EAS Syndrome

Why do so many pastors burnout and leave the ministries they’ve diligently shepherded? The phenomenon is epidemic, with record numbers leaving monthly. Writing in professional partnership with a psychiatrist, Trevor Walters shows that midlife burnout is not caused by stress, as we thought, but by an inner conflict strong and persistent enough to ignite burnout in professional men and women. From decades of counseling burned out clergy and other professionals, the author concludes that in most cases the operative inner conflict is affirmation deficiency. When parents fail in their task of affirming a son’s or daughter’s unique personhood, the child embarks on a life long quest of seeking after affirmation elsewhere. This is a pursuit they can maintain only so long before burning out around age 50. No book until now has explained External Affirmation Syndrome (EAS), its consequences, and therapy for healing. This will enrich readers and all therapeutic counselors, Christians especially.

Trevor Walters

Trevor Walters is perhaps best known as a therapist for his decades of work with burned out clergy. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree form the University of Edmonton, where he has served on the Master’s of Theology Council. He has had the high honor of serving the University of Calgary as University Chaplain. He is Chair of the Mediating Committee of the Anglican Church in North America, and a Circuit Civil Mediator for the Supreme Court of Florida. Most recently he has functioned variously as a counselor, mediator, preacher, lecturer, and as a Bishop, in Canada, Cuba, Sudan, the UK and the United States.

London born, the author was ordained at Salisbury Cathedral and sent to Canada to serve as curate at a parish in Calgary. He was Rector at St. Matthew’s Church in Abbotsford, Canada, Anglican Church of Canada, until resigning in defense of Biblical orthodoxy. He is now Bishop of Western Canada for the Anglican Network in Canada, a part of the Anglican Church in North America. Earlier in life he taught high school in England, having qualified at London University. He came to know the Lord at age 15, attended a Baptist Church, and was mentored by a Plymouth Brethren teacher. Later he joined the Barnabas Fellowship, an early charismatic community in England, where he learned to pray for people in depth and was taught by inspirational leaders from around the world. His seminary training was at Salisbury and Wells Theological College, an Anglo-Catholic institution, due to its relationship to Barnabas Fellowship.