Coping with the stress of pastoral counseling.

Using a stratified random sample of the three membership categories of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, this study investigated the experience of stress, related to the pastoral counseling profession, among 143 pastoral counselors and 95 of their spouses. In addition, the study examined how pastoral counselors were coping with stress by evaluating self-reported functional and dysfunctional behaviors. The data indicated that pastoral counselors and their spouses did not report high levels of stress related to the pastoral counseling profession. However, significant differences were found by work setting and age for pastoral counselors regarding the level of stress experienced. The data also indicated that pastoral counselors reported using more functional stress reduction behaviors than dysfunctional stress reduction behaviors.