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What do you think of
psychotherapy that is called Orthodox Psychotherapy? The desert fathers were able to achieve
spiritual heights and had no need of modern psychotherapy. They overcame obstructions to
spiritual growth with just the “psychotherapy” of prayer and penance.
Orthodox psychotherapy extols
the idea of control. Catholic psychotherapy reveres the humble love for God which
demons cannot overpower.
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psychotherapy started with its roots in the
psychoanalytic work of
Sigmund Freud in the early
1900s, and it has grown in knowledge and diversity through the years since. But through most
of Church history psychotherapy was not known as we now know it.
Thus in times past, the emotional difficulties
of life were not seen as needing any exceptional treatment. For the most part, the average
Christian plodded along in the faith anonymously and unremarkably through duty, and the
emotional difficulties of life were addressed, as necessary, by priestly guidance, personal
prayer, and devotional practices. And, being so unremarkable, the lives of the multitudes
and their emotional issues—and their struggles and failures—received no particular
attention.
The Church Fathers
The saints and the Church fathers, however,
did get attention. Through their writings we have come to learn about their spiritual
growth. In particular, we learn much about the desert fathers through
the collection of writings called the Philokalia. In reading these works, we
see clearly that such men grew remarkably in outward holy behaviors through the dedicated
practice of prayer and penance at a time when “psychotherapy” was unknown.
Yet here is precisely where the answer to your
question emerges.
Those We Read About and Those
We Don’t
Prayer and penance worked like psychotherapy for
those individuals we read about. But what about those we do not read about? That is, those who
had the psychological constitution to endure the difficulties of life with only prayer and
penance left us their records of their spiritual experiences, but those who were crippled
by their emotional difficulties had no great spiritual experiences to write about. Such
persons would have considered penance to be punishment, and because
of the abuse inflicted on them in their childhoods, they would
have distrusted God, and so they would have been unable to experience prayer
as anything more than a laborious act of duty. Thus, they would have failed at any growth in
spiritual life. But hardly anyone wants to admit it or talk about it, and so we don’t read about
it.
In considering these “spiritual failures” that we
don’t read about, we have to confront the truth that prayer and penance cannot lead everyone
to great spiritual heights. If prayer and penance could lead everyone to great spiritual heights,
then the desert fathers would have been the norm, not the exception. Sadly, many of those who
could not follow the harsh way of the desert fathers fell into dissent, disobedience, and
heresy—and they and their descendants have caused enormous turmoil in the Church since
then.
The Core of the Problem
Today, some persons claim that psychological healing
is simply a matter of imitating the austere spiritual practices of the desert fathers. This
“Orthodox psychotherapy” tends to refer to emotions as passions, and it considers passions
to be experiences that must be controlled and suppressed. Moreover, it considers
anger to be a passion, not an act of the will, and so it treats
anger as a vexing passion that must be stifled. As a result of suppressing anger, the deep
unconscious emotional wounds underlying all acts of anger are ignored
and therefore go untreated psychotherapeutically. Thus many individuals who exhibit the behaviors
of outwardly holy lives, and who consider themselves to be like saints, can fall into anger at
the slightest provocation. Furthermore, it doesn’t occur to such individuals to repent and
confess their anger as a sinful disorder of the will; instead, they think of anger as an annoying
passion to be swept aside much as an aggravating insect flying about one’s face.
Religious Life
In religious life, individuals can be
driven into an outward appearance of obedience by cold, unemotional stoicism, but under the
surface of their apparent compliance there will often be found seething confusion and anger that
lead to spiritual failure.
Now, it’s true that in the military, for example,
punishment, fear, and hate can shape a person into an efficient, cold-hearted killer. But a
cold heart has no legitimate place in Christianity; the great spiritual battle against evil is
not fought with hate but with love for God.
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For a religious, obedience to
one’s superiors signifies an obedience to God’s will. The religious must do everything the
superior requires, and it must be done without question or grumbling. Thus it must be done
cleanly, joyfully, and with total trust in God. In such a case, suffering can help a person
grow in spiritual virtue.
But if a superior is stoic and inflicts harsh penances to smack down any hint of unwanted
conduct, then “obedience” becomes useless. Yes, it might help someone get somewhat
stronger spiritually, but it will also cripple the person from growing as spiritually strong
as he or she could have become under the guidance of gentle compassion. Thus, only
Catholic psychotherapy, not stoic harshness, can
correct the psychological impediments to a pure, loving surrender to God. |
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Therefore, successful religious life today must take
into consideration that the world in which young people are currently being raised has been
corrupted both spiritually and physically. The world has been corrupted spiritually with divorce,
emotional abuse, pornography, atheism, and Satanism; it has been corrupted physically such that
our food supply has been so tainted with genetic modifications, bacteria, and viruses that food
allergies and health issues are rampant. These massive corruptions work relentlessly to undermine
love for, and trust in, God. Thus, to be successful today, religious life has to maintain a careful
blend of faithfulness to traditional values of detachment from the world
(especially in regard to entertainment and
social media) and of astute understanding of the nature of
emotional vulnerability and health issues—and modern
Catholic psychotherapy must be used constantly as a
resource of emotional and spiritual healing.
Summary
Some individuals have such deep emotional wounds
from childhood that without modern Catholic psychotherapy
they cannot get past their unconscious distrust of God and, consequently, their unconscious
resistance to serving Him. Sadly, in that case, prayer and penance, without psychotherapy, have
no healing effect on them. They can be berated and humiliated by confessors and superiors, but
their response will be, “All right. So you’re going to treat me miserably? Well, I’ll show you!
I’ll take everything you can dish out and I’ll take it without a murmur. So there!” But, oh!
Just wait. Slowly the frustration builds, and then the anger and disobedience erupt!
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