The aim was to be near our grandchildren. My wife dove into child-care with the grandchildren, and I connected with the local parish, Holy Rosary in Edmonds. I’ve been a Catholic deacon since 1982 and still help out at the parish. I also opened a solo psychological practice in Edmonds. In 2019, after 40 years of doing psychotherapy, I closed my office to
write. Since then, I’ve produced two books.
The first, “Hear the Word: Reflections on Seven Parables of Jesus” and “The Catholic Psychotherapist and Religious Experience.” My intention has been and remains to connect my Catholic faith and psychotherapy by unpacking their intersects. The first book began from a comment by Pope Benedict 16th that we tend to make faith too complicated. The seven parables I wrote about are “the parables of the current age,” not just our age, but the essentials of faith in the present moment of every age. In those parables, Jesus spoke of faith beginning when a person listens to his words. For those who are distracted or resistant, there is no faith. The parable of the weeds and the wheat is the middle phase of faith. In that phase, believers work to do God’s work even as the opponents of faith work to undo anything we accomplish. The parable of the net illustrates the final phase of faith. God’s dragnet gathers all humanity in a dragnet so that the angels can sort us into those preserved and those burned up. In the parable of the mustard seed, he offered safety for believers. In the leaven in the dough, he promised transformation, just as yeast transforms the flour into a dough. Plus, he spoke of finding value internally—the pearl of great price—and externally—the treasure in the field. Those are the essentials according to Jesus. It is only misdirection to try to puzzle out the rest until we are clear on those essentials. The second book makes a case for psychotherapists remaining open to religious experience when doing therapy. All the Church’s sacraments presume experience. We wouldn’t show up to get married if we had no intention of marrying or going to penance if we had no sorrow for sin, and so on. Yet, as William James pointed out, the more structured a religious tradition, the less religious experiences are “heard” or reported. Yet, the Holy Spirit continues to be active in believers. However, if we are not open to hearing and sorting through religious experience, we can instruct believers, but they may never “own” what we taught them. The tragic result is that, as we’ve seen, believers drift away, their consent is superficial (St. John Newman), or faith never leads to action (St.John Paul II). Thus, Catholic psychotherapists can fill an essential role by remaining open to “hearing” and helping clients report their religious experiences. I shared some of my experiences as samples the reader may find interesting.
