Counseling for Clergy

soul care

Therapy for rabbis, pastors, priests & chaplains

Most clergy work alone, carrying the hopes, fears, and traumas of their community as a sacred duty. Religious leadership can be a lonely calling. You are with people in the most sacred moments of their life, you celebrate births, marriages, coming of age; and you walk with those same beloved souls through divorce, loss, and death. In between you hold their fears, their confessions, and their complicated lives in a very specific way.

It is important for clergy to have space where they are understood, where their unique burdens and joys are shared, and where you do not have to explain for the 4,000th time what it is you do outside of leading services. As an Episcopal priest who has done extensive interfaith work and trained with an interfaith spiritual direction institute (SGTI) before training as a therapist I understand the complexity of leading a congregation in our current culture. I have experienced the pain, joy, and weight of responsibility and over the last 10 years have come to see my own call as a holder of sacred space for clergy outside of their denominational hierarchies. 

Your whole self, including your religious and spiritual life is welcome in my therapy room. When I provide counseling for clergy I welcome your sacred stories as powerful tools that help us we explore your inner country, examine the symbols and patterns that repeat in your life and make intentional choices for the story you wish to tell with your life in the future. 

Space for Difference

Minority religious clergy such as rabbis, add to that load the experience as you swim against the hegemonic tide of Christian-normativity in our culture. Even your religious colleagues may not understand a budget where security costs are higher than salary, where your congregants struggle to have their religious holidays honored by work or school, or the specific traumas that come with religious hatred and violence. Counseling for clergy with non-Christian clergy should be culturally informed and honor the difference in experience that Christian hegemony creates for you and your congregation. 

More about

Antidote to Isolation

Clergy, like therapists, and other caring professionals are often bound by promises of confidentiality that create deep feelings of isolation and loneliness. You cannot share all of your work with your spouse, friends, or even colleagues. As a priest and therapist I understand how isolating holding the stories of your community can be.

Unfortunately often the spaces we expect to be the most supportive, our colleague groups, diocese, convocations, or other religious organizations can actually make these issues worse. Competition, keeping up with the "Joneses," and fear of reprisal from hierarchical authorities can leave clergy dangerously isolated and more likely to act out in unhealthy ways to their own, or their community's detriment. 

Recent research shows a pandemic of loneliness and risk of burnout among clergy, with rates as high as 30% - 50% of clergy feeling some level of burnout. Clergy also report high levels of anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions and sometimes religious organizations make this problem worse with messaging around "self care" or the implication that spiritual practice should be enough to address all issues.