What we do with the attraction is what is important.
—Archibald D. Hart
If you were hungry for love, wouldn’t it be nice to find someone who was well-educated, mannerly, articulate but also a good listener, respected in the community, occupationally powerful, yet unselfish, and willing to spend time alone with you for free?
Numbers of counselees think so. They come to a church office and find themselves in the presence of the kindest, most receptive, admirable, gentle, wise person they’ve met in a long time. The solution to their turmoil, they gradually realize, is not so much what the pastor is saying as the pastor himself.
In my classes for working clergy who are pursuing the D. Min. degree, I talk about this hazard, technically known as transference. (The client is projecting feelings and desires into the counseling relationship that belong somewhere else.) Each term the students write a response paper on how the course has related to their situation. Every time, 20 to 25 percent of them report transference as an actual problem they have faced in their ministries.
Countertransference, the even more distressing corollary, is when the counselor projects feelings and desires into the mix that belong elsewhere.
The Problem
At the outset, let me stress that an intimate relationship between a pastor and a church member does not always involve physical sex. Although such relationships have the potential to become sexual, they may remain as emotional attachments for a long time.
“I’ve been lonely,” wrote one pastor, “and I cannot communicate with my wife. She doesn’t understand how I feel. All she wants to talk about are the kids and her mother. I want to explore ideas, thoughts, and feelings. So I began to spend time with ____ after we finished our counseling sessions. She understands me. I can share myself with her. I hope this doesn’t go further—I’d hate to have to decide whether to leave my wife or not.”
This pastor is kidding himself. The relationship will go further if he does nothing to stop it. All sexual affairs begin in this benign way.
Although most liaisons emerge out of counseling relationships, some start when a minister has to work closely with someone on a committee or project. Since more and more younger women have assumed church responsibilities in recent years, male ministers are now in closer working relationships with women where feelings of warmth and affection can easily arise. Sometimes the relationship develops with a secretary or another work colleague.
Male pastors are typically attracted to younger women, although it is not unusual for ministers to be attracted to older ones as well. And attraction does not require extensive contact. Glances from the pulpit to someone hardly known, or a chance encounter in a corridor or on a hospital visit can find the pastor obsessed with a strong attraction to someone else.
Sexual responsiveness is fundamentally instinctual, even though it is heavily influenced by factors of learning. It is based in biology, with hormones that can powerfully control behavior and emotions. So the basic attraction to others should not concern us. It is quite normal.
What we do with the attraction is what is important. Whether we succumb to it, deny or repress it (which is often the gateway to a state of increased vulnerability at a later stage), or honestly and courageously confront and deal with the attraction will be determined not only by our spiritual maturity but also by our level of self-understanding and the professional competence derived from good training.
The apostle Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, says, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God.”
In essence, Paul is telling us to understand our bodies and know how to control our urges and drives. Since much attraction gets out of hand in avoidable situations and rises out of needs the average pastor does not understand, better training about the counseling process can prevent the catastrophe of ministerial affairs.
How Transference Happens
I believe the main source of church-related sexual affairs is the counseling relationship.
Over the past decade, the topic of sexual intimacies with clients has received considerable attention in the helping professions. In California it is now illegal (not just unethical) for a psychotherapist to have sex with a client, even if evidence shows the client was the primary seducer and a willing participant. Psychotherapists are required to report all cases of clients who have had sexual encounters with previous psychotherapists.
These professions readily acknowledge that in the interactive, personal relationship of psychotherapy, warm, friendly, intimate feelings are bound to develop. Just as surgery produces blood, therapy produces a closeness that can easily be mislabeled “love.” The competent therapist recognizes these feelings as a by-product of therapy and is trained to deal with them. His or her own hangups and unmet needs are not allowed to enter the picture.
True, not all psychotherapists are adequately trained, or follow their training. But some ministers are not even aware of these issues, let alone have any training in dealing with them. Both need help.
Although a minister’s personal family and married life is a basic deterrent to deliberately searching for an illicit affair, it does not guarantee safety in the counseling room or in the more subtle encounters of committee or project work. I have always believed, despite protests from unsuspecting pastors, that a minister’s vulnerability has nothing to do with his marital happiness. For many centuries Scripture has warned us to be on guard when we feel most safe! Sexual attraction can occur as easily when one is happily married as when one is not. You may more deliberately seek out an affair when you are not happy, but you are not necessarily safe when all is bliss at home.
Contributing Factors
All ministers are vulnerable to affairs for the following reasons:
The counseling relationship. It provides an opportunity to explore the feelings of another person. People not involved in counseling don’t get the same opportunity and probably can’t grasp how deeply satisfying a true empathic understanding can be.
I know some ministers who deliberately do not do one-to-one counseling; they want to avoid the closeness either because they perceive themselves as too needful of intimacy or because they are physically very attractive to the opposite sex and constantly have to fight off their advances. This is a sensible decision in these cases.
The pastoral image. Male ministers can be very attractive to women simply because of their role. They are perceived as caring, concerned, and helping, yet with a power that is exciting. They can attract pretty women who in other settings would not give them a second look. Many ministers confuse this attraction to their role with attraction to their person.
They are also perceived as “safe.” Intimate experiences with ministers do not typically create as much guilt in women as would other affairs: “After all, if the pastor is willing, it can’t be that bad.” Many are misled into believing they can allow their warm, loving feelings to develop with a minister because he will know where and when to set limits. When they find that no such limits are set, they often panic. In other words, the minister, having stepped out of his role, is no longer seen as attractive; he has destroyed the very reason for his attractiveness. He suddenly finds himself facing an accuser.
The denial of sexual urges. It is an unfortunate consequence of our Christian aspirations to holiness that we create a sexually repressive subculture. Many ministers (and Christians in general) are afraid of their sexuality and see in it a tremendous potential for sin. And they are right. The healthier way to deal with the sex drive is to bring it into the open and courageously confront and master it.
The majority of ministers enter their profession with the highest ethical intentions. They have a deep desire to be genuine and spiritual. But they are often also confused about their sexuality, and rather than confront their feelings, they repress or deny them. Believing they are immune to sexual temptations, and often denying the emotions that are staring them in the face, they increase their vulnerability. When the inevitable finally happens, everyone is shocked. But they have marched headlong into trouble, their traditional role and high moral standards fortifying them not at all.
The home situation. Although a happy marriage does not guarantee safety, an unhappy one certainly doesn’t help. “The pain of having a lack of intimacy and free flow of conversation in my marriage was too much for me to bear,” one pastor wrote to me. “I longed to love with abandon, to feel feelings and share intimacies with someone else.” He went on to describe a series of seven affairs over ten years.
Although such excessive needs for affection can be neurotic, the fact is that if a marriage is satisfying, a minister should be able to focus even his neurotic needs on his spouse. An affair can easily be encouraged when the need for intimacy is great and the marriage does not provide an opportunity for close sharing.
Life stages. It is quite clear that men, in particular, are more vulnerable to affairs when they pass through critical stages of life. One of these is commonly called the mid-life crisis, but there are other critical stages also. Almost every decade brings its own period of crisis, demanding a major adjustment of values and behavior.
Ministers do not escape these. If their work is not satisfying, or if they are having problems in the church, they are more prone to a crisis period. In times of burnout, interpersonal conflict, or when major life decisions must be made, the desire for comfort and emotional closeness increases dramatically.
Danger Signals
Since an intimate affair can develop during counseling almost unnoticed, a discussion of the danger signals is crucial.
1. One early signal of countertransference is when a pastor begins to look forward to the counseling sessions with a particular parishioner. He ruminates about the appointment and cannot wait for the time to arrive. His pulse rate increases, his palms become sweaty, and his voice develops a slight tremor when he sees her.
2. Very soon he begins to extend the session time and may even grant her extra counseling sessions. He cancels other appointments (often without even realizing he is doing it) to please her.
3. Hidden or oblique messages are sent both ways. The message, which on the surface is innocuous, means something more personal at a deeper level.
4. Counseling sessions may occupy an inordinate amount of time on sexual matters. The client may begin to share sexual history or previous affairs that are quite unrelated to the problem for which counseling has been sought.
5. The pastor may begin to notice his own marital frustrations more. He begins to complain about petty things, often because he is feeling guilty and can alleviate this guilt by transforming it into anger.
6. He begins to fantasize excessively about his client. Sexual fantasies may focus on her exclusively.
7. He makes excuses to call her and have extra conversations with her. Luncheon appointments in a remote setting may then follow. These are rationalized as “additional counseling sessions.”
8. Casual touching becomes more frequent, and the sessions end with embraces that become more prolonged or intense.
One particular personality type, the hysterical personality, is a very high risk for a minister to counsel. It has long been recognized in psychiatry that the difference between a brilliant psychiatrist and a less skilled one is that the first recognizes the hysterical personality and runs away faster. This should also be true for ministers!
The hysterical personality is typically shallow, overly reactive, even vivacious, uninhibited in displaying sexuality, given to flirtations, coquetry, and romantic fantasy. Such a person is also impressionable and craves excitement, but is naïve and frigid. She is, in essence, a caricature of femininity, drawing attention to herself to obtain admiration.
Because this personality is extremely prone to transference, the pastor who falls prey to her seductions is bound to be destroyed. He may be embarrassed by public displays of affection and the discovery that her initial attractiveness was only superficial.
Dealing With Transference
The average pastor cannot afford the time and energy demanded by a counselee with a high propensity for transference. Training in dealing with transference problems requires extensive supervision, far more than is typically provided in a course on counseling. If this training is available, you should take advantage of it.
In the meantime, the safest way to deal with transference is simply to receive it as one would receive any feeling of a client. This is done without encouraging the transference any further. The counselor helps the client see that the feelings reside in her, not in the counselor.
The counselor may ask clarifying questions to increase the client’s understanding of her feelings. “You feel you’re in love with me. Why do you suppose this is so?” In other words, the full expression of feelings is allowed without either condoning or rejecting them.
At a later stage, and only when it can be done without offending the client, the transference feelings are interpreted directly. For example, “Sometimes when people share their innermost secrets with someone else, they feel drawn and very close to that person. Do you think this is what is happening here?”
Always stay professional. I don’t mean you cannot be friendly and personable. I do mean that you keep to your appointment schedule and avoid stepping out of your professional role.
Don’t hesitate to make a referral to a trusted Christian psychotherapist if the transference gets out of hand. A mark of professional competence is knowing your limits.
The Pastor’s Protection
But what about countertransference? What does a pastor do with those warm, loving feelings toward a client?
First, never share these feelings with your counselee. Never talk of them or even hint that they are present. They are your problem, not your client’s. If you do, you will either encourage the development of an intimate relationship, or you will be rejected. You lose both ways.
Second, understand the difference between countertransference and simple attraction. In simple attraction, which is quite normal, you can walk away from the person to whom you feel some attraction. You are free to leave. You can choose to leave. But when you are obsessed with someone, allowing yourself to think about her constantly, you have problems. You must learn to redirect your thoughts and avoid fantasizing over the person to whom you feel attracted.
Third, be aware of the power of your position, and pray that God will help you use it wisely. If you neurotically need excessive intimacy, praise, or admiration, get help for your problem.
Fourth, develop a system of accountability. Not only are you accountable to God, but you need someone to share with honestly, a person to whom you can be accountable and talk frankly about your feelings. Such a person could be a work colleague, a pastor from another church (where the accountability can be reciprocated by yourself), or even your spouse.
The Pastor’s Spouse
In fact, the spouse’s role is extremely crucial in helping a pastor develop a safe position from which to counsel. Many wives find it difficult to understand how their husband, a pastor, can be attracted to another woman. How can a man so prominent, so respected, so intelligent, be subject to vulgar temptation?
As Paul Tournier points out in his book To Understand Each Other, this attitude in a wife only increases a pastor’s guilt feelings and prevents him from sharing with her his innermost struggles over sex. To him, she becomes the incarnation of moral law. Tournier says, “This is the driving force of much adultery, so severely denounced by the virtuous … wife once she discovers it.” She thinks that if he really loved her, he would not think of other women.
What she doesn’t know is that her pastor/husband desperately wants to confide this struggle to her. He wants to channel his arousal back to her, where it belongs. But her veil of silence, resistance, and condemnation only increases the emotional distance.
From the viewpoint of Christian morality, this woman is right. But she has done nothing to help build a safer, more secure marriage from which her pastor/husband can minister to the fears, sufferings, sorrows, guilt, and misery of a lost world. The same is true from the woman’s perspective when she encounters a husband who is not receptive to her feelings.
Tournier goes on to provide the soundest advice I have yet discovered on preventing illicit affairs in the ministry (or, for that matter, in any Christian marriage). He says, “The best protection against sexual temptations is to be able to speak honestly of them and to find, in the wife’s understanding, without any trace of complicity whatsoever, effective and affective help needed to overcome them.”
Coupled with a dependence upon God’s Holy Spirit to provide help in time of trouble, this sort of transparency can prevent affairs. It can also build a depth of love, understanding, and oneness that I doubt can be experienced any other way this side of heaven.
Copyright © 1997
