Empathy, emotional clusters and the accurate identification of the functions of pastoral care.

by Rev. Stuart Adamson

In the first section of this three part series on blogging chaplains back in September 2016, I looked at the way integrating pastoral experience and ongoing reflection on scripture can enhance our pastoral practice, and how, with an encouragement to enjoy learning and play with ideas, teaching resources can be modified and enhanced.

In this second section, I look at empathic listening and my concept of what I call "emotional clusters". After explaining what I believe emotional clusters are, I will outline how I believe they can help chaplains more accurately identify the pastoral need in the person they are caring for.

It is an act of love and respect to patients, parishioners, people we might be caring for, even a friend, if we take the time to listen to their heart - to really listen to what is going on for them.

But empathic listening is no exercise in parroting - merely restating and obvious emotion in another.

I call effective empathic listening "exegeting hearts".

We are big on exegesis of scripture in the Anglican diocese of Sydney. And for good reason. We have a high view of scripture as the Word of God and its power to change hearts. But I wonder if we might not be more effective pastors if we were less ready to jump to conclusions, and more ready to listen to people's hearts. The mouth speaks of what the heart is full.

I spent some time with someone today who I was determined to listen to.

As I listened and reflected back his emotions to him I developed an appreciation of his whole emotional state.

He was utterly exhausted. He was torn between private and work responsibilities. He felt he couldn't go on any longer. That he was approaching burnout. But he was highly motivated by a sense of duty, a desire to do the right thing and to be seen to do the right thing to the extent that he was prepared to keep working to his ongoing detriment.

In my early teaching of the six functions of pastoral care (or eight, as they have become in my training sessions (see the previous instalment in this three part series)), I taught that sustaining is the relevant pastoral function when someone is feeling overwhelmed.

The concept of emotional clusters brings greater nuance to the chaplain’s in-the-moment assessment of the one they are caring for.

Exhaustion. Feeling like he had come to the end of his rope. Physical depletion and personal illness. These were the words and phrases that came up in our discussion.

Together they cause the word overwhelmed to spring to mind.

In addition, an intense feeling of wanting to shout out in frustration, to be at a loved one's side, and an agreement that he was wanting to clear the decks and be there for them, but felt he could not leave his post. Added into the mix was a self loathing and an anger.

Together these finely nuanced expressions of emotion combine to build a strong feeling of being trapped. The function? Liberation.

Care that was both sustaining and liberating was needed.

But those needs were arrived at after much listening, after a patient identification of nuanced emotions that together formed emotional clusters that suggested two of the pastoral functions.

We prayed. He determined to raise the matter then and there with his employer.

He needed to give himself permission to stop and take practical steps to ensure the gathering vortex of unhealthy levels of stress did not draw him down to ongoing illness and burnout.

Empathic listening led to the identification of emotional clusters. Those clusters suggested two functions of pastoral care which facilitated, under God, ministry that was both sustaining and liberating.

(Editor's note: Stuart has written a followup article to this one. Follow this link: http://bloggingchaplains.blogspot.com/2022/06/empathy-emotional-clusters-and-accurate.html )