Correlates of Compassion Fatigue and Burnout in Chaplains and Other Clergy who Responded to the September 11th Attacks in New York City

Abstract

Participants at a June 2002 conference about the September 11th attacks were tested for compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction, and burnout. The sample consisted of 343 clergy, including 97 chaplains. A total of 149 (43.4%) of the participants had responded as disaster-relief workers following the September 11th attacks. The number of hours clergy worked with trauma victims each week was directly related to compassion fatigue among responders and non-responders. Compassion fatigue also was positively related to the number of days that responders worked at Ground Zero, while disaster-relief work with the American Red Cross reduced compassion fatigue and burnout. Clinical Pastoral Education tended to decrease compassion fatigue and burnout and increase compassion satisfaction in both responders and non-responders. Burnout was inversely related to age in both groups.

The Unseen Cost: A Discussion of the Secondary Traumatization Experience of the Clergy

“…Two studies dealt with the effects upon the clergy of their involvement post the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York on 11th September 2001 (Flannelly et al 2005;Roberts et al 2003). A further study explored the experiences of Rabbis working as chaplains after this event (Taylor et al 2006).…”

“…Incidents where the clergy have responded include the attacks in New York City on September 11th 2001 (Flannelly et al 2005;Roberts et al 2003), following natural disasters (Chinnici 1985), caring for sexual abuse victims (Rudolfsson and Tidefors 2009), working with survivors of human created atrocities such as war (Jacob 1983), torture (Lernoux 1980,working with survivors of the death camps of World War II (Cohen 1989) and those who have been victims of the Northern Ireland troubles (Gibson and Iwaniec 2003).…”

Predicting the Level of Pastors’ Risk of Termination/Exit from the Church

“…Some researchers have used comparable terms such as emotional labor or compassion stress when referring to compassion fatigue (Boyle and Healy 2003;de Jonge et al 2008;Figley 1992;Pienaar and Willemse 2008). However, tracing compassion fatigue among literature directed specifically to the clergy uncovers a unique extension of emphases that carries the definition of the term beyond the specifications of classical burnout due to the typical breadth of circumstances associated with normal ministry functions (Flannelly et al 2005;Marchand 2007;Pfifferling and Gilley 2000).…”

Dance/Movement Therapy with Clergy in Crisis: A (Group) Case Study

“…Such problems have been addressed in a number of recent studies. Burnout has been described in rabbis working as chaplains (Taylor, Flannelly, Weaver, & Zucker, 2006), in Roman Catholic clergy (Virginia, 2004), in parish-based clergy (Doolittle, 2007), and in clergy after dealing with victims of severe trauma (Flannelly, Roberts, & Weaver, 2005). The particular vulnerability of the religious healer has been depicted by Muse (2000Muse ( , 2007, Means (2002), and Grosch and Olsen (2000).…”