Purpose in Life as Protection Against Professional Burnout Among Catholic Priests and Religious in Italy: Testing the Insights of Logotherapy

Abstract

Logotherapy, grounded in the insights of Viktor Frankl, suggests that meaning-making and the sense of purpose in life is central to healthy human functioning. This thesis was tested among a sample of 156 Catholic priests and religious sisters in Italy; their healthy human functioning was assessed through the two indices of positive affect (satisfaction in ministry) and negative affect (emotional exhaustion in ministry) proposed by the Francis Burnout Inventory. After controlling for personal factors (age and sex) and for psychological factors (emotionality and extraversion/introversion), the data demonstrated that higher scores on the Purpose in Life Scale were associated with both higher scores on the Satisfaction in Ministry Scale and lower scores on the Scale of Emotional Exhaustion in Ministry. These findings suggest that professional burnout and poor work-related psychological health among priests and religious sisters may, at least in part, be attributed to a poor sense of purpose in life. In light of this empirical evidence, therapeutic techniques developed by logotherapy may be relevant to addressing the problem of professional burnout and poor work-related psychological health among Catholic priests and religious sisters.