Interior Integration for Catholics

Dr. Peter walks with you through what Sacred Scripture has to teach us about suicide, exploring the major episodes of suicide in the Bible from a historical and psychological perspective, grounded in a Catholic worldview.

Storytime I want to take you back, back in time to a hot June night in 1980 and tell you a story about that time. [cue sound effect] I’m 11 years old and I'm recovering from a third spinal surgery after two previous cervical fusions failed.  I’m feeling terrible.  I'm in a dark, cold hospital room in a university hospital, just out of post-op and back on the pediatric unit 104 miles from home, immobilized in a full body cast and halo brace, recovering from puking from the general anesthetic, afraid that this surgery failed like the other two.  My confidence in surgeons is at a low ebb.  The room smells of antiseptic and isolation.  Back in those unenlightened days, visiting hours were really limited, so my parents aren't there.  But I'm not alone.  My sick toddler roommate is lying face down in his crib, sobbing inconsolably.   No one comes for him.  “Nothing can be done for him -- this will pass,” the professionals had told me when I pressed the call button for him.   So I don’t bother with the call button anymore.  I can’t think of anything to do for him either.  I feel like he does.  We're both miserable.  I am in the darkest hour of my life to that point.  I'm beginning to wonder if the rest of my life will be a series of horrible, painful, failed surgeries, nighttime isolation and helplessness.  So what does little Petey Guy do at the point?  My aunt Marlene always used to call me Petey Guy when I was that age.  Petey Guy starts to sing.  Yes, that's right, I start singing.  Do you know what I was singing? Was the 1959 Julie Andrews version of "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music?  No it wasn't.  The Beatles" 1969 classic "Here comes the Sun" by George Harrison?  It was not.  Was it the 1977 show tune "The Sun will Come out Tomorrow" from the musical Annie?  Nope.  Guess again.  Gloria Gaynor's smash hit in 1977 "I will survive"?  Wrong.  "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac, also in 1977?  No.  How about "Don't Stop Believin" by Journey -- that was it, right.  Come on, people.  "Don't Stop Believin" came out in 1981.  We're in 1980. So chronologically, that wouldn't make sense.   No, I was singing a different song, a darker song than any of those,  a 1970 song with lyrics written by 14 year old Michael Altman, put to music by his father Robert Altman and sung by Johnny Mandel.  A song written for the 1970 movie MASH.  Some of you may be following this now.  I was singing a song called Suicide is Painless.  You're probably familiar with the tune.  After the surprise success of the movie, Robert Altman chose it to be the instrumental opening for the hugely popular MASH comedy-drama series that ran on CBS from 1972 to 1983.  So even though you know the tune, you might not be familiar with the gaunt, haunting, despairing lyrics.  Here's the opening stanza: Through early morning fog I see Visions of the things to beThe pains that are withheld for meI realize and I can seeThat suicide is painlessIt brings on many changesAnd I can take or leave it if I pleaseSo a little backstory.  My Grandpa Roberts had a magnus chord organ 1960's very popular, lots on the second hand market.  Chords press a button with left hand, keyboard with the right.  We had one too.  Grandpa Roberts had a songbook of popular tune to play on the Magnus Chord Organ --- including Suicide is Painless  I recognized the theme from MASH, and it was one of very few songs I learned to play on the Magnus Chord Organ, and I sang the lyrics as I played.  But they didn't particularly resonate with me until that post-surgical night in 1980, in the dark, sick, and alone with the crying toddler when my 11 year old heart was so burdened and breaking.  Nobody noticed my singing about suicide in the night -- my toddler roommate didn't seem to care.  And it wasn't until almost 40 years later that I ever told anyone about it.  Intro Welcome to the podcast Interior Integration for Catholics, thank you for being here with me.  I no longer go by "Petey Guy," I am better known as clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski The reason this Interior Integration for Catholics podcasts exists is to help you toward  loving God, neighbor and yourself in an ordered, healthy, holy way. -- It's about tolerating being loved, and about loving about living out the two great commandments to the hilt, with all of our being, it's about overcoming the natural obstacles to reaching more of our potential, both in the natural and the spiritual realms.  Because we take on the tough topics in this podcast, today we are getting into the difficult and complex topic of suicide/  Suicide.  Even the word can send shivers up the spine.  This episode is titled IIC 76  The Black of Suicide -- What Do the Secular Experts Say? and it's released on July 12, 2021 Today we are looking at the best of current psychological and sociological research -- Episode 73.  St. Augustine De Doctrina Christiana. Chapter 40   is a theological text on how to interpret and teach the Scriptures. 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. 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 worship of the One God are found among them. Now these are, so to speak, their gold and silver, which they did not create themselves, but dug out of the mines of God's providence which are everywhere scattered abroad In future episode, we will bring in a lot more of the wisdom of the Catholic Church .And in future episodes, we will bring in more Internal Family Systems thinking about our parts and suicide, fascinating stuff thereAnd in future episodes we will be discussing the impact of suicide on parents, spouses, siblings, children and friends who experienced suicide through the death of a loved one.  So we are at the beginning of a series of episodes on suicide.  This is a critical topic -- A 2017 Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey of 1000 American Adults finds that 55%  know someone who has committed suicide. One from my 8th grade graduating class One for two classes behind me in high school   Let's do an etymological analysis of the word suicide -- you know how much I like to break down words on this podcast, so it's Time for Word Lore [cue sound effect] Where does the English word Suicide come from?"deliberate killing of oneself," 1650s, from Modern Latin suicidium "suicide," from Latin sui "of oneself" (genitive of se "self") + -cidium "a killing," from caedere "to slay" or to strike oneself.  How serious is suic...

And depression manifests itself in different ways depending on roles or functions that different parts Three major roles Exiles -- most sensitive -- these exiles have been exploited, rejected, abandoned in external relationshipsThey have suffered relational traumas or attachment injuriesThey hold the painful experiences that have been isolated from conscious awareness to protect the person from being overwhelmed with the intensity.They desperately want to be seen and known, to be safe and secure, to be comforted and soothed, to be cared for and lovedThey want rescue, redemption, healingAnd in the intensity of their needs and emotions, they threaten to take over and destabilize the person's whole being, the person's whole system -- they want to take over the raft to be seen and heard, to be known, to be understood.  But they can flood us with the intensity of their experienceAnd that threatens to harm external relationshipsBurdens they carry:  Shame, dependency, worthlessness, Fear/Terror, Grief/Loss, Loneliness, Neediness, Pain, lack of meaning or purpose, a sense of being unloved and unlovable, inadequate, abandoned, Depression.  Exiles are parts that step in to carry the burden of depression so that depression doesn't overwhelm our system and incapacitate us.  Protector parts exile the part burdened with depression -- toxicBut these exiles want to be heard, seen, known, understood.  So they attempt to jailbreak, they want to get on the raft, they want to stop being submerged in the unconscious, under the water, they want to get on the raft, and the only way they know how to be accepted on the raft is to become king of the raft and overpower all the other parts.  Then, they hope to be seen and known and heard and accepted and loved But because they blended, because they dominated, because they took over, there's no possibility to be in relationship inside with the self.  They are now able to scream their pain and distress, but it doesn't get them what they want.  When depressed exiles take over, they wind up shutting the system down Depressed mood  Loss of interest/pleasure Weight loss or gain  Insomnia or hypersomnia Psychomotor agitation or retardation  Fatigue  Feeling worthless or excessive/inappropriate guilt N Decreased concentration Thoughts of death/suicide:  So exiles can bring the depression to the fore.  But that is not the only way we become depressed.  Managers These are the proactive protector parts.  They work strategically, with forethought and planning to keep in control of situations and relationships to minimize the likelihood of you being hurt.  They work really hard to keep you safe. controlling, striving, planning, caretaking, judging, Can be pessimistic, self-critical, very demanding. Managers can use symptoms of depression to try to keep us safe Depressed mood  -- pessimism keep us from trying new thing and risking failure Loss of interest/pleasure  -- keep us from enjoying a romantic relationship that might challenge usWeight loss or gain  -- keeping us obese, in the hope that we don't attract others' attention so that we won't be raped again.  Insomnia or hypersomnia -- protecting us from nightmares that exiles share when we sleep.  Psychomotor agitation or retardation   -- letting others know not to expect too much from usFatigue  -- keeping us from lashing out or being aggressive with those that our exiles hate.  Decreased concentration -- keeping us from being promoted to management, so we don't have to handle the difficulties of having subordinates at work.  Firefighters When exiles break through and threaten to take over the system, like in Inside Out, remember the parts and the control panel?  So when these exiles are about the break out, the firefighters leap into action. It's an emergency situation, a crisis, like a fire raging in a house. No concern for niceties, for propriety, for etiquette, for little details like that.  Firefighter take bold, drastic actions to stifle, numb or distract from the intensity of the exile's experiences.  Intense neediness and grief are overwhelming us!  Emergency actions -- battle stations!   Evasive maneuvers, Arm the torpedoes, Full speed ahead! No concern for consequences -- don't you get it, we are in a crisis, All kinds of addictions -- alcohol use, binge eating, shopping, sleeping, dieting, excessive working or exercise, suicidal actions, self-harm, violence, dissociation, distractions, obsessions, compulsions, escapes into fantasy, and raging.  Depression as a tool for firefighters Remember firefighters are always reacting to an exile breaking out.  Depressed mood -- intense depression, feeling really really sad so that we don't feel the crushing emptiness inside than an exile carries.  Better to feel sadness than to feel a void of nothingness and to question whether or not I exist -- so there the firefighter is pursuing an integrity need of knowing that I exist, protecting against being swept away by the soul crushing nihilism of an exile burdened with a void, with the feeling of being nothing.  Fatigue -- betting to spend 20 hours a day sleeping rather than cope with the overwhelming grief and loss of the death of a spouse.  Suicide -- seen as the only viable release from the pain of an exile.   Parts are not their roles, they are not their functions, they are not their burdens.  All of these can change.  If parts are unburdened, they no longer have the whatever burden they originally carried.  Parts are not their burdens.  They can give those burdens up through unburdening.  Parts are not their roles or their functions either.  As the person's internal system becomes more integrated, parts begin to trust in the leadership of the core self more, parts become more collaborative and cooperative, parts find new, constructive, healthy roles in the system. Parts can hold their intensity.  Poetry“Depression” by Cara Delevingne “Who am I? Who am I trying to be?Not myself, anyone but myself.Living in a fantasy to bury the reality,Making myself the mystery,A strong facade disguising the misery.Empty, but beyond the point of emptiness, I am lost.I don’t need to be saved,I need to be found.” 

Intro:  It is good to be together, thank you for joining me today in this podcast episodeI want to take you back 40 years with me, more than 40 years, to 1981, and share with you an experience I had as a lad, share with you a story and images of that story that will help us understand the topic of today's podcast.  So, without any further delays, its Story Time with Dr. Peter Its early July 1981, I'm 12 years old, really skinny, about 5 foot 5, 110 lbs, very nearsighted without my glasses swimming to the green raft with my swim buddy at Camp Onaway on the Waupaca Chain of Lakes, in central WisconsinTaking on the challenge.  I'm the lowest form of life at Boys Brigade Camp 3, A first-year boy.  I'm a FLIC--  A FLIC is an acronym that stand for "Fat Little Ignorant Camper" the term of affection, a sweet, ironic endearment bestowed on us by our fearless camp leaders.  And I’m swimming out to the raft to test my mettle with the bigger boys.  The high schoolers. The raft -- floating platform, 12 X 12, buoyed up by sealed 55 gallon drum, anchored in 12 feet of clear water and covered with green indoor-outdoor carpeting.  That is the place where the game "King of the Raft" was played by the camp 3 FLICs of all ages and body shapes.  The objective of King of the Raft was simple.  To be the only boy left standing on the raft, with all challengers in the water.  To do that, you want to push, pull, toss, hurl, lure or otherwise maneuver all the other boys off the raft.  A sparse game would have six boys, a real showdown might have 24, ranging in age from the youngest at 12 to highly muscled 17 year old incoming high school seniors with mustaches.  Very few rules and all of them were unwritten.  The primary one was no dragging another boy along on the raft, because that indoor/outdoor carpeting can tear the skin right off your back or chest very quickly, especially if the victim is struggling with all his might, as he should be, and as was the norm,  And no choking and no hitting or kicking anyone in the groin.  That was about it.  Otherwise it was a free for all, with shoving and pushing and lunging and clinging and teams of boys working together and alliances broken by Machiavellian tricks all for the great prize of being able to stand, alone, on the raft, with all your companions in the water and to beat your chest and yell with all your might at the top of your lungs, "I am the King of the Raft!"Now occasionally, a gargantuan 16 or 17 year old would dominate the raft and be obnoxious as king, and then two of the 20 or 30 something year old camp leaders would swim out to administer a form of camp justice and dethrone the obnoxious king by heaving him in a remarkable high trajectory to a watery landing many feet from the 144 square feet of green carpeted real estate. Then the game changed.  Then it was get the leaders time and the game moved into another phase when all the fat little ignorant campers had a chance to take on the two leaders, and a battle royale ensued with the campers on one side and the leaders on the other.  I did this for seven summers.  From 1981 to 1987, five years as a camper and two years as a leader.  And I learned a lot of life lessons on the raft, both as a skinny, vanquished, frequently airborne FLIC and as king.  So I hope I was able to create a word picture for you, some images of what it was like on the raft at Camp Onaway on the Waupaca chain of lakes in the 1980s.  We going to come back to the images of king of the raft  later in the episode.  Intro -- Welcome to Interior Integration for Catholics I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski and the reason this Interior Integration for Catholics podcasts exists is to help you toward  loving God, neighbor and yourself in an ordered, healthy, holy way. -- It's about tolerating being loved, and about loving.  This podcast and especially the Resilient Catholics Community is a training ground for overcoming your natural level impediments, your psychological obstacles to accepting love from God and others and loving God, neighbor and ourselves in the best ways possible.  It all about your human formation, all about shoring up your natural foundation for the spiritual life, all about training and equipping you to follow the two great commandments -- to love God with all your being, with every part of you, and to love your neighbor.   This is Episode 74, Released on June 28, 2021 and titled Internal Chaos and Blending vs. Internal Peace and Integration Internal Chaos vs. Internal Peace Psychotherapist Peter Michealson describes how quote the unconscious mind of adults is buffeted by gale-force winds of emotional chaos that originated as an infantile effect decades earlier. Emotional associations from our distant past now buffet our life in incredible, mysterious, spectacular, and frequently painful and self-defeating ways.  Emotions percolate and circulate in our unconscious mind with some degree of chaos. We all know what it’s like to be happy one moment, sad the next, with no conscious input from us. We also know how hard it can be to regulate our desires, impulses, and emotional reactions. Both neuroscience and psychology have established that our brain struggles mightily and often unsuccessfully to limit the effects of irrationality. Often we try to apply common sense and reason to moderate unpleasant emotions or to curb self-defeating impulses. Yet our emotional side, with a life of its own, can often be impervious to rational entreaties.  End quote Reimagine the raft battle But instead of generally good-hearted boys working on their developmental tasks of becoming men through struggling and wrestling with each other You have players that believe that they are locked in a life and death struggle, a deadly battle for supremacy. Think of the raft battle now as a gladiatorial contest to the death -- or following the plots of the Death Race movie series -- Jason Statham, Frederick Koehler, Ian McShane.  Five movies.  That my dear listeners, is how it is inside of us for  most of us, whether we realize it or not. The players are our parts, remember --  those Separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and world view.  May seem to use like modes of operatingOur systems may seem quiet in the moment -- maybe one of our manager parts has a really strong hold on the raft and is able to keep the others in the water, some of the submerged, drowning, in an attempt to hold on to some pseudo stability, and function in day to day life.  But the other parts are waiting and watching for an opportunity to leap on the raft, into conscious awareness and forcibly de-throne the blended part who was king of the raft.  But underneath, the other parts are waiting, watching. Looking for an opportunity to become the king of the raft, to drive the bus, to govern the system.  Because of original sin, the sins of others, and our own personal sins, that's what it's like inside for almost everyone.Blending What is the key word her...

IntroductionThe 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.  With every fiber of our being, every last little bit of ourselves.  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. Nothing within us oriented any other way.  That's the challenge, that's what that commandment means.   Fr. Jacques Phillipe:  Searching for and Maintaining Peace  -- may be my most favorite book  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 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. God doesn't come in here.  Compartmentalization, lack of integration.  Recreational time -- not when I'm watching football, not when I'm playing poker, not when I'm gossiping with my friends.  Work life -- dog eat dog world, highly competitive business, sometimes we have to do things we're not proud of…Sex life -- caught between my partner and my beliefsMy private attachments -- drinking, flirting, shopping -- whatever we are attached to.  Deep shame.  Deep rage.  Deep Sadness,  Deep fear.  Inner darkness.  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 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. And how do I do that? 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  it's all about your human formation It's all about shoring up your natural foundation for the spiritual life So many of our spiritual problems are really rooted in our human formation, our natural foundation for the spiritual life This is Episode 73, Released on June 21, 2021 and titled  Is Internal Family Systems Really Catholic?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. It makes sense -- we don't want anything to keep us from God.  Great contribution -- Synthesis of two paradigms Plural mind -- we all contain many different parts A mind in conversation with itself denotes a non-unitary, relational mind Internal dilemmas Systems thinking -- Dick was a therapist trained in family systems Bringing systems thinking inside is a tremendous advance for therapy On a par with Freud's popularization of the unconscious. God can reveal the glory of creation to people from all kinds of backgrounds Watson and Crick Discoverers of DNA -- very hostile toward Catholicism.  A core self, protected from harm rich in all kinds of naturally endowed resources.  But Richard Schwartz -- raised in an atheistic home, culturally Jewish -- he writes in the forward of Jenna Riemersma's Book "Altogether You."  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 selfPhenomenological approach 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. 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.  This podcast -- authentically Catholic Necessity for grounding our understanding of psychology and the human person in a Catholic anthropology 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. I am responsible for my words and my teaching.  Scripture verse about teaching Woe to anyone who leads little ones astray My day of particular judgement What I teach and what I don't teach.  Omissions.  Catholic with a small c:  The word is from the Greek katholikos, universal, literally in respect of (kata) the whole (holos);St. Augustine De Doctrina Christiana. Cjapter 40   is a theological text on how to interpret and teach the Scriptures. 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. 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...

 The Pitch -- Opening Set the Scene Two Great Commandments What is the whole point of your life? What is your mission and purpose? What is the most important thing for you to do?  Really think about that for a minute.  What is your ultimate goal on this planet as a Catholic man or woman? All of us serious Catholics want to love God and neighbor.   36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40 Mitch and Sri CCSS  "Together, the two love Commandments sum up the Ten Commandments, three of which delineate our responsibilities toward God and seven of which concern our duties toward others."  Luke 10:25-28  25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul [being], and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”Highest obligation of every person.  Romans 13:8-10  8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.The Hurdle -- a problem we're all facing. Simple, right?  But it's not that simple.  My Catholic Life  With this statement, Jesus gives a complete summary of the moral law found in the Ten Commandments.  The first three Commandments reveal that we must love God above all and with all our might.  The last six Commandments reveal that we must love our neighbor.  The moral law of God is as simple as fulfilling these two more general commandments. But is it all that simple?  Well, the answer is both “Yes” and “No.”  It’s simple in the sense that God’s will is not typically complex and difficult to comprehend.  Love is spelled out clearly in the Gospels and we are called to embrace a radical life of true love and charity. However, it can be considered difficult in that we are not only called to love, we are called to love with all our being.  We must give of ourselves completely and without reserve.  This is radical and requires that we hold nothing back.And that's the kicker -- to love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.  With all of us. Think about what that means.  Pablo Gadenz  CCSS Luke   "The idea is that the commandment to love God embraces every aspect of one's being."  Every fiber of our being, every last little bit of ourselves.  If we really think about this commandment -- what are the implications To love God in every internal experience -- every thought, emotion, body sensation, intention, impulse attitude, belief, assumption, every desire -- every internal phenomenological experience oriented toward loving God.  That requires harmony inside.  That requires interior integration for Catholics And Interior Integration for Catholics just happens to be the name of this podcast. And this whole podcast is all about helping to you to get so much closer to loving God and neighbor and yourself with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole strength and your whole mind, with all of you -- and that is the whole mission of our online outreach Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com Intro -- Welcome to Interior Integration for Catholics 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. And how do I do that? 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 That is the mission of this podcast -- it's all about your human formation and what you need  on the natural level going forward in your life.  John the Baptist is the patron saint of this podcast because he prepared the way for the Lord.  I'm here to help you get ready by shoring up your natural foundation for the spiritual life This is Episode 72, entitled What Keeps You from Loving?  Is it Really Only Your Vices?  (Spoiler Alert:  No!)Chess analogy -- so the two great Commandments are both simple and complex -- like chess.  One Level -- Chess is a simple game -- the rules are really clear and can be learned in five minutes, and the trickiest part of the rules is castling -- rook/king switcheroo thing.  Or maybe the en passant pawn capture.  On another level, chess is complex -- people spend their professional lives learning to play.  Grandmasters learning into old age.   Love Your Neighbor as yourself We are supposed to love ourselves Command is not to love our neighbor more than ourselves Not because Jesus is lax:  Mt. 5:48 You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. No one can love you in lieu of you.   Doesn't make sense if you think of a person has having monolithic, homogeneous personality -- no space for relationship there.  In order to love ourselves other and God, we need interior peace.  Fr. Jacques Phillipe:  Searching For and Maintaining Peace It is of the greatest importance that we strive to acquire an interior peace, the peace of our hearts.  p. 5 The more our soul is peaceful and tranquil, the more God is reflected in it, the more His image expresses itself in us, the more His grace acts through us.  p. 5 Quoting St. Seraphim of Sarov "Acquire interior peace and a multitude will find its salvation through you.  p. 8 p.11 Very frequently, spiritual combat consists precisely in this:  defending one's peace of heart against the enemy who attempts to steal it from us. p. 12.  The first goal of spiritual combat, that toward which our efforts must above all else be...

Introduction Very autobiographical today, I'm going to tell you a lot about me and the mistakes I've made and how those mistakes have brought me to do this episode.  I don't really like talking about myself -- not a lot of autobiographical material in previous episodesI especially don't like talking about myself all by myself in my little studio -- not being interviewed by a host -- the really Competent part of me thinks it's a little weird to be sharing details of my life and my struggles and my mistakes, not knowing who is listening because I haven't met most of you, those of you who are my listeners.  I've checked in with the different parts of me and they are all good with it, I have at least grudging acceptance of the idea.  I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski and I am here with you, to be your host and guide.  This podcast is called Interior Integration for Catholics, and it 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 neighbor and ourselves.  We're getting into that much more deeply now.  This is episode 71, released on June 7, 2021, entitled A New and Better Way of Understanding Myself and Others.  -- Beginning a brief series of episodes that takes the great insights of Internal Family Systems approaches to understanding the human person on a natural level, and reconciles them with the eternal truths of the Catholic faith.  The Great Journey I could be considered "Highly successful" as a child and adolescent -- 4.0 GPA in High School, Valedictorian, Varsity letters in Track and Cross Country, I acted in high school musicals and plays, excelled in competitive solo-acting, was on the chess team, active in student government and I was a pretty good shot on the local pistol team --  I had a lot going for me.  I continued that success from Northwestern University, graduating with honors, traveling the world, living in Seville, Spain for a year, romping around Mexico one summer.  1991 -- brought to my knees -- 22 years old, just left a high-demand group Catholic group -- strong sense of having been manipulated and used, exploited.   Trying to figure out my own experience -- what just happened?  Why so many contradictory thoughts and feelings?  What was going on.  Either I made a mistake in joining that group or I made a mistake in leaving it.  Existential crisis -- A leader of the group told me that the founder once said that "he wouldn't give a nickel for the soul of any son who abandons his vocation the group."  For the true believer, there was no viable way out.Common reason for getting into psychology - there's something to the meme.  My models were not sufficient.  I was not satisfied with superficial reasons For why I felt the ways I did For why I thought the ways I thought For why I acted the ways I did.  In 1993, Began a Ph.D. program in clinical psychology -- the best that psychology had to offer.  The Hunt for a Unitary PersonalityWe all want to understand ourselves 4 temperaments -- Encyclopedia Britannica:  Humoral theories:  2500 years ago.  Perhaps the oldest personality theory known is contained in the cosmological writings of the Greek philosopher and physiologist Empedocles and in related speculations of the physician Hippocrates. Empedocles’ cosmic elements—air (with its associated qualities, warm and moist), earth (cold and dry), fire (warm and dry), and water (cold and moist)—were related to health and corresponded (in the above order) to Hippocrates’ physical humours, which were associated with variations in temperament: blood (sanguine temperament), black bile (melancholic), yellow bile (choleric), and phlegm (phlegmatic). This theory, with its view that body chemistry determines temperament, has survived in some form for more than 2,500 years. According to these early theorists, emotional stability as well as general health depend on an appropriate balance among the four bodily humours; an excess of one may produce a particular bodily illness or an exaggerated personality trait. Thus, a person with an excess of blood would be expected to have a sanguine temperament—that is, to be optimistic, enthusiastic, and excitable. Too much black bile (dark blood perhaps mixed with other secretions) was believed to produce a melancholic temperament. An oversupply of yellow bile (secreted by the liver) would result in anger, irritability, and a “jaundiced” view of life. An abundance of phlegm (secreted in the respiratory passages) was alleged to make people stolid, apathetic, and undemonstrative.  | Humor  | Season  | Ages  | Element  | Organ  | Qualities  | Temperament  | Blood  | spring  | infancy  | air | liver | warm and moist  | sanguine | Yellow bile  | summer  | youth  | fire | gallbladder | warm and dry  | choleric | Black bile  | autumn  | adulthood  | earth | spleen | cold and dry  | melancholic | Phlegm  | winter  | old age  | water | brain/lungs | cold and moist  | phlegmatic Art and Laraine Bennett.  The Temperament God Gave you.   Freud Desire for unity Testing expert Layered Personalities, overlays -- trying to accommodate Personality is supposed to be stable Definition of personality Encyclopedia Britannica:   the study of personality focuses on classifying and explaining relatively stable human psychological characteristics. VeryWellMind.com;  At its most basic, personality is the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make a person unique. It is believed that personality arises from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life. But DSM-5, PDM -- Borderline Personality Disorder -- not stable We want predictability In 2000 I was at a crossroad in life, about to finish my Ph.D. in clinical psychology and very much struggling to find a way to ground psychology in a Catholic ...

Intro:  This is it, this is the last episode in our 21 episode series on sexuality , our last episode of 14 in our subseries on sexuality in Catholic marriages, it has been a long run, thank you for being hereWe are finishing up with our metaphor of the canopied Catholic Marriage Bed And today we'll be discussing the four bedposts, the canopy, and the bedskirt, bedspread and the shams with more examples.  I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski and I am here with you, to be your host and guide.  This podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, 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 neighbor.In this podcast, we confront the tough questions we Catholics have in our day-to-day lives, we confront head on 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. This is episode 70, released on May 31, 2021, entitled Catholic Sex and the Four Pillars -- and the Dos and Don'ts of Sharing about your Sexual Life.Review of the bed Review the bed -- remember this canopied marriage bed represents the sexual life of a married Catholic couple.  The floor -- The Presence of God and His Providence -- everything begins here.  This is the most fundamental piece of the whole metaphor.  We need to be in contact with "I AM" with God who is the source of all reality.  We can't forget thatThe four legs Leg 1 -- the husband's commitment to his own interior integration and his own human formation Leg 2.  the wife's commitment to her own interior integration, her own human formation Leg 3.  Understanding Attachment needs and integrity needs.  Leg 4.  Internal Family Systems  -- Episode 60 --  How well do you really know your spouse? The frame and the box spring -- the firm, unwavering commitment of the husband his marriage vows and the wife to her marriage vows -- separately.  IndependentlyThe mattress  Empathetic attunement -- covered that in episode 65, last episode  Two pillows:  Self-acceptance and Spouse-acceptance -- this is what we are focusing on today.  Pillows support us, comfort us.  Great security with pillows Pam travels with her pillow -- learned this from her friend Cabrina -- comfort in having your own pillow Comfort in being accepted by someone who knows you.  Bottom Sheet:  sexual attraction, the intensity of sexual passionTop Sheet:  Communication between the spousesThe blankets:  human warmth, emotional connectionCovering today Four Bedposts -- imagine two spiral intertwined, like the double-helix structure of DNA -- these are the four pillars of Catholic resilience, going all the way back to episode 4 of this podcast  MindsetHeartsetBodysetSoulsetCovering today: The canopy and the curtains -- to protect privacy and propriety or to hide dysfunction, exploitation, even abuse.  Covering today:  The sham, the bedspread, and the bedskirt -- Used to cover up the real bed, give an impression of the state of married life to the world.  Bedposts Four Sets Bodyset, Mindset, Heartset and Soulset Double helix structure -- the husband's strand and the wife's strand interwoven, entwined together like the double-helix structure of DNA rising up overhead, looking down on the bed Dynamism of Sets -- not static -- our sets shift, they vary as a function of our parts and what is activated and not activated within us in a given moment. Descriptions review from way back in Episode 4 Bodyset is how our body affects us, how our physical reactions impact us and our dispositions and inclinations.  Mindset is essentially a frame of mind.  Our mindset is the position of our intellect, and how we apply reason to our situation and our experiences. Heartset is the dispositions or the orientation of our heart, the emotional and intuitive ways of our heart.  Soulset is essentially our attitude of soul.  It is the disposition of our spirit, or how our souls is oriented.  It can operate independently of mindset and heartset.  Our soulset reflects how we see God, and how we see ourselves in relationship with God, how we see God viewing us.  Our soulset very much depends on the virtues we have acquired, especially the virtues of faith, hope and charity.  Our soulset is also very dynamic, it can change rapidlyA lot of your human formation is being aware of your own sets -- Bodyset, Mindset, Heartset and Soulset So much of your empathy for your spouse will involve reading your spouse's sets -- Bodyset, Mindset, Heartset and Soulset Will this legitimate sexual experience be good for your spouse's mind, heart, soul and body, right now, in these circumstances?  Where is she emotionally, relationally with you?  How is she doing physically right now, how is her soul?Paying attention to common, repeated relational patterns or cycles that happen between you and your spouse. Our parts have very different experiences of sexual intimacy Definition of parts:  Discussed this at length in episodes 60 and 61.  Parts:  Separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and world view.  IFS therapist Robert Falconer calls parts "insiders."  Each part also has its own approach to sexuality.  One part may be blended within you Your spouse may be blended in a part Parts can switch -- episode 61 Fractured, Fragmented Sex in Catholic Marriages described how parts in a sexual encounter can switch rapidly.  Bodyset is how our body affects us, how our physical reactions impact us and our dispositions and inclinations. We are embodied beings, body and soul composites.  Our physical bodies have a huge impact on us.  So our bodyset is the impact of our bodily states on us.   For example, if we are exhausted from a lack of sleep – that has an impact on us.  Obviously our bodyset is dynamic and can change as well. Understanding bodyset is so important in marriage because the bodies of the husband and wife are so united.  Body has a huge impact on our relating.  The bodies of the husband and wife Genesis 2:21-25   So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a ...

Opening Questions (connect to vignettes) Cindy wants to know, "Is oral sex okay in marriage? -- My husband every now and then likes it if I give him a blowjob, just for some variety in our sex life and he says there's no moral problem with that and it turns him on, but I'm not sure what I think and feel about that."    Barbara asks "In episode 61, in the story of Jeff and Joanne, you seemed to say that the husband's kissing of breasts was wrong, that it was disordered.  But I like it when my husband kisses my breasts during foreplay, and it really helps me to be sexually stimulated -- so is that off-limits in a Catholic marriage?" Bill raises the question "I really get turned on when my wife bites me, it helps me to have sex with her, I find I don't have to use Viagra then -- is that ok, or is it better for me to use the Viagra?  I don't want to not be able to have the fullness of sexual intimacy with her…"  The last two episodes brought up questions. These were not the actual questions, but questions like them came up.Today we're going get into this more deeply -- and into how to think about the moral quality of sexual acts in Catholic marriage.  Intro: Welcome to the podcast Interior Integration for Catholics In this podcast, we confront the tough questions we Catholics have in our day-to-day lives, we confront head on 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. 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. 'Together, we are on a journey toward deep transformation in our mindsets, our heartsets and our bodysets, a radical transformation at the core of our being so that our souls can one day enter into contemplative union with God. 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 neighbor This is episode 69, released on May 24, 2021 And it is titled:   Good and Bad Sex in Catholic Marriages: What are the Moral Limits? How far is too far? That all depends on the direction you are going! Augustine -- evil as a privation of the good.  Evil is what happens when there is a vacuum because there isn't any good around.  So if you are attempting to just avoid evil -- makes sure there's no evil in your sex life, you're trying to make a privation of the privation of good.  It's much better to reorient and seek what is good, what is best, whatever that may mean for your sex life.  Even if you may have to give up some things from which you derive pleasure.  Not to condemn the physical pleasure of sexual intimacy -- Not at all Bring that into an ordered hierarchy Lot of confusion about the morality of different sexual expressions Lack of clear guidance on this, almost like a conspiracy of silence when it comes to really getting into specifics.  Lot of terrible advice from all kinds of Catholic sources as well.  It may be well intentioned, but it causes harm.  I could be making mistakes here too -- a lot of this is new territory and not well defined.  -- And to that end, I invite feedback, especially if I teach anything that is in error.  Please get in touch with me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com or at 317.567.9594 on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 4:30 PM and 5:30 PM Eastern time in conversations hours.  Citations -- Catechism, Church documents, Canon Law, Denzinger's Compendium, Ludwig Ott Fundamentals of Catholic DogmaDon't email me and tell me that a confessor you went to ten years ago said that anything goes sexually in your marriage and God doesn't mind at all as long as it all leads to vaginal intercourse in the end. That's not helpful.   Learning to reflect and consider thoughtfully our sexual intimacy.Ways of approaching sexual morality Some people want a list List of Dos and Don’ts List of approved sexual activities and a list of activities that are not approved.  Simple, easy to understand, doesn't require much reflection -- is the activity on the good list or the bad list?And there is a bad list -- actually, a pretty long one Acts that can never be ordered, never be oriented to procreation by their very nature Examples Anal sex -- anatomically, anal sex cannot lead to procreation. Oral sex performed by a wife on a husband in which he ejaculates Fetishes in which some body part becomes the focus of sexual interest, like feet or ears or navel or an external object like shoes or underwear Acts that cannot ever be oriented to the bond of marriage because they are degrading to the human person Emphasis on "consenting adults" Issue of mutual hedonism.  -- very worldly Using the spouse for mutual masturbation Using the spouse as a sex toy Examples Impact Play -- spanking, flogging, paddling -- power and domination Bondage -- restraints, dominance and submission -- use of leather belts or handcuffs. Voyeurism -- watching porn together Roleplaying -- power dynamics -- teacher /student Erotic asphyxiation (EA) is the official term for breath play. From healthline.com  This type of sexual activity involves intentionally cutting off the air supply for you or your partner with choking, suffocating, and other acts.  People who are into breath play say it can heighten sexual arousal and make orgasms more intense.  But it isn’t without its risks — and lots of them. It can turn deadly if you don’t take the proper precautions. Does not capture anything like the complexityCatholic Understanding of the morality of human acts Check out with the catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1749 to 1761 for an excellent discussion of how to evaluate the morality of any given act, including sexual acts.  Very much worth reading We are going to do a brief review of how to evaluate the morality of acts, specifically sexual acts And I promise we won't get to technical or philosophical, will keep this clear CCC 1750 The morality of human acts depends on: - the object chosen; - the end in...

Dr. Peter tells a story of a Catholic couple to show how they were able to recognize, take ownership of and work toward resolution of their sexual issues. The audience is encouraged to engage in active listening and be interested in what the story brings up inside, as a way of identifying potential issues in one's own life.