73 Is Internal Family Systems Really Catholic?

Join Dr. Peter in a deep look at how Internal Family Systems approaches to therapy and to human formation are consistent and inconsistent with the perennial teachings of the Catholic Church. We explore the multiplicity and unity of the human psyche, the

Episode 73 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, hosted by Peter T. Malinoski, Ph.D., titled "73 Is Internal Family Systems Really Catholic?" was published on June 21, 2021 and runs 52 minutes.

June 21, 2021 ·52m · Interior Integration for Catholics

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Summary

Episode Description

Introduction
The Goals: We Catholics are to love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.
1. With every fiber of our being, every last little bit of ourselves.
2. To love God in every internal experience -- every thought, emotion, body sensation, intention, impulse attitude, belief, assumption, every desire -- every internal experience oriented toward loving God.
3. Nothing within us oriented any other way. That's the challenge, that's what that commandment means.
Fr. Jacques Phillipe:
1. Searching for and Maintaining Peace -- may be my most favorite book
2. In order that abandonment might be authentic and engender peace, it must be total. Must put everything, without exception, into the hands of God, not seeking any longer to manage or” to save” ourselves by her own means: not in the material domain, nor the emotional, nor the spiritual. We cannot divide human existence and the various sectors: certain sectors where it would be legitimate to surrender ourselves to God with confidence in others where, on the contrary, we feel we must manage exclusively on her own. And one thing we know well: all reality that we have not surrendered to God, that we choose to manage by ourselves without giving carte blanche to God, will continue to make us more or less uneasy. The measure of our interior piece will be that of our abandonment, consequently of our detachment. Page 37
  1. No-go Zones. Wikipedia A "no-go area" or "no-go zone" is a neighborhood or other geographic area where some or all outsiders either are physically prevented from entering or can enter only at risk.
3. 1. God doesn't come in here. Compartmentalization, lack of integration.
    1. Recreational time -- not when I'm watching football, not when I'm playing poker, not when I'm gossiping with my friends.
    2. Work life -- dog eat dog world, highly competitive business, sometimes we have to do things we're not proud of…
    3. Sex life -- caught between my partner and my beliefs
    4. My private attachments -- drinking, flirting, shopping -- whatever we are attached to.
    5. Deep shame. Deep rage. Deep Sadness, Deep fear. Inner darkness.
    6. Trauma Zones -- betrayal, abandonment, terror, --attempts to seal that all off, from everything and everyone in order to keep functioning, to keep on with daily activities.
Intro -- Welcome to Interior Integration for Catholics
1. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski and I am here to help guide you toward loving God, neighbor and yourself in an ordered, healthy, holy way.
  1. And how do I do that?
    1. By focusing on your natural level impediments, your psychological obstacles to tolerated being loved and to loving God, neighbor and ourselves in the best ways possible
      1. it's all about your human formation
    2. 1. It's all about shoring up your natural foundation for the spiritual life
    3. 1. So many of our spiritual problems are really rooted in our human formation, our natural foundation for the spiritual life
1. This is Episode 73,
  1. Released on June 21, 2021 and titled Is Internal Family Systems Really Catholic?
  2. I get this question a lot -- Internal Family Systems or IFS has exploded on the therapy scene, especially in the last 10 years and especially as a modality for working with trauma.
    1. It makes sense -- we don't want anything to keep us from God.
    2. Great contribution --
    3. Synthesis of two paradigms
      1. Plural mind -- we all contain many different parts
        
        A mind in conversation with itself denotes a non-unitary, relational mind
      2. Internal dilemmas
    4. 1. Systems thinking -- Dick was a therapist trained in family systems
        
        Bringing systems thinking inside is a tremendous advance for therapy
      2. On a par with Freud's popularization of the unconscious.
      3. God can reveal the glory of creation to people from all kinds of backgrounds
        
        Watson and Crick Discoverers of DNA -- very hostile toward Catholicism.
    5. 1. A core self, protected from harm rich in all kinds of naturally endowed resources.
  3. But Richard Schwartz -- raised in an atheistic home, culturally Jewish -- he writes in the forward of Jenna Riemersma's Book "Altogether You."
    1. My father was a scientist who taught us that religion was at the root of many of the world's conflicts and slaughters . I maintained a skepticism about anything spiritual until I began exploring my clients' inner terrains and encountered their self
    2. Phenomenological approach
      1. Definition Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view .-- an approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.
    3. 1. Setting aside preconceived notions -- "privileging data over pride"
        
        p. 19 IFS Therapy 2nd ed. We can enter the unconscious and interact with it directly, asking questions about the desires, distortions, and agendas of the inner system. In response, our parts will answer clearly, take the client directly to crucial scenes from the past, and explain what is most important about their experience, removing the need for us to speculate, reframe, interpret, or instruct.
  4. This podcast -- authentically Catholic
Necessity for grounding our understanding of psychology and the human person in a Catholic anthropology
1. Define Catholic anthropology Wikipedia In the context of Christian theology, Christian anthropology is the study of the human ("anthropology") as it relates to God. It differs from the social science of anthropology, which primarily deals with the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity across times and places.
1. I am responsible for my words and my teaching.
  1. Scripture verse about teaching
    1. Woe to anyone who leads little ones astray
  3. My day of particular judgement
  4. What I teach and what I don't teach. Omissions.
  5. Catholic with a small c: The word is from the Greek katholikos, universal, literally in respect of (kata) the whole (holos);
  6. St. Augustine De Doctrina Christiana. Cjapter 40 is a theological text on how to interpret and teach the Scriptures.
    1. Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said anything that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use.
  7. 1. all branches of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which we ought to abhor and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the w...