52 Breaking Free from Masturbation, Part 1

Intro: Welcome to the podcast Interior Integration for Catholics -- the podcast formerly known as Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem!  Interior Integration for Catholics brings to you each week the best psychological information essential for your human formation, knowledge that is fundamental in shoring up the natural foundation for your Catholic spiritual life.  In this podcast, we ask and answer the tough questions about the real problems we Catholics have in our day-to-day lives, our struggles in the natural realm, the psychological difficulties that keep us from fully loving our Lord and our Lady in a deep, personal, intimate way. And we deal with these tough issues for one primary reason: to free you to love God our Father, Jesus our Brother, the Holy Spirit and Our Mother Mary more and more over time.  This podcast helps you focus inward on your interior integration -- to help you bring together the different parts of yourself into unity and harmony with God's truth, goodness and beautyTogether, we are looking for a deep transformation in our mindsets, our heartsets and our bodysets, a radical transformation at the core of our being so that our souls unite with God and we can rise to the challenges and opportunities He provides us.   I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski and I am here with you, to be your host and guide.  This podcast is part of Souls and Hearts, our online outreach at soulsandhearts.com, which is all about shoring up our natural foundation for the Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving God and neighborThis is episode 52, released on January 25, 2021This is the fourth episode in our series on sexuality and the second one on masturbation.  And it is titled:  Breaking Free from Masturbation -- A Roadmap  We're following up on our last episode, episode 51 -- The Top 10 Reasons Why Catholic Men Masturbate. In that episode, we covered the underlying psychological issues that fuel impulses to masturbate. But it's not enough to just understand the issues more clearly We need guidance on how to live differently, how to work with the entirety of ourselves -- all of our parts, all of our modes of operating -- in the area of sexuality. So today, we're getting into answers for Catholics who deeply desire to have their sexuality ordered toward relationship, toward God, and toward their spouses or future spouses in a way that is life-giving.we're getting into answers for Catholics who experience masturbation as a dead-end, as a failed promise, as an inadequate answer for their deeper needs and desires. We will get into the first four mistakes that Catholics make in their attempts to overcome masturbationAnd we will get into the 10 remedies for those first four mistakesNot just about masturbation -- you can take out masturbation and substitute in any other sexual problem -- fetishes, porn, sexting, sexual obsessions, sexual compulsions, excessive sexual fantasies, whateverRemember that I promised you a map, not a ride in a limousine or on a magic carpet to your destination.  It's a map, not an individualized treatment plan.  This is not therapy.  It's not magic.  You still have to make your own journey.  But this map lays out the terrain and the compass will provide direction for you on that journey.  Some of you have been suffering for a long time.  I get that.  God sees your efforts, he sees your good intentions.  Focus of this podcast is on interior integration -- overarching goal in the natural realm.  Not talking about spiritual goals here, we are talking about the natural realm.  So we need a way of understanding and modeling interior integration and also its nemesis -- interior fragmentation.  I borrow heavily from Internal Family Systems approach, aka IFS approach, originated by Richard Schwartz. Really helps me clinically to understand the polarizations inside of myself and others -- the tensions, the conflicting desires and impulses, the internal tug-of-war, especially about moral issues that carry so much emotional weight, like masturbation And IFS not only helps us understand our internal world, it guides us as to how to heal, how to change, how to grow in the natural realm.  This podcast is heavily influenced by IFS, but IFS grounded in a Catholic worldview.Review of Parts -- IFS perspective Multiplicity and Unity of Self Really helpful for understanding why Catholic men do what they don't want to do. Romans 7:15 -- St. Paul's lament  I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Discussion of Parts within each person are separate collections thoughts, emotions, attitudes, impulses, desires, abilities, interests, relational styles, body sensations, and worldviews that are not just transient emotional states, but rather constitute discrete “parts,” subpersonalities or distinct modes of operating within the person’s larger internal system -- they seem like selves within us. Each part within us can metaphorically seem like its own little person, with its own particular range of emotion, style of expression, abilities, desires views of the world. Modes of operatingSubpersonalitiesOrchestra modelFocus is on integration.  Get forced into extreme roles -- attachment injuries and relational traumasThree roles -- exiles, managers, and firefighters.  Exiles -- most sensitive -- become injured or outraged by important other in the family or social world.  Threatens the system, external relationshipsExploited, rejected, abandoned in external relationshipsWant care and love, rescue, redemptionshame.  Need for redemption Managers Protective, strategic, controlling environment, keep things safe Obsessions. Compulsions, reclusiveness, passivity, numbing. Panic attacks, somatic complaints, depressive episodes, hypervigilance. Firefighters Stifle, anesthetize, distract from feelings of exiles No concern for consequences Binge eating, drug/alcohol use, dissociation, sexual risk taking, cutting Parts can take over the person Like in Pixar Movie Inside Out -- anger taking over the control panel of the main character Riley We call it blending.  Intentions of parts -- always good, but the means they choose can be very harmful, maladaptive.  Mistakes List of mistakes Considering masturbation as the primary problem. -- Gotta go deeper Pursuing compartmentalization or fragmentation instead of interior integration Going it alone Using only the spiritual means Six more common mistakes, but those are...