"Mental health includes emotional, psychological, spiritual, and social well-being. It affects how we think and feel, and how we experience the experience of our lives. It is a major factor in our capacity to experience joy in life, work, and relationships. Our mental health determines how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.
Challenges
to the mental health of clergy commonly involve stress and burnout, marriage
and family adjustment, and emotional and functional impairment.
Work-related
stress and burnout among clergy have been the focus of many studies.
Some
research suggests that burnout results from systemic factors including
bureaucracy, poor administrative support, and difficult work
conditions—ministry is hard, and getting harder. Other intrapersonal-related
factors include religious idealism, Type-A personality factors, narcissism, and
perfectionism.(4)
As a group,
pastors also experience social isolation, often extending even to their
professional peers.
One study
revealed that ministers have higher levels of occupational distress and
depression when compared to national averages."
Read the entire article from Columbia Theological Seminary here.
The above article was written by Israel Galindo, Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning at the Columbia Theological Seminary. He directs the Pastoral Excellence Program at Columbia seminary.
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