Cherry Hill Seminary
Student
Internship: Fall 2013
Professor Valentine McKay-Riddell
Holly O’Brien
State Correctional Facility Intern Chaplain
End of Term Self Evaluation
Introduction
Working as an
intern chaplain in a prison has given me the
opportunity to put my theories and faith into motion. This work has proved to be both challenging
and rewarding. It has pushed me to
expand my knowledge and comfort zone in ways I would not have predicted. Specifically, I have noticed personal growth
in the areas of leadership, pastoral counseling, and interfaith spiritual
competence.
Leadership
I am not a natural born leader. While the role has never been comfortable to
me, I have often been complimented on my
leadership abilities. Being a leader in
a prison can be an unpopular role (although my supervisor pulls it off quite
well!). I sometimes have to be the
person to say ’no’ to inappropriate requests even if they are
understandable. I also reprimand inmates
who are not using the chapel space in a respectful manner. This can be uncomfortable for me at times,
but I acknowledge that it is a necessary part of being an effective leader and
makes spiritual services more pleasant for all.
I am the type of person who feels
comfortable following rules in order to support the greater good of my
community. Following rules can make life
simpler. As an intern chaplain, I have found this to be not always be
accurate. While it is easy for me to
simply say “I’m not allowed
to let people use the phone,”
or “no touching is allowed,” not all
situations are equal.
I might look like a hypocrite if I
do not treat all situations as the same. It
also makes me sensitive to the specific situation that I am dealing with. It can be a difficult balance, and I don’t always get
it right. Sometimes inmates will
manipulate me to into making an exception for her. Other times I will err on the side of caution
when I probably should have allowed something to happen. Both experiences are unpleasant, but both are
also part of the learning process that I am engaged in.
Pastoral Counseling
The most rewarding part of my
internship has been being able to provide pastoral counseling to the adults in
custody. At first I really was not sure
if I was helping people or not, and I felt ambivalent about my success. What does success look like anyway when you
are working with someone experiencing deep grief or trauma?
Over time, two things helped me put this
worry (mostly) aside. One was that my supervisor told me that I could gauge my success by how often people
referred me to other adults in custody.
My referrals have been steadily increasing, and I have also had several
inmates ask to come back and see me again because they felt good about our
first interaction.
The second reason I gained
confidence in my abilities as a pastoral counselor came from the Counseling
Skills and Interventions course I took during the same term. This course helped anchor me to the
repeatedly proven fact that successful counseling is far more dependent on the
quality of rapport between the counselor and client than any particular
counseling skill. It also stressed the
importance of what we came to know as evocative empathy - the
ability to listen and be very present and nonjudgmental with a client while
also helping them find the deeper meaning behind their words. Evocative empathy can be more complicated
than it sounds, but I have had a lot of practice with it this term and have
found it to be very effective with this population.
The other weakness I have had to
work to overcome has been my natural desire to solve problems. As a cardiac nurse, this was pretty much my whole job, but it
does not translate well to prison chaplaincy work. For one thing, it does not serve the person I am working with
for me to do the work for them. It does
not help them grow as a person if I find the solution for them. It is important for criminally minded people
to work on how to successfully solve problems without negatively affecting
others if at all possible.
Evocative
empathy and ministry of presence seems to be natural partners. I have seen that my natural calming nature
can be therapeutic to people in stress.
Sometimes I may think that I have not really done anything specific to
help someone, and yet they say that they feel better after talking to me. I think it is the ministry of presence that
must be at work then. The power of just
having yourself held in compassionate energy, and heard without judgment is a
powerful thing.
Interfaith Spiritual Competence
One of my areas of weakness is
working with advanced Pagans. Paganism
is such a diverse religion that I can not possibly know how to teach its many
areas of complexity to everyone.
Sometimes people want to know about a specific Pagan path, and it can be
difficult for me to provide them with the information they seek. I am a very eclectic Pagan and I do a little
of this and that, depending on the situation I find myself in. This works well for people new to Paganism,
but it can be less satisfying to an advanced Pagan. I remind myself that I work with people that,
for whatever reason, are serving time in a state prison. Serving time means not having the luxuries at
home; including having the same spiritual life one could have on the outside.
Before I started my internship in a correctional facility, I was concerned with how effective I
could be when working with Christian inmates.
It did not take me long to realize that 75% of the people I would
counsel would be Christian. I felt
unprepared to provide them with the spiritual direction they needed. In time, and with the help of many people I
spoke with, I came to embrace that most people really are looking for a place
of supportive comfort. I was reminded
that pastoral care is without the boundaries of faith. Love is transcendent.
Praying with inmates has been one of
my less confident areas. The first few
days I worked at the prison I avoided asking if people wanted a prayer. My supervisor gave some good advice on how
to structure a prayer to be interfaith and still personally meaningful. This helped me immensely, and while it is
still not my favorite part of my work, I feel far more comfortable with
it. A few people who have come back specifically said they enjoyed the prayer I had said for them the time before.
Conclusion
In general, I tend to overthink the
work that I do and can be too critical of myself. I suppose that is the way it tends to be the
way with new professionals and students.
One of the paradoxes of life is that our weaknesses can be our strengths,
and our strengths can be our weaknesses.
In my time as an intern chaplain I have found that my weaknesses have
lead to surprising new opportunities and that areas I felt strong in have been
challenged.
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