The Catholic Psychotherapist and Religious Experience ...

The Catholic Psychotherapist and Religious Experience

Theory and Practice

Objectives: be able to name…#1: Why religious experiences are a fit study

for Catholic psychotherapists.

#2: Two implications of language and culture mediating religious experiences

#3: Two short-term tactics and two long-term strategies for competently assisting clients

with religious experiences

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Objective #1: What are religious experiences? (a.k.a., mystical, spiritual, numinous experiences)

For me, a religious experience [RE] is a subjective experience that is interpreted within a religious framework. 

REs touch all people because we believe that God is the God of all and touches all Th

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Objective #1: What types of religious experiences are there? From a 1st person, psychological, observational perspective1. religiously healthy-mindedness 2. the sick soul and the religion of unhealthy-mindedness3. the divided self 4. the process of unification5. conversion6. saintliness and its value7. mysticism.

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Objective 1: Why might Catholic psychotherapists study REs?

Catholics hunger for REs.Mass Exodus (Bullivant, 2019): Since 1950 huge exodus of Catholics in all English-speaking countries. They distanced from practice.

Why do Catholics distance? They were instructed in their faith but didn’t “own” it. Instead, they distanced. REs seemed long ago and far away, i.e., superficial and wooden.

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Objective #1: Why are REs essential?

Because without REs:

1. People have a notion of faith, but notion is under-developed, immature, and “unreal” (St. John Newman, Grammar of Assent)

2. Faith is not integrated, and the person is unable to act on faith (St. John Paul II, The Acting Person), e.g., with religious practice Th

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Objective #1:Why REs & psychotherapists?Psychotherapists are social scientists trained in thinking, feeling and acting. Why Catholic psychotherapists? Baptized Catholics have a language and culture of faith that is unique in understanding religious experiences in self and others. It is the language of creed, Bible, and CCC. It is the culture of a sacramental community.

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Objective #2: How are REs mediated, i.e., shaped, by language and culture?

1. REs are unlike any other human experiences and, thus, ineffable, i.e., unable to be put into words

2. Thus, people in every culture search their language for available words to attempt to speak of REs. Plus, they shape REs to the cultural expectations of their social groups Th

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Objective #2: how wide are the implications of language and culture mediating REs?

1. For that consider the 100+ research –based culture entries in the DSM-5 index.

2. The DSM-5 considers the effect of language and culture on identity of the person, conceptualization of distress, psychosocial stressors, and understanding of both diagnosis and psychotherapy.

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Objective #2: Humanity has over 2,000 languages and many more cultures

1. Every national, regional, extended family, and nuclear family has its culture.

2. These are more than we can even count. However, we can own and acknowledge our cultures and invite others to reflect on theirs. E.g. “This is where I’m coming from. Where are you coming from?”

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Objective #2: How many diagnoses are affected by language and culture?

DSM-5 disorders affected by “cultural issues” include anxiety disorders, bipolar disorders, depressive disorders, conduct disorders, dissociative disorders, feeding and eating disorders, gender disorders, ADHD, OCD, personality disorders, psychotic disorders, sexual dysfunctions, sleep-wake issues, somatic symptoms, addictive disorders, and trauma disorders.

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Objective #2: How can we cope with or understand and treat all these permutations of language and culture?

The answer is that we can’t. However, without becoming cultural anthropologists, psychotherapists can use DSM-5 diagnoses as descriptors to search for research and interventions by diagnosis and culture, e.g., “Bipolar disorder in Chinese immigrants,” or “Anxiety in Peruvian farmers.”

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Objective #2: applied examples of language and culture in family therapy

1. In family therapy: for Culture/ethnicity in family therapy see Monica McGoldrick, Ethnicity and Family Therapy, 3rd Edition.

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Objective #2: applied examples of language and culture in with LGBTQ clients

2. In LGBTQ see Handbook of Attachment, 3rd ed. for the links between attachment and sexual desire patterns in adults.Attachment theory and practice is developing quickly and offers hope for further development Th

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Objective #2: applied examples of language and culture in with LGBTQ clients: from condemnation to gradualness.

Familiaris consortio (1981) Saint John Paul II: "What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion" that "is brought about concretely in steps which lead us ever forward. Thus a dynamic process develops, one which advances gradually."

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Objective #2: for general resources in…

1. Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, R. Paloutzien, C. Park 20132. Psychology Religion and Spirituality, J. Nelson 3. Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Understanding and Addressing the Sacred, K. Pargament4. Understanding World Religions, Smith & Burr

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Objective #2: language, culture, and authenticity

1. Presume REs are authentic…just influenced by language and culture: AKA the benefit of the doubt.

2. Genuine RE’s are brief, unsought, ineffable, and have an element of new knowledge. This is level one discernment.

3. Work on yourself first

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Objective #2: RE: end, i.e., purpose

1. Ask what end people want: to be busy, to be popular, to have money and power, to be impulsive. For Catholics, the end is resurrected life with God in Christ.

2. To reach our end/goal we have the language of faith: e.g. creed and a sacramental culture that forms us in faith Th

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Objective #2: REs: path:

1. Ask how clients plan to get to their end/goal: it-is-what-it-is: get rich, be famous, grasp power, be comfortable, or something else?

2. Ray’s formula for Catholics = 2/3/2 rule:2: choose a) God or b) something else3: classic spiritual journey states: a)

purgative, b) illuminative, c) unitive2: graces a) actual b) mystical

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Objective #3: “hearing” REs: 2 sample short-term tactics

1. Question: “Has there ever been a time when you were different from your everyday self and experienced something that enlightened your path to God or others?”

2. If you get a “yes:” 1) listen and help write it out, 2) highlight 1-3 elements, 2) ask for personal meaning, 4) name how to respect it

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Objective #3: “hearing” REs: 2 sample long-term strategies

1. A possibility: A Religious Experience SIG (Special Interest Group) via CPA. There are a lifetime of possibilities here.

Hearing and responding to REs is not well known even by many Catholic psychotherapists and is poorly heard by our more secular colleagues. Th

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Objective #3: “hearing” REs: sample long-term strategies

2. Heuristic research, what’s there in all its variability. See: Moustakas, C. (1990). Heuristic Research: Design, Methodology, and Applications or Sultan, N. (2019). Heuristic Inquiry: Researching Human Experience Holistically.

The task: find reality vs. expectations use chi-square statistics Greenwood & Nikulin, 1996

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Objective #3: “hearing” REs: sample competencies

Vieten and Scammell have done all the hard work in their book Spiritual & Religious Competencies in Clinical Practice: Guidelines for Psychotherapists & Mental Health Professionals (2015)

3 Categories of competencies: attitudes, knowledge, psychotherapy skills

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Wisdom literature and CPA

cf. Wisdom dictionary: Esp. Wisdom in History, G. A. Klingbeil, pp. 863-876We’re not priestly, not prophetic, but wisdom. Wisdom literature was the last to develop in OT, and the last in the Church: decree on laity in Vatican II, 1965, and transform the world, linked to Christ the king.

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Wisdom literature fits with CPA [Klingbeil, pp. 863-876] because in the wisdom books all characters:1. Are embedded in a conflicted history2. Live as “God in control” despite all3. Are convinced “a Godly life is a happy life”4. Are “building God’s house” one household at a time5. Seek “paradise regained” now/later

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Wisdom vs. Prophetic or Historical books in the Hebrew Scriptures The historical books focus on a timeline.The prophetic books speak of God’s desire for his peoplethe wisdom books are stories and proverbs about God giving a word of direction in a specific situation. cf. Wisdom dictionary: Esp. Wisdom and Prophecy, M. A. Shields, p. 877

E.g., lives of the OT wisdom saints: Tobit, Judith, lovers in Songs, plus church saints!

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OT Wisdom contains:Music: the PsalmsMental anguish: JobRomance: song of songsRevolution: MaccabeesAll concerns of our clients: music, anguish, romance

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OT Wisdom contains:Valiant women, Esther and Judith, revolutionary in any time

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NT Wisdom contains:Numberless people who have been lifelong lay people

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Listen to religious experiences and be attentive to the Holy Spirit’s work in God’s people:

“I will listen for what God, the Lord, has to say;Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him; glory will dwell in our land.”

(Psalm 85:9a, 10).

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Questions: cf. [email protected]

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My three books here

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