Clinical pastoral students describe conditions for emotional intelligence growth

A mixed-methods study of 196 clinical pastoral education students identified clinical practice, group-based learning, reflection and supportive relationships as the conditions students most often associated with developing emotional intelligence during healthcare training. Participants also reported personal fears, difficult interpersonal dynamics, structural constraints and contextual pressures as barriers. The findings describe students’ perceptions and experiences; they do not establish that any particular training component caused an increase in emotional intelligence.

The research included students at 29 Clinical Pastoral Education centers accredited by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education across 15 U.S. states. Clinical Pastoral Education is required clinical training for healthcare chaplains, who support people experiencing spiritual and emotional distress. The investigators examined how students understood the development of emotional intelligence, defined in the study as the capacity to perceive, use, understand and manage emotions.

Most participants, 77.0%, reported that their programs included learning activities explicitly designed to foster it. Students rated clinical practice experiences as somewhat or very useful for increasing emotional intelligence at 98.0%, followed by verbatim case discussions at 96.9% and individual supervision or consultation at 94.9%. These ratings identify the parts of training students associated with emotional-intelligence growth, rather than measuring a causal effect or a controlled before-and-after change.

Thematic analysis of 1,464 free-text statements produced four recurring facilitator themes: clinical practice experiences, group-based learning, reflective learning, and relational supervision and mentorship. Students described clinical practice as a way of engaging with the people they served, while small-group learning provided opportunities to explore experiences with peers. Reflective learning created space to examine their own responses, and supervision and mentorship offered guidance through relationships they experienced as supportive.

Learning about diversity, inclusion and equity was also described as facilitating their growth. Taken together, the accounts portray emotional-intelligence development as a relational process involving patients, peers, educators and students themselves. Within the study’s action-reflection model, supervised clinical experience and small-group learning provided the settings in which these encounters and reflections occurred.

Students also emphasized trust, safety, time and energy as important for engaging with their own emotions and with the emotional experiences of others. The study’s barrier themes operated at intrapersonal, interpersonal, structural and contextual levels. Personal fears could impede emotional engagement, while difficult group dynamics affected learning in collective settings.

Structural challenges and institutional pressures also shaped students’ opportunities to develop emotional intelligence. The authors therefore framed the findings as showing that emotional-intelligence development during clinical training is not only an individual undertaking: students’ experiences were connected to relationship quality, organizational culture, openness to diversity, available resources and institutional commitment. This interpretation remains an account of what participants reported.

Methodologically, the investigators used a concurrent mixed-methods design, analyzing survey data and open-ended responses in parallel. Descriptive statistics summarized students’ assessments of curriculum elements, thematic analysis examined the free-text statements about facilitators and barriers, and narrative weaving integrated the two forms of evidence. The research population was limited to clinical pastoral education students in accredited centers across the United States, and the results should be read as findings from that defined training network rather than as a direct measure of emotional-intelligence change.

The study offers a detailed account of the conditions students associated with emotionally demanding clinical learning: direct clinical contact, discussion of cases, reflective space, trustworthy supervision, diversity-focused learning, and sufficient time and energy to engage with difficult material.

Subject of Research: Healthcare chaplain students’ perceptions of facilitators and barriers to emotional-intelligence development during clinical pastoral education

Article Title: Facilitators and barriers to developing emotional intelligence during clinical training in healthcare settings: a mixed methods study of clinical pastoral education students

Article References: Szilagyi, C., Borchik, A. K., & Palmer, P. K. (2026). Facilitators and barriers to developing emotional intelligence during clinical training in healthcare settings: a mixed methods study of clinical pastoral education students. BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05812-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05812-8

Keywords: emotional intelligence, clinical pastoral education, healthcare chaplains, clinical training, reflective learning, supervision, mentorship, diversity and inclusion, mixed methods, patient care, Facilitators, barriers