The lived coping experiences of South Mississippi and New Orleans clergy affected by Hurricane Katrina: an exploratory study.

Leavell, Kari ; Aten, Jamie D. ; Boan, David 等

Over seventy percent of Americans identify with some faith community and use their faith as a means to cope with life experiences, especially following disasters (Weaver, Flannelly, Garbarino, Figley, & Flannelly, 2003). Clergy have been found to play a significant role in responding to disaster needs, including providing pastoral counseling, crisis management, and serving and meeting the overall needs of others (Darling, Hill, & McWey, 2004; Pector, 2005). Though clergy play a major role in attending to disaster needs, little is known about how clergy cope with disasters. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the ways in which clergy in South Mississippi and New Orleans coped with Hurricane Katrina using a phenomenological approach.

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most devastating and expensive natural disasters in American history (Cain & Barthelemy, 2008). Floodwaters caused multiple levees to break surrounding New Orleans, which caused roughly 80 percent of the city to flood. Approximately 100,000 homes were destroyed in New Orleans alone. Mississippi experienced hurricane-force winds and rain that produced 11 tornados and maximum reported storm surges of 26 to 28 feet that penetrated over six miles inland (US Department of Commerce, 2006). Every county in Mississippi was declared a disaster area; almost 60 percent of counties (49 of 82) received full federal assistance (FEMA, 2005). Estimated insured losses amount to $34.4 billion (Cain & Barthelemy, 2008) and total costs of damage to the entire Gulf Coast exceed $200 billion (CNN Reports, 2005). Though over one million people evacuated Hurricane Katrina (CNN Reports, 2005), more than 1,300 deaths resulted across the Mississippi-Louisiana Gulf Coast from this catastrophic storm.

Traumatic Effects of Disasters

In addition to the physical devastation of disasters like Hurricane Katrina, they impose numerous psychological consequences, such as posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety (Smith, Pargament, Brant, & Oliver, 2000). The most common response to natural disasters is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Rogers, 2002). Overall, disasters have been found to affect survivors' spiritual, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical functioning. Common reactions to a catastrophic event include anger, hopelessness, panic, questioning of core belief systems, confusion, withdrawal, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and headaches (Roberts & Ashley, Sr., 2008). Harvard Medical School reported that mental health issues continued to worsen two years after Hurricane Katrina; specifically, individuals experienced delayed-onset PTSD and reported thoughts of suicide (Kessler, Galea, Jones, & Parker, 2006).

Religion, Spirituality, and Disasters

For those who experience a traumatic event, turning to faith and religion may help restore a sense of control that was lost (Meisenhelder & Marcum, 2004; Spence, Lachlan, & Burke, 2007). Over 70 percent of Americans identify with a faith community and use their faith as a means to cope with life experiences (Weaver et al., 2003). Religion is thought to establish meaning and provide purpose in life, fulfill needs for relationships, and offer support during illness or suffering (Darling et al., 2004; Guthrie & Stickley, 2008). People turn to religion and spirituality for a number of reasons, especially during times of distress or catastrophe (Lord, Hook, & English, 2003). Weaver et al. (2003) noted that people in crisis involving the death of a loved one are five times more likely to seek counsel from a clergy person. Figley (1989) reports that people often reach out to faith in order to make sense of why a disaster occurred. In addition to understanding the "why" questions surrounding life events, individuals need to trust that the world is just and kind, despite the specific events that call their beliefs into question (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). Schuster et al. (2001) found that 90 percent of Americans sought religion as a source of coping after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Individuals who turn to faith for coping also frequently seek support and guidance from clergy (Weaver et al., 2003).

Faith community roles following disasters. Hurricane Katrina highlighted the important role that faith communities and clergy play after disasters. Clergy were involved with organizing relief efforts and aiding the recovery process as soon as Hurricane Katrina hit (Koenig, 2006). Faith communities in Louisiana provided food, financial and clothing assistance, counseling, transportation, childcare, and housing to individuals displaced by Hurricane Katrina (Cain & Barthelemy, 2008). Overall, faith communities and clergy helped respond to the spiritual, physical, and psychological needs of Hurricane Katrina survivors (Institute for Southern Studies, 2008). A Public Policy Research Lab survey showed that religious organizations were more effective than other nonprofit organizations in responding to Hurricane Katrina (Louisiana Survey, 2005). Almost 87 percent of churches surveyed in the Baton Rouge area reported that they provided some form of assistance to Hurricane Katrina evacuees, with food, financial assistance, and clothing encompassing the largest types of donation (Cain & Barthelemy, 2008). Most of these churches operated on the donations provided by their congregants, with little or no aid from outside organizations or the federal government.

Clergy roles following disasters. More specifically, clergy are highly called upon during times of crisis and disaster. Weaver, Koenig, and Ochberg (1996) suggested that clergy are in a unique position to assist with identifying and addressing mental health issues. Clergy often have long-term relationships with their congregants making it easier for individuals to seek pastoral care for trauma. Researchers found that the amount of time spent in pastoral care and crisis management significantly increases during a disaster, and for some time after, even if one's community or congregation is not directly affected. For example, clergy play an important role in attending to mental health issues during crisis, often serving as first responders, consoling the bereaved, calming distressed crowds, and reassuring those affected by trauma (Darling et al., 2004; Weaver et al., 1996; Weaver et al., 2003).

Immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Northeast Clergy Group organized a Ground Zero Clergy Task Force to assist the New York City Mayor's Office of Emergency Management with crisis intervention at Ground Zero in respite centers for rescue and recovery workers, family assistance centers, shelters, and morgues (Davidowitz-Farkas & Hutchison-Hall, 2005; Koenig, 2006). During the 1993 Midwest Flood, clergy turned their faith communities into refuges, distribution centers, volunteer camps, and places of support, endurance, and fellowship (Smith et al., 2000). After the Oklahoma City bombing, emergency medical service personnel reported that clergy were an important component to the process: as they assisted families during body identification and locating loved ones who survived (Koenig, 2006, p. 51).

The Clergy Experience

Members of the clergy are classified in the helping profession, which is an occupational category that generally involves high job-related stress (Darling et al., 2004; Horsman, 1989; McMinn et al., 2005). Under normal conditions, clergy spend a minimum of 10 to 20 percent of their working time helping those in distress (Weaver, 2005). Stressors commonly associated with work in the ministry include: (a) broad and undefined job descriptions, (b) low pay, (c) variable daily routines, and (d) lack of home-work boundaries (Horsman, 1989). Weaver, Flannelly, Larson, Stapleton, and Koenig (2002) found that United Methodist clergy work an average of 56.2 hours per week and spend about 12 evenings per month away from home for church-related responsibilities. Additionally, clergy are among the top 10 percent of the population in level of education, but rank 325th out of 432 occupations in terms of salary. It would seem that the frequent exposure to the stress of others associated with pastoral care work and the nature of the clergy role can put clergy at an exaggerated risk for burnout.

Clergy experience after disasters. The experiences of clergy following a disaster are largely misunderstood considering that most research on clergy examines their job during normal circumstances uncomplicated by uncommon stressors (e.g., natural disasters). Further, research regarding the clergy experience in the context of both survivors of and responders to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina is nonexistent. Roberts, Ellers, and Wilson (2008) noted that clergy are susceptible to compassion fatigue given the nature of their daily work and experience of being "secondarily exposed to trauma and traumatic events" (p. 217). Clergy have a moderate to high risk for compassion fatigue from their job in general (27 percent; Roberts, Flannelly, Weaver, & Rigley, 2003) due to the intense ranges of emotions that they experience in their daily roles in events such as weddings, funerals, baptisms, and bedside attention to the sick and dying (Pector, 2005; Roberts & Ashley Sr., 2008). The risks for compassion fatigue and burnout increase exponentially for clergy who have recently experienced a disaster (Roberts et al., 2008), while the demand for pastoral care increases (e.g., Darling et al., 2004; Weaver et al., 2003).

As individuals, clergy experienced as much traumatic stress as the general public in response to the attacks on 9/11 (Meisenhelder & Marcum, 2004) and clergy volunteers following the September 11th terrorist attacks suffered both personal and professional psychological consequences (Davidowitz-Farkas & Hutchinson-Hall, 2005). As a result of such findings, Koenig (2006) has stressed that clergy who actively engage in disaster relief work "need support and sometimes [need] counseling themselves" (p. 43).

The nature of the clergy role including their belief b, system, and religious practice and teaching (e.g., Pargament, Tarakeshwar, Ellison, & Wulff, 2001; Proffitt, Cann, Calhoun, & Tedeschi, 2007) seems to imply that clergy might be better able to cope during times of crisis. However, these implications do not address the coping strategies of clergy who are simultaneously faced with being victim to disaster on a personal level, and being expected to supply the demands from others for spiritual guidance as a professional.

Overall, the research on clergy coping in response to disasters is limited. The literature available on coping largely focuses on the stressors directly related to the clergy occupation under normal circumstances, or the way in which clergy can better assist others during times of crisis (Frame, 1998; McMinn et al., 2005; Proffitt et al., 2007). These findings lack applicability to religious leaders and their well-being after suffering from and coping with disaster as an individual, and responding on a professional level. Thus, the present study aims to gain a more in-depth understanding of the personal effects of clergy and how they coped after Hurricane Katrina.

Method

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the lived coping experience of South Mississippi and New Orleans clergy affected by Hurricane Katrina. The research questions include: (a) How did clergy cope with Hurricane Katrina? (b) What were the antecedents to clergy coping? (c) What were the obstacles to clergy coping?

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a non-statistical form of scientific study that uses language as the tool researchers use to discover meaning that is unobservable through surveys or other methods of standardized data collection (Morrow, 2007). Aten and Hernandez (2005) have suggested that there are several benefits for using qualitative designs in religious and spiritual research, including an in-depth understanding., of an often highly individualistic and personal spiritual or religious experience, as well as highlight the experiences of an underrepresented population (i.e., clergy affected by Hurricane Katrina). Qualitative methodology is also especially useful for the study of marginalized groups or times during or after crisis or disaster, which allow unique themes to emerge that are specific to the culture of the group being studied (Norris et al., 2001). It provides the phenomenological understanding that often precedes statistical evaluation.

Participants

The participants were active clergy members from a single protestant denomination on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and greater New Orleans area at the time that Hurricane Katrina made landfall or shortly after, and were directly affected by the storm on a personal level. Purposeful sampling procedures were used to identify and recruit participants. Regional denominational leaders made recommendations for potential participants, and initial contact included a phone call from the principal investigator and solicitation to participate. After interviews were concluded, participants were asked to help identify other potential participants.

The final sample consisted of 17 clergy from a protestant denomination on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and greater New Orleans area, four women and 13 men who ranged in age from 38 to 69 with a mean age of 50.6 years. Nine participants were interviewed from Mississippi (two women, seven men), and eight participants were interviewed from Louisiana (two women, six men). All 17 participants identified their ethnicity as Caucasian. Their length of time as clergy ranged from 3.5 years to 27 years, with a mean of 11.7 years.

Instruments

A semi-structured interview guided the data collection and consisted of a set of demographic questions and open-ended, grand round questions. The interview questions focused on the coping experiences of clergy who were personally affected by Hurricane Katrina (e.g., How did you deal with the stress of the hurricane?). Follow-up prompts were used to encourage participants to elaborate on their responses (e.g., What coping skills did you use ?). Participants engaged in individual interviews, which were conducted over the telephone and tape-recorded.

Data Analysis

The study followed the phenomenological data analysis approach outlined by Marshall and Rossman (2006), which allowed the researcher to better understand the meanings that individuals assigned to their experiences and how their behavior and interactions with others were impacted. First, data immersion was achieved by reading through transcripts and field notes numerous times to develop an intimacy with the themes and stories in the data. Second, phenomenological reduction guided the coding process, in which the researcher explored each case for emergent themes in the descriptions of the phenomena. Third, themes and clusters of similar ideas emerged in each individual transcript, forming a hierarchy of themes. Fourth, cross-case analysis involved the comparison of themes from each transcript to each other transcript, which resulted in emergent themes across all participant responses. Fifth, opposing themes were also collected and coded, as these discrepancies provided unique, discriminating views from within participants, which added richness to the understanding of the phenomenon. Sixth, findings were evaluated for alternative meanings in order to ensure the dependability of initial assertions. In the final step according to Marshall and Rossman (2006), the researcher drafted the report, which was structured by the themes that emerged from the participants' perspectives and researcher interpretation.

Enhancing Rigor and Trustworthiness

Rigor enhancing strategies are employed in qualitative research to reflect the quantitative equivalent of validity and trustworthiness in research. Lincoln and Cuba's (1985) qualitative standards have emerged as the "gold standard" (Whittemore, Chase, & Mandle, 2001, p. 527): (a) credibility represents internal validity, (b) transferability denotes generalizability, (c) dependability indicates reliability, and (d) confirmability translates to objectivity. Prolonged exposure and field notes were used to enhance credibility, as well as the use of triangulation, which involved multiple researchers, data sources, methodologies, and rigor enhancing strategies. Rich, thick descriptions of participants' experiences were used to enhance the transferability of the study and enable a wide audience to apply the context and phenomena to their individual circumstances. Dependability was achieved through detailed record-keeping of research progress, consistency in collecting data, and having the records audited by external individuals familiar with qualitative designs. Negative case sampling occurred during data analysis, which involved searching for opposing themes and challenging findings for alternative meanings in order to establish confirmability of the research.

Results

Positive Coping Strategies

Social support. Social support was one of the most commonly reported positive coping strategies utilized by clergy, with the largest source of support coming from family and friends, followed by support from colleagues. A participant from New Orleans stated that he shared frustrations, anger, and sorrow with a small group of associates, describing, "we all share with each other to stay psychologically balanced, so there's deep, active group therapy going on constantly." Other participants reported receiving support from individuals higher in their denominational organization, or from their church's national organization; one participant said, "Being part of something that was much larger than we were [that] was so willing and committed and helpful, that was a very positive and strong reinforce ment. Additionally, participants reported that their denominational organizations hired a chaplain to work specifically with the clergy on the coast after Hurricane Katrina, and most identified this person as a primary source of spiritual and emotional support across all stages of their disaster experience.

The vast majority of clergy reported extensive losses from the storm, especially resource losses. Thus, clergy reported seeking assistance from within their social networks to obtain resources. Participants also experienced significant damage or destruction of their homes, and reported that finding housing was difficult, if not impossible, to secure following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, participants reported that members within their social networks again helped to meet this need, and that the gifts of others helped to alleviate some of this stress.

Accessing resources. Accessing social network resources was another positive way clergy coped with Hurricane Katrina. Almost every participant spoke extremely favorably and were grateful that their leaders and National Churches continued to provide salary and benefits for them after Hurricane Katrina. Most also reported that knowing they were receiving financial resources in these ways allowed them to remain in the area serving not only their parishes but also their larger surrounding communities.

Counseling with mental health professionals. Many participants disclosed that they needed spiritual and emotional support after Hurricane Katrina, and that they sought professional counseling and psychological services to work through their hurricane and recovery experiences. One participant reported how she came to seek counseling:

 One of the things that was said very clearly, both when a
 psychologist came to talk to the clergy here shortly after the
 storm, psychologist came to talk to the clergy here shortly after
 the storm, and then when we went down to [a post-hurricane
 conference], was that none of us in pastoral ministry had an
 business trying to help anyone else through the emotional part of
 the loss as we were getting help ourselves. I took that very
 seriously and called up one of my psychiatrist friends and said,
 'will you take me on?' and the answer was yes. I had someone weekly
 to take my anxiety to.

Another participant described his therapy experience after services returned to New Orleans:

 We were very fortunate given the fact that there were so few mental
 health professionals in the city. That was my outlet after a while
 too. I had somebody unconnected with the church, somebody who
 wasn't a friend of mine, somebody I didn't feel like I was unduly
 burdening by having them listen to my ranting and ravings, and
 sometimes, tears.

On the whole participants reported that professional mental health services provided the objectivity, anonymity, and outlet that they needed for working through their disaster experiences and learning how to regain a pre-hurricane level of functioning.

Establishing a routine. Establishing a routine was an important feature of being able to cope for many participants. Several participants expressed that daily structure, schedules, and familiarity were important features for organizing their lives and surviving the general chaos as members of the clergy. For example, one participant shared, "... having church and being able to sing familiar hymns, to hear a sermon about the faith, to hear scripture and engage in fellowship with others ..." was crucial to reconstructing normalcy. The presence of familiar faces, places, and words along with some expectation for what the following day would hold was a source of peace that helped participants move forward in their personal coping and post-disaster lives.

Setting personal boundaries. One way that participants reported positively coping with their experiences of Hurricane Katrina was through setting boundaries. These boundaries included recognizing and admitting personal and professional limitations, both publicly and privately. For instance, one participant described, "I tried to pace myself and acknowledge my limitations and do what I could do, and then when I couldn't do anymore, I was very upfront about that." Another participant explained:

 I was, before the storm, a lone ranger kind of approach to
 ministry, and I've learned pretty quickly what I could not do. So,
 there was some learning, reaching out asking for help and asking
 for advice, and looking for ways people could come in and give you
 a hand.

Additionally, a few participants disclosed that recognizing their boundaries led to them making difficult decisions that ultimately facilitated coping. One participant reported:

 When I moved ... about three weeks after moving here and we set up
 the house, I looked at my wife and I said, 'my chest isn't as heavy
 anymore, and I feel a little differently, and I don't know why.'
 And we both realized that post-Katrina was a difficult thing, and
 that leaving the coast was, perhaps, the best selfish thing we did,
 because when you're there, you don't realize the stress you're
 under.

Self-care. Participants reported taking time off or away to create space for themselves for self-care. Many participants also indicated that their denomination helped with self-care by sponsoring seminars and conferences, and that their superiors expressed that time off was necessary and normal. One Louisiana participant explained: "We still took time and made time to take, as my wife referred to it, 'Debris Free Weekends, and we would just leave to go someplace where it was nice and clean and smelled good for a change." While some individuals were already equipped with the knowledge to take breaks from the disaster area, it took others longer to realize this need or appreciate the value in the advice of others. One participant shared:

 We learned, as we got further into it, that we needed to take
 frequent mini-breaks, to get out of town, get away from time to time
 when we could, just because it's a 24/7 deal when you're dealing
 with when we could, just because it's a 24/7 deal when you're
 dealing with all that stuff.

Some participants reported that another way they positively coped with Hurricane Katrina was by focusing on their own personal health. Specifically, participants noted trying to be more intentional in eating healthy and exercising regularly. One participant commented, "I jogged 4 days a week, 4 miles a shot, and I jogged religiously, no pun intended." Participants also described using exercise as an "escape" from the destruction around them.

Perspective seeking and meaning making. Some participants reported that seeking perspective enabled them to find strength and purpose to continue recovery work. They reported that they often compared their own personal suffering to others; or talked to people with similar life experiences to normalize their own. Though a few participants reported feeling guilty at times for being or thinking that they were "better off" than some of those around them, overall, participants benefitted from such comparisons. A specific way in which participants reported seeking and shifting perspective was through learning how to appreciate humor and laughter during the chaos of their disaster experience. Laughing through the obstacles and challenges of life post-hurricane prevented participants from dwelling on the magnitude of their circumstances, and enabled them find meaning from the truth of their jokes. One participant described:

 We were probably there sleeping [in the church nursery] for two
 weeks before we realized that the mural on the wall above our army
 cots was Noah's Ark, and all the animals going into the ark, so we
 laughed about that ...

Participants found humor to be a helpful buffer against the tragedy of disaster, which provided an often necessary break in the seriousness and tension of post-hurricane life.

Moreover, some participants reported volunteering above and beyond their responsibilities as a clergy in order to shift their perspective, and find some personal meaning and purpose to hurricane recovery. One participant mentioned, "We volunteered with the Red Cross during that time, entering data into a computer base and things like that, so we were able to feel like we were helping out." Volunteer activities provided participants with a way to realize the impact they made, both as clergy and as members of their communities, and to shift their attitudes when they lost momentum for their cause.

Participants reported relying upon their faith and prayer as a way to cope. They reported that their religious faith and prayer offered them a sense of peace, meaning, and purpose. Further, clergy stated that their personal faith and prayer helped them connect with something larger than themselves and larger than Hurricane Katrina. By relying upon their faith and prayer, they also reported feeling more connected to God. Setting aside special times for prayer also provided participants with a sense of normalcy amidst the chaos of hurricane relief. A participant from New Orleans recounted:

 One of the things I did was, and that I've always found comfort in,
 was that I started the day with morning prayer in the chapel there
 at was that I started the day with morning prayer in the chapel
 there at the church. That was a time for mc to sit quietly and to
 listen and to basically give everything over to God. So, morning
 prayer was my sort of anchor in the morning.

Some participants reported that prayer was not something they did for themselves in the beginning, as one participant noted, "... you're spending all day doing [prayer] for everybody else, and didn't really stop to do it for yourself ..." By grappling their way through this time through increased prayer, study, or fellowship, most stated that they grew stronger in their faith.

Negative Coping Strategies

Denial. The most significant negative coping strategy was not coping at all. Some participants admitted to blatantly denying the chaos of life post-Katrina. One participant disclosed, "Quite honestly, sometimes I just denied there was ever a problem, and just went through the day as if everything was normal." Many more participants denied coping through less obvious ways such as concentrating on work, as one participant described, "I call that first year 'adrenaline year: and we just worked ceaselessly and fell into bed every night." Some participants denied themselves the opportunity to attend retreats and conferences designed specifically for coping with life post-Katrina, reasoning "I just didn't feel like leaving the parish for three or four days, a weekend ... I thought I was supposed to just keep on going, keep pushing through ..." A few participants recognized their own self-neglect, reporting, "On the intellectual level, I knew that I was going to burnout sooner than later, and I chose to do that ... And so, it hit me, perhaps 20 months out."

Excessive eating and drinking. Some participants reported that they coped by eating more than they did pre-Katrina. One participant disclosed, "I'm a stress eater. I ate a lot. I gained a lot of weight post-Katrina." Also, participants reported that their consumption of alcohol increased, "We realized that we were drinking more than we normally did, and I'm sure that that's a coping mechanism." For one participant, the consumption of alcohol was a link to social support with church colleagues in the form of "socializing and drinking after work."

Neglecting to set boundaries. Participants often made themselves available to their congregations and communities "around the clock," and adopted the belief that they could not limit their availability to those in need. Some did not take breaks, recognize their limitations, or say "no" when they were "worn thin." Participants continued helping others until their defenses no longer protected them from the vicarious nature of the trauma of others. Words such as "hopelessness," "survivor's guilt," "spontaneous breakdowns," "vicarious trauma," and "feelings of isolation" and "uncertainty" were frequently used to describe their experiences. One participant recalled how the experiences of others affected their emotions, "I didn't get hurt as bad as they did and you start running around feeling guilty because you did not get totally smeared." Additionally, feeling alone through the emotional struggle of disaster ministry was a common thread found in the data, as one participant described, "I would bet all of us down here on the coast probably felt like sort of the lone ranger in so many different ways."

Participants reported that they eventually became resentful about the support they showed to others and the lack of reciprocity. One participant communicated frustration with the absence of deeper, more emotional processing with other survivors:

 So the normal expression of concern among people was 'How did you
 make out?' but that was limited to physical, logistical type stuff.
 And 'How did you make out' very seldom was to say, 'How are you now
 and what effect did this have on you emotionally, psychologically,
 spiritually?'

The chaos of disaster ministry was unrelenting, and some participants did not recognize that they were unable to withstand the constant physical, emotional, and personal demands until they were already burnt out.

Many participants also reported feeling that they had to choose between their roles as a clergy member and their roles at home. This imbalance of roles and lack of personal boundaries often resulted at the expense of their families:

 My wife and I were both first responders ... and while that was
 really good, fulfilling work, it also meant that we were not at
 home getting to be with our children as much as we would have like
 to have getting to be with our children as much as we would have
 like to have been. From a personal standpoint ... you're out there
 helping everybody else, you neglect your own family at times.

Participants reported that it was often difficult to set boundaries because there were so many roles, responsibilities, and people that depended on them.

Obstacles to Coping

Lack of support. While many participants reported support to be an antecedent for them to cope, others reported some deficit in support, which hindered their ability to cope after Hurricane Katrina. For example, one participant from Louisiana expressed that, "One of the most frustrating things was the lack of support from family. I don't think any of them really understood what we were going through. They had no concept of the scale of disaster." Another participant reported that because of the damage to road and bridge infrastructure, "there is not as much camaraderie down here as you might think; we like each other, but the distances and the travel [prevent it]." Some clergy were even met with peer criticism, rather than support, after attending a conference specifically designed to help disaster responders cope. For example, one participant recounted, "When I got back, two of our clergy on the coast did not go and kind of confronted me and told me, 'how dare you leave the front lines when you're needed here, kind of thine Still, some participants reported feeling overlooked by the leaders and greater church organization as one participant noted, "I was told that the church would help us get back on our feet, and that never happened."

Some participants discussed the separation of their families during recovery; thus, these participants experienced an absence of support they may have received from loved ones had matters of distance and safety not separated them. Further, two participants explained how their roles in disaster ministry and commitment to hurricane recovery caused the dissolution of their marriages. One participant explained:

 The most significant way the storm affected me personally was that
 my wife, after evacuating from the storm, made the decision that
 she was not going to come back to the house or to the parish. It
 began the separation that led to our divorce and that kind of
 significant stress for our family.

Lack of resources. Resources such as food, money, government assistance, and media attention were stretched thin across the entire disaster zone, which caused significant deficits in resources for communities across the Gulf Coast. One participant disclosed:

 You just don't have a lot of resources to help people in those
 situations. It brought with it a level of frustration of just not
 having enough resources to throw at it that you felt like you're
 making any progress or doing any good for people.

Many participants described how the lack of resources and subsequent feelings of helplessness became a sense of hopelessness in their ability to make a difference, and even to exercise control over their own recovery, thus perpetuating despair and the prevention of coping.

Specifically, housing was a resource that posed an immediate obstacle to coping, as many clergy experienced personal devastation with the loss of or significant damage to their homes. Several participants reported living in church structures that were still standing, with friends, or in temporary accommodations until alternative arrangements could be made. Others reported that once permanent housing became available, costs of rent and living were unaffordable.

Emotional challenges. Most of the participants described their Hurricane Katrina experience as traumatic, with a few stating that, "emotional breakdowns were common the first few months: Likewise, a number of participants described brief periods of time when they experienced hopelessness as they were faced with what seemed like unending challenges. A few participants also reported feeling troubled over the perceived psychological impact of the storm on their children. For instance, a few participants shared that their young children, "... are still traumatized by bad weather.

Many participants spoke in detail about the loss of "normalcy" they experienced as they sought to move forward after the storm. Participants noted that chaotic and ambiguous daily life post-Hurricane Katrina was frustrating and prevented adjustment. The lack of routine resulted in feelings of uncertainty, which prolonged stress and delayed coping. One participant expressed, "I'm fairly structured, and there was no plan. You're just kind of reinventing it every day."

Physical Challenges. Although very few participants reported being physically injured during the actual passing of the storm, a significant amount reported experiencing physical problems often stemming from involvement in recovery related tasks, such as helping with home repair. One of the most commonly reported health challenges was the concern over possible exposure to environmental or water toxins that they may have encountered. Participants reported suffering from fatigue that accompanied their extended workdays and engaging in physically demanding work like clearing debris. Several participants stated that they had sustained chronic injuries such as back and neck pain, or sleep problems.

Increased responsibilities. Participants described that their pastoral care and chaplaincy roles increased significantly, and that the majority of their pastoral care and chaplaincy work focused on crisis intervention. For example, one participant described that he "... buried two suicides in one family ... certainly the depths of my pastoral work was considerably more extensive: In addition to non-crisis clergy-related duties, participants reported taking over tasks usually managed by other church leadership, feeling pressure from the national church leaders to rebuild membership numbers, and perform multiple duties requested by the larger church organization. Some participants undertook the responsibility of advocating on behalf of the larger community.

Many participants discussed that in addition to their obligations to congregation and community members, "there was also just the mayhem of entertaining hundreds of volunteers every week." The participants described carrying and continuing to bear much of the burden of hosting, organizing, and ministering to thousands of volunteers, as one participant recollected, "[it] is a great blessing and also a great curse because it requires a lot of energy ..."

Discussion

Participants were both survivors of and responders to Hurricane Katrina. Thus, as responders, their clergy roles changed significantly, which appeared to have affected their personal coping experiences. This study yielded three dominant themes regarding the coping experiences among clergy after Hurricane Katrina: positive coping strategies, negative coping strategies, and obstacles to coping. Participants did not identify any experiences that served as catalysts or antecedents for coping as intended by the original research questions. Participants discussed that their positive coping strategies served to continue their coping processes. Overall, coping appeared to occur almost on a continuum in response to the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. Thus, many of the positive coping strategies that participants endorsed were paired with an almost opposite negative coping strategy or obstacle that hindered coping in some way.

Positive Coping Strategies

Whether participants reported a lack of support, an outward reach for support, or direct offerings of support, social support appeared to be a major factor in facilitating positive coping. However, a difference emerged in the way participants obtained support: some clergy were active about seeking and asking for support, while it appeared that others waited for support to come to them. The act of coping through seeking support has been found to contribute to posttraumatic growth after a stressful life event (Prati & Pietrantoni, 2009). Therefore, seeking support, rather than passively waiting for support to arrive, is considered an active form of coping for the purposes of this study. Researchers suggest that the more an individual seeks support, the more likely he or she will be to receive many types of support (Dunkel-Schetter, Folkman, & Lazarus 1987). Also, these researchers explained that an individual's interpersonal way of coping might invite or prevent others from offering support. Interestingly, of the Mississippi participants who endorsed more negative coping strategies (i.e., denial), half of those participants indicated no social support seeking, and half of them reported the lack of social support as an obstacle. Thus, this lack of social support may be attributed to their usage of negative coping strategies and the implicit message that those strategies sent regarding their perceived need for support.

Additionally, more participants from Louisiana reported the use of humor to cope and described it to be especially helpful in coping. According to Moran and Hughes (2006), humor may further facilitate the receipt of social support from others since support is often offered to those who make others laugh. Also, humor has long been found to act as a buffer against both the cognitive (Dixon, 1980; Martin, Kuiper, Olinger, & Dance, 1993) and physiological aspects of stress (Shurcliff, 1968).

Counseling emerged as a significant source of positive coping for participants. The study showed that clergy relied on professional counseling services from mental health care providers, thus, these findings highlight a specific opportunity in which clergy can benefit from counseling with a mental health professional. Also, national church denominations can benefit from knowing that clergy working in disaster areas can greatly benefit from psychological services, specifically when their organizational superiors recommend and suggest that they seek such services. These findings may begin to break down the barrier that seems to exist between the ministry and field of psychology, and create opportunities to better understand how mental health professionals can help clergy.

Reestablishing or developing a routine produced positive consequences in participant coping. Reliance on a routine may protect people from the stress of the things that are unknown in a disaster situation, as well as provide individuals with a way to gain control over a chaotic environment. Many participants were displaced from their homes for several weeks without definitive information regarding the status of their homes, churches, or congregants. Dass-Brailsford (2010) suggested that maintaining a routine can serve to alleviate and even prevent the deleterious affects of responding to a disaster. Thus, the ambiguity of a disaster environment impedes coping experiences. Further, establishing some form of routine amidst the chaos can provide disaster survivors with some sense of stability when everything around them is unknown.

Many participants reported that setting boundaries buffers against the constant stress of life post-Hurricane Katrina. McMinn et al. (2005) found clergy to use strict boundary setting in everyday, nondisaster situations, which allowed them to focus more on themselves and their families. Accordingly, participants who reportedly set clear, professional boundaries were provided with greater opportunity to attend to personal needs, care for their children, and cope as families. Setting and adhering to their boundaries enabled participants to maintain their disaster ministry roles, many of whom continue to serve the churches they helped to rebuild or repair. The practice of setting firm boundaries in one's daily life as a clergy may be even more important during times of mass distress considering clergies' exposure to the trauma of others, the increase in roles, and the volume of people who seek and require their time and attention.

Participants reported that they used self-care strategies including nutritional eating, exercise, and time away from their respective disaster zones to constructively cope with life after Hurricane Katrina. Ingledew, Hardy, Cooper, and Jemal (1996) discovered three similar health behaviors that function as coping strategies: exercise, eating, and self-care. However, the eating factor, found in Ingledew et al. (1996), is related more to overindulgent eating habits, which were coded as a negative coping strategy for the current study since it reportedly led to additional distress. The eating habits reported by participants were described as healthy, proportionate, and intentional, which is an alternative finding than that proposed by the three factors from the Ingledew et al. (1996) study. Healthy eating, exercise, and self-care are among strategies that McMinn et al. (2005) identified as everyday means of coping for clergy outside the context of disaster or trauma. Also, the physiological drive that results from the adrenaline released after a disaster may push disaster responders to continue working, but often diminishes the effectiveness and efficiency of their work. Jones (2001) explained that practicing self-care during disasters is easier if clergy made self-care a priority in their vocational lives before the traumatic event.

Participants endorsed the use of faith or prayer in coping, and one participant expressed that he discovered prayer as a source of personal coping after months of praying for others. Given the implied religiousness of a clergy population, Proffitt et al. (2007) suggest that clergy would be likely to employ religious coping strategies. Considering the trends, one would expect that a sample of clergy would endorse the use of faith and prayer at a relatively high rate. However, less than half of the clergy interviewed for the current study directly endorsed the use of faith or prayer as a coping mechanism, which was endorsed third in frequency to social support and self-care. Participants may have placed immediate focus on basic needs such as food, shelter, and physical and emotional support over higher needs such as spiritual connection. Participants often reported that they neglected personal needs due to the lack of time that they had for self-care, which for some, may have demoted prayer and faith on their list of priorities. Alternatively, the depletion of spiritual resources after hours of ministering to other survivors, may have been what led participants to neglect personal faith. Other research found that clergy who employed some form of religious coping, either positive or negative, experienced some degree of posttraumatic growth after a significant life event (Proffitt et al., 2007). In the current study, one clergy indicated that his prayer practice had deepened. However, it should also be noted that one clergy disclosed that he found his prayer practice to suffer. It seems that at some point, prayer becomes less of a coping strategy for clergy and more of a job task, which may in turn leave clergy with inadequate coping systems.

Negative Coping Strategies

Some participants reported that excessive alcohol consumption was used as a means to cope with their hurricane experiences, while others indicated that light to moderate alcohol consumption facilitated opportunities for social support. These observations are consistent with research findings that indicate a positive correlation between social support and alcohol consumption (Veenstra et al., 2007). The use of alcohol to facilitate social support may be seen as a functional use of drinking, and thus may be considered a positive coping strategy for the purposes of this study. However, Field and Quigley (2009) found that social drinkers who also use alcohol as a coping mechanism experienced greater preoccupation for alcohol consumption after a stressful experience. Thus, this stress-induced, attentional focus towards alcohol may lead to excessive drinking once the "social" opportunity arises. Given that extreme life experiences (e.g., disaster) can cause depression, anxiety, and a variety of other emotions (Milligan & McGuinness, 2009), the use of alcohol to cope specifically with depressive or anxious reactions may predispose individuals to drink more than they normally would. While alcohol can serve to facilitate opportunities for positive coping, it may also act as a substitute for more constructive forms of coping; thus it is considered a negative coping strategy for the current study.

Many participants reported that they used denial as a coping strategy, which they felt had long-term negative effects (e.g., fatigue-related injuries that resulted chronic pain, burnout) on their recovery from Hurricane Katrina. In the current study, denial was characterized as neglecting to cope and, at times, refusing to admit any problems post-Hurricane Katrina. The current study illustrated that denial may allow an individual to move beyond the immediate effects of a disaster, but that prolonged exposure to such an environment due to an unwillingness to psychologically examine the situation can have adverse outcomes.

Obstacles to Coping

Two participants described that their commitment to disaster ministry resulted in the dissolution of their marriages, which further complicated their coping to Hurricane Katrina. This is consistent with research showing that stressful life events can cause severe emotional consequences and significant life changes (e.g., divorce; Karney & Bradbury, 1995; McLeod, 1994; Nakonezny, Reddick, & Rodgers, 2004). This finding in the current study adds to the evidence that the effects of a natural disaster may have a fundamentally different effect on marriages and close relationships than manmade disasters, or terrorist acts.

Participants reported that the emotional demands after Hurricane Katrina were overwhelming and prevented deep and holistic coping. Compassion fatigue is a common experience of helping professionals in which the helper experiences "spiritual, physical, and/or emotional fatigue and exhaustion" after working with survivors of a traumatic event (Roberts et al., 2008, pg. 209). Many participants reported exposures similar to those of Dass-Brailsford (2008), however they lasted much longer and for some, the effects of those exposures were too great to continue working as a disaster minister. Thus, the risks of compassion fatigue were great for participants of the current study, yet the coping strategies to combat the emotional effects were limited.

Participants reported that the increased responsibilities, specifically in ministering and organizing volunteers, resulting from Hurricane Katrina were a significant obstacle to coping. Similarly, the additional roles that survivors assumed when their loved ones did not return after the Mt. St. Helens volcano eruption (e.g., surrogate parenting, elderly care taking) further complicated their bereavement and coping processes, both one and three years after the disaster (Murphy, 1986). Participants described the magnitude of volunteers who responded to Hurricane Katrina as bittersweet: they were helping the congregation and community, but requiring much of the clergies' energy and resources. It may also be possible that a disparity exists between participants' expectations about the clergy role, readiness for the job tasks that may come, or training on both a personal and professional level. Often clergy are subject to the risk factors of burnout similar to teachers, police officers, and social workers (Darling et al., 2004; Pector, 2005). Prospective clergy and seminary students may need more thorough career counseling, course curriculum, or overall training on the stressors than can accompany the role of a clergy member in order to better inform and prepare those considering a career in the ministry. While the stressors reported after Hurricane Katrina may be unavoidable, knowing what to expect and braining storming how one might respond may better prepare clergy and similar helping professionals for the obstacles that disasters bring.

Limitations

The focus of this study on natural disasters, specifically Hurricane Katrina, may limit the transferability of this study to clergy that live and work outside of hurricane-prone areas. The limited gender, religious, and ethnic diversity of the sample may also narrow the transferability of the findings to other clergy members around the country. Additionally, the data for the current study was collected between three and three and a half years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast, thus recall of their experiences may have occurred with some degree of bias. For example, participants' mental health status at the time of interview may have influenced their recollections. Given the disproportionate number positive coping strategies to negative coping strategies, social desirability may have deterred participants from speaking completely openly about their coping experiences.

Future research. The current study offers information for developing quantitative survey items, which would offer statistical analysis of the use of negative or positive coping strategies during crisis. Longitudinal research on clergy coping after disasters is also needed, which can help identify clergy needs at different stages of disaster response. Comparison research across different types of disasters would explain whether clergy cope differently depending on the type of disaster (i.e., natural, technological, or terrorism). Also, research on the type of training and preparation clergy receive regarding stressful life events could help researchers gain a better grasp on the gaps that may exist in seminary coursework. The usage of mental health services by clergy is also an under-researched area, especially regarding the types of psychological services that clergy have already utilized or would be likely to seek, and their effectiveness.

Conclusion

This study explored the lived coping experience of Southern Mississippi and New Orleans clergy affected by Hurricane Katrina. Clergy coped with the aftermath of the hurricane in a variety of ways, some positive and some negative. Also, several factors emerged that made it more difficult for clergy to cope. The roles that clergy played in New Orleans and Mississippi required alertness, emotional presence, and physical stamina, which ultimately affected their own ways of coping. The coping practices used by clergy in disaster circumstances remain largely under researched. Most literature focuses on the daily experiences of clergy and their stressors outside the context of a disaster. As clergy are becoming increasingly recognized for their disaster response, research is needed to better understand their weaknesses in coping, as well as their strengths in order to help them improve and maintain their mental health.

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Kari Leavell

The University of Southern Mississippi

Jamie D. Aten

Wheaton College

David Boan

Wheaton College

Author Information

LEAVELL, KARI. MA. Address: 118 College Drive #5025, Hattiesburg, MX 39406. Email: karileavell@eagles.usm.edu. Degrees: completing her PhD (Counseling Psychology) The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, MS.

ATEN, JAMIE D. PhD. Address: Department of Psychology, Whacon College, 501 College Avenure, Wheaton, IL 60187-5593. Email: Jamie.aten@wheacon.edu. Title: Founder and Co-Director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute and Dr. Arthur P. Rech and Mrs. Jean May Rech Associate Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL). Degrees: PhD (Counseling Psychology) Indiana State University; M.S., Counseling Psychology) Indiana State

BOAN, DAVID M. PhD. Address: Wheaton College, 501 College Avenue, Wheaton, IL 60187. title: Associate Professor Psychology, Co-Director of Humanitarian Disaster Institute. Degress: BA (Psychology) Washington, College, Maryland; MA (Counseling Psychology) Rosemead Graduate School; PhD Clinical Psychology, Rosemead Graduate School. Specializations: Organizational culture, community psychology, performance improvement.