The Relationship between Religious Orientation and Empathy in Pastoral Counselors

Abstract

The relationship between the religious orientation of pastoral counselors and client-perceived empathy was investigated. Forty-six parish clergy and 96 of their clients completed Batson's (1976) Three-Dimensional Religious Orientation Scale and the Truax-Carkhuff Relationship Questionnaire, respectively. As hypothesized, end-oriented and quest-oriented clergy are perceived by their clients to be significantly more empathic than means-oriented clergy. As empathy is generally acknowledged to be vital to counseling effectiveness, the findings suggest that the means orientation to religion potentially inhibits counselor effectiveness relative to quest and end orientations. This finding implies a greater suitability of quest- and end-oriented pastoral candidates for counselor training as compared to means-oriented candidates.

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