Integrating the Catholic Faith & Psychology

Bailey, I love the dog!

Like you, I'm wondering if people are lurking or just didn't come back.

yes, lots of topics to discuss. It's soo nice to lay out these topics with someone coming from a background in both psychology and Catholicism.

Your comments about panic attacks and whether
"uncovering content is going to change biology" sound related to your earlier posts. They're part of the entire shift in both medicine and psychology for "evidence based medicine" and looking at only the physiological aspects.

I'll post here some brief notes that occurred to me this morning, but I'm a bit preoccupied as there was a healtch scare in my family today about which I don't have enough information, which is guaranteed to drive me up a wall.

One is that co-occurrence doesn't automatically mean causality in either direction. It sounds like "biology determines behavior" is making a comeback. Back to causality and a rhetorical question to see if we're "on the same page": Does a physiological cause a change in behavior or reflect a result of the change in behavior?

G'night.

Well, I have two inquiries public and have PM'ed two people who have forums within their groups.... no response!

When I said lack of fearfulness, I was referring to anxiety. Those that have panic attacks but generally have no unusual fear of life's things. Seems to come out of nowhere for them. I know there are some therapists who would say these things are from some hidden caverns of the unconscious mind, but from what we know biologically, I have a hard time believing that uncovering content is going to change biology even if traumatically imprinted there. But that is another discussion.... see why I want to know how to start threads? Lots of topics float through my mind: demons and mental illness, unconscious "deep" therapy aka Jung and Catholic spiritual direction (Yet, I have discovered many parallels between spiritual direction and CBT), hypnosis as a tool and parallels with Catholic forms of meditation, and so on....... frustrating not to be able to start threads on each topic separately.

Anyway, off to Saturday.......... after a brief visit here.

So there are 10 or 11 of us now and only you and me talking. Where are you all?

Hi Bailey, yes, I agree with your #4 that God uses everything in his power to heal.

As for depression and hopelessness, I see that right after I said, "Depression is too large for a simple explanation" I then made a simple association. Oh well. That may well reflect that of the people I saw, even the non-suicidal people with depression had an element of hopelessness, and that's what sticks out for me.

OCD, biological basis, lack of apparent fearfulness, that leads to a longer response than I can do this morning, so I'll save that for next time.

"Hence is it Satan using the illnesses or are the illnesses just illnesses and equally possible is that God is using the illnesses to sanctify the individual?"

Both. Neither cause the illness. Satan uses it to seduce the person away from God and God can bring good out of any circumstance (Romans 8:28).

I have to toddle off and do Saturday tasks. Talk to you later!

Hi Lazarette, no one is sharing their thread starter intel!
I agree with your #1,2,3. Interesting extrapolation: Satan has been using that fearfulness or hopelessness to keep that person away from Jesus’ power to heal. I might add a #4 and that is that God uses everything in His power to heal.

My conceptualization of these disorders is holistic but includes biology. I specialize in depression. Hopelessness is not the central characteristic in all cases. I have known depressed individuals whose primary symptoms are the inability to concentrate, make decisions, or enjoy life..... but they have lots of hope. I have treated those with anxiety who do not understand what is happening to their body because it is not in their nature to be fearful and are frustrated with themselves... a control issue. OCD has a tremendous biological base to it.

Hence is it Satan using the illnesses or are the illnesses just illnesses and equally possible is that God is using the illnesses to sanctify the individual?

Bailey2, yes, knowing how to start a new thread will be greatly helpful!

In the meantime, here are some initial thoughts:
A couple of introductory comments: I’ve worked mostly (but not exclusively) with kids, so I tend to reduce everything to simple expressions. Of course, it might be just that I have a simple mind, but we will *not* go there. Also, I have a very eclectic background (training included family systems and other contextual therapies as well as the currently used cognitive behavioral), but there are three things I hold constant:
1) All healing comes from Jesus (see CCC 1503-1505)
2) All graces are mediated (not sourced) through Mary (CCC 968-970 is what the index cites)
3) Satan tries his hardest to do anything and everything to keep turn us away from God (CCC 391-395, also CS Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters)

All the anxiety disorders are variations of fearfulness. OCD is a particular manifestation of controlling something as aftermath of an experience, powerless to control that is too frightening to address. Depression is too large for a simple explanation but is often characterized by a loss of hope.

What causes the events that are the precipitant to treatment is another discussion, but once a person arrives in your office (or ER) with the anxiety, depression, etc, Satan has been using that fearfulness or hopelessness to keep that person away from Jesus’ power to heal.

One aspect is that the psychology techniques (cognitive behavioral, desensitization, verbalizing feelings,etc) and the spiritual exercises (prayer, rosary, confession, etc) are ways of helping the person be more accessible, more receptive to Jesus’ healing. Another aspect is that the graces that flow from the Mass, confession, and the rosary do spiritual battle with Satan’s minions who are trying to convince the person that it’s too scary, too hopeless, etc.

That’s certainly not all of it and I’m sure I’ve left out huge chunks, but how’s that for a starter?

I tried to start a thread, not a wall message with that...... so I cut and pasted it on word and I am asking the forum people how to do this.

Great topic. This is a read 'n run for me, so I'll think on it during the day and be back tonight.

then again, I clicked "Go Advanced" and that looks like a way to start a new thread.

I looked at one of the other groups and they do have a variety of threads that one can see by clicking on the forum. I clicked the forum link for this group but didn't get anywhere.

For this initial discussion, it seems to me that one thread would be sufficient and by that time, one of us will have figured out how to start a new thread.

Bailey, you're quicker than I am. It sounded to me like Navyenduring is interested in a psych nurse practioner program.

I haven't looked around enough to see if this becomes one long thread (not so good) or if possible to have separate threads. My guess is that "create forum" might be creating a new group, but I don't really know since I'm so new here.