The effect of the Covid-pandemic on pastoral counseling within the Church of Sweden : A study on adapted pastoral counseling converted from physical to digitalized meetings

This essay has examined the transition from physical pastoral care conversations to digitalized ones and the experience of it in the workplace. The thesis for this essay is the following; how has the pastoral care conversations continued during the pandemic, and what advantages and disadvantages has the informants experienced in the transition from physical pastoral care conversations to digitalized meetings? The study has been conducted through qualitative semi-structured interviews with a selection of priests and deacons within the Church of Sweden. The main questions that have been asked are: 1. How has the pastoral care meetings practically taken place during the pandemic? 2. What thoughts and experiences has the informants had to the transition from physical to digitized pastoral care meetings? 3. What advantages and disadvantages has this in turn meant for the work with pastoral care? Each interview has been transcribed and then analyzed through a so-called content analysis. This type of analysis has been helpful in being able to pick out relevant themes from the material that have been keys within the interviews. From the analysis, there was four themes that stood out, which were: openness, access, problematics and challenge. The first two categories deal with the informants' experience of the transition as an advantage, while the two latter one’s points to disadvantages that arises with the digitalized transition in their work. The analysis from the interviews showed that one does not exclude the other, that the transition is not just a disadvantage or the other way around, but rather that the two are connected. Instead, both of them help the congregations to create new ways to continue being a church for the community. Reaching out and responding to peoples need to converse and to feel connected even though they have been isolated. The conclusion shows that the advantages and disadvantages have helped bringing the Church to the people when physical meetings are limited or cut off completely due to restrictions within the society. The analysis has also shown the difficulties that these informants have battled with and how they have handled them