Empathic Flow: Dutch Humanist Chaplains’ Experiences with Professional Empathy and Its Challenges

Abstract Empathy is considered a key component of chaplaincy care, but little is known about the daily practice of empathy and the empathy barriers that chaplains encounter. This study investigates the factors that encourage or discourage empathy and provides insight into what chaplains actually do to achieve empathy and to overcome empathy challenges. Semistructured interviews were used to collect data from twenty humanist chaplains in the Netherlands. A grounded theory approach was applied to analyze the data. The core concept of empathic flow emerged from the analysis. This refers to the st... Mehr ...