of time and energy significant portion of your life researching resilience amongst ministry workers because I take it you care about us.
Speaker 2:That's so true, dominic. That's very true, thank you. I have worked with the Centre for Ministry Development for some time, and working alongside pastors highlighted for me the many stresses and demands that people who are in ministry are under, and as an organisational psychologist, I thought surely there's something more I can be doing and surely there's something that we can be doing to support people who are in ministry. And so that was my heart for doing this work is finding ways that we can help people who have been trained and who are experienced and good and godly people who are in ministry, helping them to have a sustained ministry across their lifetimes.
Speaker 1:Now there's a high sense of purpose in Christian ministry, high sense of personal satisfaction. We actually see people make turning decisions for Jesus Christ, trusting him, switching from hell to heaven and walking forward in discipleship. And yet there are stresses and strains. That's associated with burnout and ill health, perhaps more than quite a few other professions with burnout and ill health, perhaps more than quite a few other professions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is interesting to see the research around burnout in particular, and you're quite right that people who are in ministry recognise the great sense of meaning attached to their roles, and yet the levels of burnout are significant 23% of Christian leaders. You say in your PhD yeah, so there was a study done in 2001, so some time ago now of Australian ministry workers that showed that 23% of them were suffering from burnout, and then there were a further 56% of them that were borderline or approaching burnout. So you know we're looking.
Speaker 1:Some days it's going great and other days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we're looking at like that's a significant number of people. There was a study done in the States that showed 65% of ministry or clergy were experiencing levels of burnout that were concerning, so it's a big issue. It's not the only profession vocation that experiences levels of burnout. We also see that the levels of burnout that we see in ministry are not as severe as people who are in emergency services, people in the police, who serve in that way.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm thinking compassion, fatigue when you say those two things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're right on the front line. They're dealing both with the physical and the emotional aspects of those roles, and they're getting more compassion fatigue than us.
Speaker 1:yeah, yes, yeah, and they're experiencing burnout. What are the other ones that are higher than ministry?
Speaker 2:Well, so they're the primary ones. So emergency personnel. So this was a study done by Adams in 2017, looking at a meta-analysis of a whole different range of helping professions, and so emergency personnel were up there. Clergy were at similar levels to teachers and the experiences that teachers have of burnout.
Speaker 1:I mean that's interesting. I mean, when you think of the categories that I think you gave us blurry work-life boundaries, unrelenting ministry demands, ministry stresses, personal criticism, role ambiguity, boundary ambiguity, relational conflicts, oh and high expectations and personal criticism I can see some overlap between the teaching profession and the ministry profession under those headings.
Speaker 2:And the blurring of lines.
Speaker 1:I think also there's a Teachers don't get so many phone calls at night.
Speaker 2:No, that's true. That's true, that's true. But the connection to the people that you're serving, I think, is there as well. Interestingly, the levels of burnout that we're seeing in ministry is higher than people who are counsellors. So there's.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's a lot more self-revelation in ministry and people know you better. They know you where you live. I'm actually trying to be vulnerable in my sermons.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and so you've mentioned some of the stressors that people who are in ministry face there, stressors that people who are in ministry face there. I look at sort of four different areas around, looking at the workload itself. So the workload is not just the amount of work but the rapid switching between the tasks. So in any given day somebody in ministry might move from having a prayer meeting to counselling somebody who is grieving to doing a strategy planning day.
Speaker 1:An interview on the pastor's heart to a work in progress. Meeting with my administrator.
Speaker 2:Absolutely to going and buying a vacuum cleaner because you know, or you know, or you know doing repairs. So, you know, like any number of different things that you might move to and from in a given day. So work demands. Then there are the emotional demands that are associated with that, the vicarious trauma as you walk alongside people. There's.
Speaker 1:How does I mean your big question? Was how does self-reflection actually work to build resilience?
Speaker 2:Well, that's the multimillion-dollar question, isn't it? I wish it were multimillion-dollar. You gave it 10,000 words, just give us just a few seconds.
Speaker 1:Sorry, 100,000 words, yeah, yeah, that's right that's right.
Speaker 2:So look, the challenge out there is to. We think self-reflection is a really great thing and oftentimes it's touted as you know, the silver bullet that's going to solve all our issues, and it is a really helpful uh process to engage in. And yet, as you mentioned at the beginning, it's not the be all and end all, because the research is showing that self-reflection has a really ambiguous relationship with mental health outcomes, and so I was investigating what is the relationship between self-reflection and resilience. There's a paper that Chapnall and Campbell put out in 1999. So again a long time ago, but really what they were laying out and setting out this logic problem. That said, typically we think that self-reflection leads to self-knowledge and that self-knowledge leads to positive mental wellbeing, health outcomes. So A leads toledge, leads to positive mental wellbeing, health outcomes. So A leads to B, leads to C. So they ran this study and they found that A did lead to B.
Speaker 1:A self-knowledge I got. Self-reflection led to self-knowledge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so self-reflection did lead to self-knowledge, but self-knowledge well, but self-reflection was not positively associated with self-knowledge. Uh, good mental health outcomes. So because I might spiral down, or yeah, well, so this is, this is the, the, the question I, and so what I was trying to do is to unpack okay, if a doesn't lead to, if a leads to b but not to c, what's going on in that that logic?
Speaker 2:that helps to explain it and you surveyed 250 of us and found out yeah, so what we found was that we don't want to just think about reflection in and of itself. We want reflection to lead to insight, because insight is critical to gain, to lead to positive mental health. But we want to be really careful of rumination, because rumination is a maladaptive form of self-insight and rumination is also so. Maladaption is like broody pondering or gloomy pondering. It's that negative, perseverative thinking, it's just going over and over. What could I have done? What should I have done? Why do these things happen to me, that sort of brooding that happens. And so when we engage in self-reflection, we've got to be careful not to engage in that maladaptive form of it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I did something wrong a few weeks ago and I mean, just as you say there, I think I kind of chewed on it for 48 hours, you know, and longer, you know why, did I do that. Wow, yeah, I presume that's normal.
Speaker 2:It's quite a natural thing to do and actually what we want to do with so the natural spark in us to think through. We don't tend to think through our successful outcomes, our successful coping experiences, because they've just gone well, so there's nothing that kicks us, that says, hold on a second. I'm not satisfied with the way I engaged in that situation. So that inkling to engage in reflection is a good thing to do, and so what we want to do is to ensure that the reflection that we do engage in leads to insight, so that as you engage in that thought process, that you're learning something from the experience, that you're not being stuck in that one experience just going over and over the negative side, but they're actually gaining an insight into it. Thinking through. Well, perhaps that's a trigger for me. Perhaps that certain episode led me to my experience of that sort of situation means that I need to try different coping strategies or different mechanisms to deal with that, or maybe so there are all sorts of different insights that you might gain from it.
Speaker 1:It would be worse if I didn't even realise I'd done the wrong thing Absolutely absolutely, and so you want to use those situations.
Speaker 2:So the process that we were training the ministry workers in in one of the papers I ran a trial with 254 Australian Protestant ministry workers. What we were training them to do there was actually to engage in adaptive self-reflection.
Speaker 1:So what's adaptive self-reflection mean? Because that's a word, a phrase that came up many times in your PhD.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's to differentiate it from maladaptive self-reflection.
Speaker 1:Essentially good and bad. Yeah, yeah, good self-reflection.
Speaker 2:Helpful and unhelpful. Okay, yeah, yeah. Resilience is all about effective adaptation, learning how to deal with new situations, coping with those situations, and so, in order to reflect well, adaptive self-reflection is helping people to systematically move through a series of processes, and we talk about it in three key areas.
Speaker 1:Just give me an example. I mean tell me about let's talk about, I don't know, pastor Alvin, and what did he do wrong and how did he cope with it?
Speaker 2:well, Okay, well, so Pastor Alvin, if I'm doing some reflection with Pastor Alvin, I want him to move through three stages. I want him to self-assess or become self-aware, so he what's he done wrong and does he know it? He's had an argument with.
Speaker 1:His boss.
Speaker 2:Yes, with his boss and they've had a difference of opinion and he's come away feeling really uncomfortable. And that uncomfortable feeling is a good thing, because it's highlighting for him that something's not right. So we want to help him to become self-aware in that moment and reflect on that, to think through how did he engage in that interaction with his boss, what were the things that he said? What were the things that his boss said? How did he feel in that moment? What were the emotions that were going on for him? What were the thoughts that he was having in that moment? What was the context that he was experiencing? And perhaps even what does he perceive of the context of his boss in that moment? So what's his awareness of that situation?
Speaker 1:So that can often be the place where we get stuck and we just If he thinks about well, actually his boss is really stressed about his kid and so he may actually cut him some more slack, or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but equally thinking through his own situation. What's going on for him?
Speaker 1:And maybe I'm not handling it my best because my kid's got me.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but also, as he's reflecting, helping him to start to learn what's going on in his head in those moments. Has he got unhelpful thought patterns in the way that he is perceiving his boss, or what's he feeling? Am I feeling angry, starting to put some language around his feelings? So getting some good emotional vocabulary there as well? So we want to help people to become aware in the moment. But, as I say, you can get stuck in that self-awareness phase and we want to move people beyond that into an evaluative piece and so we want to start to weigh up and help people to reflect on.
Speaker 2:So, if it's Alvin, what was it that was helpful that he did in that situation? What worked for him? Did he ask some good questions? What was effective about the way he coped in that situation? But also ask questions what didn't work so well for me, as I'm evaluating how I engaged in that situation. Equally, how does my behaviour there line up with my values? And is the way that I behaved in that situation? Is that the sort of person I really want to be? Could I have demonstrated my values differently? Might I have preferred to have behaved in a different way?
Speaker 1:So actually, as you're talking, I think I'm getting that it's not so much the topic that I'm analysing, it's the way I'm analysing the topic. Yes, yes. I mean there are moments I think, oh, as I reflect on that, I was awesome, or as I reflect on that I was terrible. I mean it's actually probably the I was terrible ones that I'm going to learn most from. But it's how I analyse the I was terrible. Is that I'm just reflective, listening back when I'm hearing you?
Speaker 2:say it, to focus on the situations that we feel that we've been unsuccessful in our coping, or whether or not it's better to focus on the situations that we've been successful in.
Speaker 1:And what was the answer?
Speaker 2:The answer is you want a bit of both.
Speaker 1:Right, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But just before we move on to that, the third part of that process that we want people to reflect through is we want to move from self-awareness to evaluation and then finally to development. So, equally, we don't want to, so we want to understand. We want Alvin to understand how he got into that situation, what happened then. We want him to evaluate whether or not this is really how he wants to live out his life, whether or not there were situations you know was it helpful or not.
Speaker 2:And then, finally, we want to help Alvin to start to think through okay, next time I'm in a similar situation, how might I act differently, so that I can start to plan for the future and I can actually learn from that situation? So I don't just go oh well, I didn't handle it that well.
Speaker 1:So what we're actually talking about is self-reflection training in order to promote better resilience for me. Now. Okay, I'm imagining, if you like, there's a Rolls-Royce model of this and there's a DIY model of this. So there'll be some people who go to a counsellor and get help doing the Rolls-Royce model and there'll be some of us who want to do a DIY. Let's talk both Rolls-Royce and DIY, sure sure.
Speaker 2:Really, what I was doing in the trial was trying was I wasn't teaching people any specific techniques to be more resilient or to demonstrate resilience. Really, what we were teaching people to do was to engage in reflection, so that it's not a one-size.
Speaker 1:You're really encouraging DIY, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And we want people to learn how to reflect well and as people reflect well. It's a really normal, natural process of learning that we're trying to help people through here, as they learn what works for them, what situations. So the way that you and I will respond to the same stressful situation is likely to be different, given our past histories, our makeup, all of those different things, and so the way that I learned to cope with one event will be different to the way that you learn to cope with an event.
Speaker 2:And so it's about growing in self-awareness and learning which strategies. So we look at three different resilient capacities. We want people to grow in resources. We want people to understand what assets that they have that they can bring to a situation.
Speaker 2:So that's resources. We want people to grow in their coping and emotional regulation. Repertoire Sounds long and convoluted, but basically what are the strategies that you use in difficult situations to help you through that situation? So strategies, resources, strategies and, finally, beliefs. So what are the mindsets that you bring with you to help you to become or to demonstrate more resilience?
Speaker 1:Okay, help me Train. Train me in resources, strategies and beliefs.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, so resources they're the things that we often talk about. So we want to have physical resources, we want to have, you know, in order to cope well in any situation, we want to have good sleep and good diet and all of those things. So, physical resources, spiritual resources, want to make sure that we're being regular in our Bible reading, in our prayer, in our fellowship with others, that we're building our spiritual resources, but also our emotional resources, our social resources. So they're all practical resources. So one very helpful resource is both time and money and with these resources, they're, in effect, they're assets that you can use to deal with difficult experiences.
Speaker 1:I mean, I find, as you say, that I feel like my ability to cope with situations is directly inversely proportional to how long I had holiday ago.
Speaker 2:It's a holiday resort, so yeah, yeah, absolutely, and you know where your mental state is at that time. Yeah how relaxed you are. So there's a whole range of resources that we want to be constantly renewing.
Speaker 1:We don't want to like when we go through hard times, we use up these assets and we need to, whether or not the holiday was an exhausting holiday or a refreshing holiday. Yes, absolutely, absolutely Sorry, keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what we want to be able to do is to not let those resources deplete. We want to renew those resources and I think that within the ministry space, we've been pretty good at recognising the need to renew our resources and to recognise the resources that we have.
Speaker 2:So that's a really good thing. I think sometimes when we're thinking about resilience though I think sometimes when we're thinking about resilience though, we're perhaps less able to identify what are the coping strategies that we tend to use or the emotional regulatory capacities that we have. So when Alvin is in his tough time dealing with his boss, how is he actually going to go at dealing with that really hard conversation? Has he got good skills and techniques for dealing with conflict? Has he grown in his interpersonal skills to be able to handle and manage that situation, but also his own emotional regulatory repertoire? So, if he's angry about something, how does he manage his anger in the moment? Has he got techniques like, actually, right now, I recognise that I'm feeling quite stressed at the moment he's thinking in his head. I'm recognising, I'm noticing what's happening for me in the moment and I'm thinking okay, well, what are my options here? You know I can lose it.
Speaker 2:If Alvin's sitting there thinking he can lose it with his boss, equally, he might say to his boss I'm feeling quite stressed at the moment. Do you mind if I go and take a moment, if I just go and get a glass of water and we can come back and have the conversation. Go and take a moment, if I just go and get a glass of water and we can come back and have the conversation. Or you know, what other strategies does he have for dealing with that, the particular situation that he's coping with? And so when we're asking people to reflect on those situations, we want them to think through what are the strategies that work well for them and how can they develop new strategies so they can become more nuanced. We tend to have some strategies that are the go-to strategies that we use.
Speaker 2:that we've learnt that work, but not every strategy is going to work in every situation.
Speaker 1:So what are some of the strategies? And I guess I mean, as you were just describing the pastor relating to his boss? I mean also, there are strategies for the team leader relating to their team members so help me with a few strategy ideas that you suggest to people.
Speaker 2:Oh look, there's such a range, depending on the situation. So I mean we think about strategies, both in terms of problem-solving strategies and emotional strategies, so we can think through. Look, some of the strategies that people use are adaptive and some are maladaptive as well. So some strategies might be things like just asking for time, having some good questions to ask, or even just thinking through the strategies sorry, the questions that you might have in advance of going to a meeting, being prepared for a meeting, so that you can acknowledge how a particular situation might be difficult for you, so that you've thought in advance of options that you might use.
Speaker 2:But in a meeting or in an interaction with somebody, for example, I was speaking to one person who, in the course of doing the reflection, they remembered that in the past they used to use coloured pens when they were in a meeting because it was helpful for them to and it lined up with the values, the creative values and their strengths around using coloured pens to help them think through the course of a meeting. They had forgotten that they used to do that and even just reflecting on that situation of a difficult meeting that they had been in meant that they remembered that was a strategy that I used to use. Perhaps I should reuse that strategy. Can I bring that back into the way I engage?
Speaker 2:in this situation, but equally some strategies. So planning is a good strategy. Some strategies that people will use in the moment are things like procrastination. Is it a good strategy? Like there's debate around whether or not it's a good strategy. You might think actually that's a maladaptive strategy, surely. But there is some evidence to suggest that in some instances procrastination can be helpful when you're still information gathering, when the situation is unclear, or if it gives you time to deal with another situation. There are some coping strategies that are clearly unhelpful. So, for example, we look at things like using alcohol to numb the pain of an emotional experience or using pornography in the same way. So these are all strategies that people use to deal with the situations that they're faced with. They can be helpful or unhelpful.
Speaker 1:Just for the record. Pornography is unhelpful, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:But in terms of, there's a multitude of good strategies as well, and even things like prayer. We think about prayer as a strategy that, or typically, we think about prayer as a resource for building our spiritual resources, and it is that. But it is also a strategy that we can use in the moment to deal with a specific situation that we can take. Take this immediate moment to God and ask for his help.
Speaker 1:So she had first one resources, second strategy, third Third is beliefs.
Speaker 2:okay, and so this one. It is impacted by our theological beliefs, and it goes to the core of what we believe about ourselves and our ability to deal with difficult events, and so these beliefs are around what we think of ourselves, what we think about other people, the way that the world works, and so some examples of these sorts of beliefs are things like self-efficacy and agency, like optimism and hope. So, for example, if I believe that I can usually find a solution to most situations, I have this core belief about myself that I have some efficacy here. I am more likely to demonstrate a resilient outcome in that case because I have this belief, which means I'm going to go looking for options.
Speaker 1:And probably I've got that belief because I've had a track record of mostly it kind of working out yeah and then I can come up with a range of options to deal with the situation.
Speaker 2:And so I have this belief, and so I go ahead and act, operate in that belief, but if I, if, if my belief about myself is that I'm actually really bad at coming up with solutions, then I'm far less likely to go looking for solutions.
Speaker 2:Um, so that's one example. Another example might be that I believe that people are mostly out for my good, and so we recognise that all people are sinful. But the way that people will generally operate is that you know they're not out to get me and that they really want to engage in relationship, and so if I'm in a tough spot, I'm more likely to go and seek some kind of relatedness or to engage other people or to seek their help in that situation, whereas if my belief is that in that situation, whereas if my belief is that no people are generally against me, then I'm far less likely to go and seek help from them, and so when we're asking people to reflect on what's going on, part of that first stage in that self-awareness piece is to think through what was I thinking in that moment, what's going on in my head that causes or leads me to engage in a certain sort of way?
Speaker 2:Is it perhaps because the belief that I hold about myself and the way that the world works is actually hindering me from engaging in a more resilient way, from engaging in strategies and techniques that will help me to demonstrate resilience?
Speaker 1:I have a zillion more questions, but we're out of time.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm only just getting started, Dominic.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for coming in and talking to us on the Pastor's Heart today. Kirsty Bucknell's been my guest. She has just completed her PhD into this whole area of how self-reflection or best practice self-reflection can help us grow in resilience as ministry workers. We'll put a couple of links on the show notes to this program to some of the public and published areas of her PhD research and so you can go and check that out. My name's Don McSteel. We'll look forward to your company on the Pastor's Heart next Tuesday afternoon.
