On Catholic Imagination, Part 5: Reimagining Mental Health

Episode Topic: Reimagining Mental Health (https://go.nd.edu/47c51f)

This interdisciplinary inquiry explores the Catholic imagination’s role in mental health. Navigating the paradox of dependence where maturity necessitates the safety to rely on another, we transcend secular reductionism. Discover a symbolic ontology grounded in community, liturgy, and the transformative power of faith.

Featured Speakers:

• Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA, University of Notre Dame
• Rev. Justin Brophy, O.P. '06, '20 Ph.D., Providence College
• Margaret Laracy Psy.D., Laracy Psychotherapy
• Mark Gerig Ph.D., Divine Mercy University

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/637a4f.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled On Catholic Imagination. (https://go.nd.edu/78e374)

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Transcript

Welcome And Origins

Speaker 10 0:10

Friends, it is good that we are here. Welcome. I think we're in for a real treat this morning, and before I have the honor of introducing our panelists, I'd like to say just a few words about the origins of this panel. So my name is Beth Labey and I have the honor and joy of directing the fiat program on faith and mental health here at the McGrath Institute for Church Life within the University of Notre Dame. And in dialogue with the dela Center, but also friends at Divine Mercy University. We recognize that there was a special opportunity to offer an interdisciplinary panel speaking to the topic of mental health. So I will in just a moment introduce our panelists, but first, I'd love to welcome my friend and colleague, Tom O'Neill from Divine Mercy University to say just a few words, Tom.

Speaker 2 1:09

thanks Beth. as she mentioned this, this actually all came about in January of this year. I was at University of Chicago and I ran into, uh, Jay Martin, whose, uh, wife is now the executive director of the to Nicola Center. And I said, you know, we really, really wanna get the word out there that there is a Catholic approach to psychology and counseling and to the social sciences in general. And we wanna, you know, let people know that that's part of the new evangelization. You know, when we think of the new evangelization, we don't often think of the social sciences, but I think that's something that is gonna really need to change in the 21st century. It's something that we really want to emphasize. And, um, as, as Beth mentioned, she is, uh, an alumna of Divine Mercy, as is Margaret Mark is one of our, faculty. So, very excited about this panel. Um, father Brophy as well. And, just hope that you all enjoy it.

Speaker 10 2:03

Wonderful. Thanks Tom. Good to start the morning with some humor. Well, father Brophy is our first speaker for this morning, speaking to tradition rupture and the dangers of imagination. Father Justin is a Dominican priest, assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Catholic and Dominican Studies at Providence College. He earned his degree in political theory and con studies at the University of Notre Dame in 2020, and his research and teaching revolves around Plato, late modern, German thought and philosophical conceptions of the psyche. Woo-hoo. His work reflects an attention to the fundamental questions surrounding modern identity and the concept of authenticity. Thanks for being with us Father Justin.

Speaker 3 2:54

I had chat,

Speaker 4 2:55

GPT write that up.

Rationalism And Romanticism

Speaker 3 2:59

As we gather for this great conference on the Catholic imagination, it's hard not to get a bit of that feeling one has as a child the night before Christmas. You know, excitement over all of the possibilities that await you. In the morning we're confronted with panels on Graham Green and Flannery O'Connor, discussions of poetry and screenings of films, and this is always a great conference, and this year's is a great theme. Yet, as much as I embrace all of the glorious products of the Catholic imagination that we celebrate this weekend, I feel obligated in my role as Catholic political theorist to point out some dangers of imagination. While we rightly associate Catholic imagination with arts and literature, I hope to show why it also has political significance. As a member of the Fiat Panel, I hope to show how my political concerns are closely tied to those of psychology and philosophical anthropology. So I want to begin by using the Jesuit, uh, Jean d Alu to help frame the problem. In his book, prayer is a political problem. Danny Alu argues that the fall of Christendom opens the potentiality for a church that is no longer a church for the poor. Danny Ilu understands the problems with Christendom and is not arguing for a wholesale return to the past, nor is he referring exclusively to the material poor. Rather, his point is that mass Christianity cannot exist without a supportive culture and supportive institutions. Few Christians, he argues, can survive as Christians in a secular world with no support. Danny Alu recognizes that for many Christians on this model, Christianity is less a personal engagement than a social tradition, less a supernatural faith than a religious need. And while he recognizes that this is not as ideal as a Christian, people who have each internalized their faith and appropriated it for themselves, a more intentional church would be nothing more than a church of the spiritual and intellectual elite that is, it would not be a church of the poor. He writes, certainly it is true that only a chosen few will ever fully satisfy the requirements of the gospel, but does it follow that the church should number no more than this elite? Is it not essential that all men who put their faith in Christ should belong to the church? Is it not a matter of some importance? A man should express his fundamental religious need in the Christian way. Is it not essential that the church be everywhere, present as an institution in her teaching and her sacraments so that all may come to her and take from her what they can otherwise? Is there not a danger of turning Christianity into a sect and a religion for intellectuals? D understood the truth that human beings are political animals and that our natural home is within the context of a community and the culture. He was also writing these pages in the mid 1960s where he foresaw some of the problems of secularization coming to fruition, but was nonetheless writing in a Christian context very different from our own. Our own situation appears much more bleak than Danny Ale's. No one has better described the situation better than Notre Dame's own Alistair McIntyre. In a nutshell, McIntyre's claim is that coherent discourse can only be carried on within a tradition. While debates between traditions or dialogue outside of one's own tradition are either exceedingly difficult or doomed to failure. He writes, we cannot characterize human intentions independently of the settings which make those intentions intelligible, both through agents themselves and to others. For McIntyre tradition is a historically extended, socially embodied argument, an argument about what constitutes the good life. This argument is always embedded in communities or institutions that adhere to a common set of practices. But the central claim of after virtue is that our time and place has experienced a catastrophe such that it is not possible for us to coherently speak about the nature of the good. Or to argue about moral philosophy, except for perhaps those few individuals who recognize the nature of that catastrophe and by themselves heirs to a tradition of inquiry. To restate succinctly what I've proposed to this point, DLI is concerned that a Christianity without a supportive culture, communities and institutions can only exist in a church of the elite and not of the poor. McIntyre writing two decades later proposes that autonomous individualism has eradicated the influence of those cultures, communities, and institutions to a catastrophic degree. It's also worth clarifying at this point that neither Danielu nor McIntyre would contest that the Catholic Church continues to transmit the revelation of God to his people faithfully and accurately. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. What we are discussing here is the state of the culture and cultural institutions which facilitate the spread of that tradition. If we agree with some expression of Danny Lu's thesis, and I do agree with some expression of it, then we find ourselves faced with our particular crisis, namely how do we revive Christian culture and institutions? It is, when we face this question, the question of the revival of Christian culture and institutions, that the political significant of the Catholic imagination becomes clear. McIntyre calls for another doubtless, very different Saint Benedict, that is, he calls for a renewed vision of Catholic life and modernity. One that it seems clear to me requires Catholic imagination, but just as the political significance of the Catholic imagination comes into view. So two, do the dangers associated with it. In his essay, rationalism and Politics, Michael OShot takes aim at the rationalism that he believes to be dominant in contemporary political thinking. OShot defines the rationalist as one who rejects all tradition as a barrier to the work of reason. The rationalist believes that the unhindered human reason only if it can be brought to bear, is an infallible guide in political activity. Further, the rationalist believes in argument as the technique and operation of reason. The truth of an opinion and the rational ground of an institution is all that matters to him. The problem with this approach, the approach of the rationalist according to osha, is that the rationalists cannot imagine a politics which do not consist in solving problems. Or a political problem of which there is no rational solution at all. One simply cannot apply rules to political problems, nor can one assume that there are simply correct answers to political problems. These problems are of necessity, practical, and often admit of varied solutions. At this point, we might ask, well, yes, a rationalist certainly is shortsighted when it comes to political thinking, but what does such an analysis have to do with those who wish to restore tradition? Are we not anti rationalists? The type of political thinkers that Oak shot Extols? Maybe at the very end of the first section of his essay, Oak Shot writes the notion of founding a society, whether of individuals or of states. Upon a declaration of the rights of man is a creature of the rationalist brain. So also are national or racial self-determination when elevated into universal principles, the project of the so-called reunion of the Christian churches of open diplomacy, of a single tax, of a civil service whose members have no qualifications other than their personal abilities of a self-consciously planned society, the world's state of HG Wells or anyone else. And the revival of Gaelic as the official language of ire are alike, the progeny of rationalism. And here a key line, the odd generation of rationalism in politics is by sovereign power out of romanticism. Here we see the danger. Any imagined Christian society born out of a romantic yearning for a past age or any idea of an integrated Christian culture that is planned or inorganic runs the risk of falling into rationalism. It is a rationalism formed in the defense of a tradition, but it is a rationalism nonetheless. So in our difficult times, is there any way to direct Catholic imagination such that we avoid this pitfall? I think there is, and it is here where I turn to the psychiatrist turned novelist Walker Percy. As a model for our modern predicament, it seems odd that I would choose an author whose most important intellectual influence was soaring Kierkegaard as a potential remedy to this problem. Kierkegaard famously lambasted Christendom and the state religion of his own Denmark as producers of inauthentic Christianity. He railed against the mass conformity he saw produced both by mass media and mass religion. He argued strenuously for a more pure, internalized Christian practice. Despite the clear virtues of such a position, Walker Percy nonetheless saw the need for a Christianity rooted in community and culture. The primary insight I think that Percy gained from Kierkegaard did not so much involve Kierkegaard's critiques of mass conformity, but rather Kierkegaard's thinking about alienation in the coming crisis. In psychiatry and essay contained in the collection signposts in a strange land. Percy writes, American Psychiatry has almost nothing to say about the great themes that have engaged the existential critics of modern society from Soren Kierkegaard to Gabriel Marcel. The very man whose business is mental health have been silent about the sickness of modern man, his emotional impoverishment, his sense of homelessness in the midst of the very world, which he more than the men of any other time has made over for his own happiness. Percy was concerned with a model of therapeutic practice that focuses on the patient making progress while ignoring the important kiir guardian insight that the natural state of the human person that is one who is ultimately destined for God is one of homeless pilgrim While on earth, Brian Smith explains therapy fails for Percy when it explicitly rejects the notion that we must live with our alienation and the pain it can bring. Percy believes that the key to a reasonable happiness in the present life. Is the ability to learn to be at home in one's homelessness. To my mind, a profound Christian insight. It's precisely Percy's insight, both theological and psychological that makes him the perfect antidote to the rationalism I spoke of earlier. His fundamental insight about the human condition shapes his understanding of community. To quote Smith again, Percy's understanding of the politics of the Wayfarer sets him apart. Community cannot save human beings from alienation, but the right bonds between people can attenuate this feeling, hoping for a community that feels no alienation is as dangerous as retreating from life in one altogether. Thus, Percy's critique of the common attitudes towards community in America. Rested in part on his conviction that too often we ask too much or too little from the places we live, and very rarely live in a mean between extremes of isolation and restless engagement. Americans have an overly romantic notion of what community might be, and because of this search of fugitive perfection, no actual community can quite live up to our expectations. Communities that do balance the polls of isolation and restless engagement regularly appear in Percy's work. First, from the end of my favorite Percy novel, love in the Ruins, the protagonist Tom Moore explains his reasons for remaining in Feliciana Parish. I stayed because it's home and I like its easygoing ways. It's religious confusion, racial hodgepodge, Misty Green Woods, and sleepy bas. People still stop and help strangers lying in ditches having been set upon by thieves or just plain drunk. Good nature usually prevails even between enemies. As the saying goes In Louisiana, you may be a son of a gun, but you're my son of a gun. That's not his actual quote, but the cameras are rolling. You know, the second excerpt comes from my favorite Percy book, lost in the Cosmos. Here Percy describes the community of Lost Cove, Tennessee, a post apocalypse settlement of which Marcus ER is a member. Every Sunday, while Shiloh's wife Jane Smith and his children celebrate mass, Shiloh gathers with assorted misfits on a hilltop and drinks whiskey. The heathens, as they call themselves, begin their usual good natured bickering, mostly about political and agricultural subjects, whether to start a corn co-op. What to do about a rumored Celtic enclave across the old Carolina line. A growing community with a reputation for violence and snake handling. Eventually shyer takes leave of his fellow heathens and their drinking and singing folk songs to 10 to the pig that he is smoking for Sunday dinner. These are not perfect communities. They do not solve the problem of alienation, nor do they bring complete rest to the human beings who inhabit them, but they also do not seek to usurp the role that only God can fill. That is they are not idols. Such imperfect communities of imperfect people are the only habitations fit for human beings who are pilgrims as long as they walk on this earth. These communities are formed out of the necessity of the moment rather than prearranged planning. Such are the only cultures that avoid the pitfalls of rationalism. Born of an overreaching imagination. Thank you.

Introducing Dr Larisey

Speaker 10 19:23

Thank you, father Justin. What an invitation as to how we might cultivate imperfect community. Our next speaker is Dr. Margaret Larisey. Dr. Larisey is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in the greater Chicago area. She received her BA from the University of Notre Dame, where she graduated as valedictorian and then completed her doctorate in clinical psychology at the Institute for Psychological Sciences. Now Divine Mercy University, she subsequently trained as a psycho analyst with the contemporary Freudian Society. She's held teaching positions at the Institute for Psychological Sciences, Mount St. Mary's Seminary and the Pontifical, John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, DC. Thanks, Dr. Larisey.

Church As Mother

Speaker 6 20:28

Thank you Beth and Tom and DMU for this hosting this panel. It's really great to be here. Back at my alma mater. I wanna start with a brief clinical e event and an evocative image that one of my patients shared with me recently and that she gave me permission actually to use here. so not long ago I moved and I took off over a month from working with my patients, which was the longest I'd ever taken off in all my years of practice. And upon starting to meet regularly again, a woman that I'd been working with, for some time in psychoanalysis, she told me that during my absence. She'd been as if hanging onto a gymnast, high bar, clutching it, barely keeping her hold in this poignant image. She was pleading with me, you know, why did you leave me here when I'm at risk of plummeting into an abyss? You know, at any moment, she was letting me know that she'd come to depend on me, that the holding provided by me and the continuity of our work together had become crucial to her sense of security. She was left feeling groundless in my absence, a feature of her inner world that recapitulates profound and chronic trauma that she experienced throughout her early life. We could also observe, however, that the bar is one that belongs to a gymnast who not only hangs but trains to become strong and to perform skillfully on his own from that bar when one doesn't experience a sense of reliability in being held in early in life. A common adaptation is to deny dependence and to try to take hold fully of one's own life, right? To live in psychoanalytic terms. We would say it's an unconscious fantasy of omnipotence, like I'm gonna make the ground on which I stand. It's a treacherous inner terrain. However, without any feeling of solid and trustworthy ground under play, underfoot play and creativity are stifled. Right? You know, it's, you can't express yourself fully because you're always trying to create the ground you walk on. Indeed, what I wanna say here is that it is independent and feeling safe enough to depend that we're free to be creative and to use the full breadth of our imaginative capacity. So in the contribution that follows, I wanna develop this theme in three steps. First, I'll consider the role of the maternal function and the beginning of symbolization of the capacity to symbolize. In early development through the work of the 20th century British psychoanalyst and pediatrician DW Wincott. For him maternal care lays the foundation of mental health. And mental health itself is characterized by the capacity to play and to be creative. In the second step, I'll consider how this developmental reality is a reverberation of the ontological fact that we are upheld in being. And in the third step, I'll discuss how the church's maternal function sustains the human awareness of being upheld, making dependence safe through her ongoing holding. And I'm gonna illustrate this, um, with a literary example, rumor Gods in this house of breed. Okay, so first wincott, it's often recalled that he equipped there's no such thing as a baby. And about this line, he wrote that he meant, of course, that whenever one finds an infant, one finds maternal care. Without maternal care, there would be no infant. So dependent is the infant that it cannot be conceived apart from the mother who provides what he called the facilitating environment needed for development with her. Holding. Holding was very important to wincott by this term. He meant to speak of maternal care as a whole, which includes especially physical holding, but also encompasses all of the rev reliable provision of the baby's needs. Protection from insult attention to all the sensory and other sensitivities of the baby, and the whole routine of care. That will never be the same for any other infant, right? Every mother infant dyad is particular according to the psychoanalyst and the Wincott scholar, Jan. Abram quote, Winnicott proposed. That the core problem for the human being is not primarily psycho sexuality as it was for Freud or, the death instinct or aggression as it was for others. Rather, it is the fact of dependency and subjectivity. Human subjectivity in this paradigm is inscribed with the mother's primary maternal preoccupation. What Wincott termed primary maternal preoccupation is a very special state of mind of a healthy mother who naturally enters into, enters into the state in which she identifies with her vulnerable infant and his needs, or her needs, in which her rhythms become highly attuned to his, and she's highly responsive to those needs. In fact, in his essay on primary maternal preoccupation, he says it would, if it weren't for the fact that she had a baby, we would consider it a kind of craziness to be so preoccupied about any one thing, you know. But he says, this is not a matter of cleverness or intellectual enlightenment on the part of the mother, but of ordinary devotion when a mother cannot or does not enter into this state of mind for whatever reason and good enough holding isn't provided, the infant may experience what Winnekot termed unthinkable anxieties, which he believed to have, but a few varieties going to pieces falling forever, having no relationship to the body, and having no orientation. My patient on the gymnast bar with nothing beneath her was letting me in on her panic stricken experience of being on the cusp of falling forever. According to wincott trauma means the breaking of the continuity of the line of the individual's existence. It's only on a continuity of existing that the sense of self, of feeling real and of being. Can eventually be established as a feature of the individual personality end quote. We could say that the maternal care, that maternal care provides a continuity of the sense of being, and so is the ground out of which the subjective self grows leading to activity that is personal and creative rather than reactive and compliant. So there's not a, a compliance self can develop if you, if we don't have this kind of basis, this kind of ground. It, it's however the case that living in real reality inevitably comes with anxieties, right? We all know them, including separation from the mother and in the tune mother adapts as the child grows, allowing the child to bear frustrations and tolerate them as he is able. In fact, if a mother were to ch anticipate every need of the child, right? And, and meet them before the child, when the child has the capacity to express them, she would deprive him of developing himself and of using his own creativity. Winnekot made much of what he termed the transitional object, the first symbol a child creates, which on one occasion he described. In this way. It's something your child may be clutching onto just now. Perhaps a bit of cloth that once belonged to a cover or was a blanket or mother's hair ribbon. It is a first symbol and it stands for confidence in the Union of Baby and Mother on the experience of the mother's reliability and capacity to know what the baby needs through identification with the baby. I have said this object was created by the baby. We know we will never challenge this, although we also know it was there before the baby created it. He highlights a paradox that's not to be resolved but accepted. The transitional object is not something simply there in the external world, neither is it something solely of the child's making the teddy, the blankie. It's there. It's given. It's ready to be made use of by the child who creates it to have a particular meaning and his creative use of that thing born of the mother's holding allows him to bear the anxiety of being separated from her for Winnicott. However, the transitional phenomena are in the realm of illusion, in in between realm, in between the external and the internal of human experiencing that he considers crucially important to health and to a life worth living. But at bottom, it's not real. He considers all cultural, religious, and artistic experiences and expression to belong to the transitional phenomena. In this paradigm, the real is limited to the externally perceptible within a symbolic ontology. However, reality has an interior depth, right? The symbolic is not illusory. Following Monsignor, Luigi Giani, that depth of reality can be described with the word sign. Giani in his book, the Religious Sense poses this question, what do we call something that is seen and touched, which moves me towards something else When I see and touch it, it's called a sign. The sign is nature's method of drawing us on to something other than itself as a child's self-awareness awakened, which has been given stable ground in his mother's holding. He can make use of things symbolically because I would say they are already ripe for such use. She, the mother herself, is indeed the first sign for her child of the one who created all things. And here I come to my second and brief step on our ontological dependence. Our psychophysical dependence, which is radical early on in human life, is a sign and a reverberation of our nature as contingent beings who depend in every moment. Here again, Giani. In his book, the Religious Sense invites us to consider what it would be like to encounter reality for the first time with our current awareness to be brought into the world. Now, with the awareness that I have as an adult, and he describes the awe and the wonder that the givenness of things would elicit wonder that things are, and a recognition that they are gift, they point then to a giver. He then asks us to turn from the reality around us to ourselves. He says at this moment, if I'm attentive, that is, if I am mature, then I cannot deny that. The greatest and most profound evidence is that I do not make myself, I am not making myself, I do not give myself being, or the reality which I am. I am given. This is the moment of maturity when I discover myself to be dependent upon something else. And then he asks, what word could we use for this something else? And he says this, I can only address it using the word you, you who make me is therefore what religious tradition calls God. It is that which is more than I, more I than myself. It is that by means of which I am end quote, I'm always being given my being. But that being depends on another. Here then is another paradox. Maturity is marked by the recognition of dependence and what's more, the freedom to depend facilitates the freedom to express oneself creatively and autonomously. Like a child who can play now when dependence has be, has been a source of trauma as it was for the pen patient that I, that I spoke of earlier. The world can seem full of threat as if one false move will lead to free falling or at any moment, one might go to pieces. Ani also observes that on our own, even in good enough non-traumatic conditions, maintaining an awareness of our dependence and keeping our human needs and questions open is arduous. Vertiginous, you know, we need a face for this. You and the experience of real arms that do indeed hold us the claim of Christianity is that this chasm is overcome by the God who became flesh. And in this final step, I'll point to how the church, as the continuity of Christ's presence in the world in time, serves the maternal function continuously allowing her members to live in and out of our dependence. In his book, the Motherhood of the Church, Andre DeLoach depicts the distinct paradoxical dynamic of the church's maternity. Whereas in the physical order says, DeLoach the child leaves the womb of his mother and withdrawing from her becomes increasingly independent of her protective guardianship. As he grows, becomes stronger and advances in years, the church brings us forth to the new life she bears by receiving us into her womb. Later he goes on, the more the Christian becomes an adult in Christ, as St. Paul understands this, the more also does the spirit of childhood blossom within him as Jesus understands it, or if you prefer, it is in deepening this childlike spirit that the Christian advances to adulthood penetrating ever deeper, if we can put it in this way, into the womb of his mother. So I'll conclude with a literary example of the church's maternity. As a facilitating environment. This is the Winnicott term, a facilitating environment for creativity, self-development, and healing. So rumor Goddens in this house of breed is the story of Philippe Talbot, a highly accomplished woman in her early forties, living in mid 20th century England, who enters a Benedictine monastery at breed. Surprisingly, to many who know her, we follow the powerful and gifted Philippa Through her journey from self-reliant woman of the world to dependent child of the church, she enters breed secretly haunted by the traumatic loss of a young son years prior. The maternal life of the monastery provides the buffering she needs so that she doesn't have to contend with more than she's capable of at the time. This is very important with trauma, not to have to face it so much that you get overwhelmed by it, right? And yet in time she is indeed asked and helped to face and metabolize this traumatic loss. Much of the novel, however, depicts the ordinary of monastic life. Squabbles and forgiveness is among nuns. The passing of days and years in a very particular place. The liturgical seasons and the natural seasons all coming and going through time. And yet in the midst of what is in many ways utterly commonplace and repetitive is the extraordinary. And isn't this also the case with mothering? It's the most ordinary thing. We all have mothers and as Winnicott would, would, would tell us any mental health we have, we have a mother to thank for it. And yet it is most extraordinary if we learn to observe mothers and babies and pay close attention. There's a whole world going on between them, you know, which actually mothers themselves often aren't self-reflective about and frankly, need andt be here. I'll point to two, um, to finish to two specific expressions of the church's maternity. Are clearly depicted by God. In fact, there are others. The, the book is very rich in this sense, but I'll point it to the communal life and the rhythm of the liturgical year. There's a moment early on when Philippa is incomplete, complete distress. She's still a novice. She's desperate to escape. She's faning having a, a cigarette and a drink, which were very hard for her to give up. Upon entering the monastery, it's the last thing she does before going into those gates. so she's walking around. Dame Catherine sees her and walks alongside her. Now, this is a very different woman with an altogether different history, but she's completely attuned to Philippa. She's right away able to identify with, with what she's going through. She, she knows in herself this state of mind and being actually, while very different from her, she walks alongside her. She demands nothing of her. She takes her by the arm and she talks to her. Philippa is calmed like a baby in the firm, and gentle arms of her mother. Her torments stop and shortly thereafter, she's able to approach her clothing in the habit. Later she asked Aim Catherine what did what she did that night, and the latter says, I nothing. You had already done it. I was there. That's all. That is what a community means. This conveys something of what Winnekot means by a facilitating environment. It allows the one who is developing to grow, to change, to heal according to her own capacities and dispositions. You had already done it. The text goes on this way. Philippa remembered that strong arm under hers as they paced and Dame Catherine had talked, not of anything in particular, but of calm, usual things of her father who was a country doctor of the spring and of the moon, yet all the time below it flowing strongly steadily was that current of help, something extraordinary cloaked in the most ordinary garment. The community is clearly guided by the Abes and as the, as the novel goes on her maternity, uh, it is, you see how sensitive it is to the needs of, of different sisters, you know, the needs and the capacities. But the maternal function lives not only in her person, but in the community as a whole. And we see that each one of that, these very different women holds one another. You know, and equally how each one makes up the maternity of the community as a whole. And, and this actually, um, gets to another insight that, that de Leach talks about on the maternity of the church, that all of the members participate in her maternity because it is the church as a whole. Who is mother second, the liturgy. Early on we hear the assistant novice mistress telling a group of aspirants and novices. Don't you see? It's like a pageant. Our cardinal has said that the liturgy entertains as well as feeds us. We're not angels, but humans. And human nature is made so that it needs variety. The church is like a wise mother who has given us this great cycle of the liturgical year with its different words and colors. You'll see how you will learn to welcome the feast stays and saint stays as they come round each with a different story. And as it were a different aspect. Godden invites us into the color and the splendor of the liturgical rhythm, which entwines with the natural seasons and the fruits and products of, of the earth at breed. As Philippa writes to her friend, the year of prayer of liturgy revolving within the natural year, a mother's pattern with her young child is full of re repetition, which could of course become monotonous. I mean, mom, you know, like the liturgy can become for us, mothering can become monotonous, right? but the proto conversations of mothers and their infants are splendid in their repetition, affectionate full of meaning. Ultimately, these we see what we see happen. What Winnekot describes when he writes. An environment that holds the baby well. Enough results in a continuity of existence that becomes a sense of existing, a sense of self, and eventually results in autonomy in the womb of the church and the monastery of breed. Philippe Talbot experiences a continuity of, of existing such that she comes to an autonomy that paradoxically is ever more dependent, which is a bomb to her traumatic loss and the antidote to years of self-reliance, which restores her own maternity in her path to childhood and allows her natural authorit. She actually is a natural leader to flourish, springing ultimately from who she is when Dame Philippa is serving as the assistant novice mistress. Dame Claire was the novice mistress at the time. Tells the Abby mother, it is Dame Philippa who should be over me, not I over her. Anything else is ridiculous. When she's questioned about this, she simply says it is evident, quote, not for anything she does. But because she is, is Dame Philippa, she, she is more herself analogously on a natural plane. I hope for my patient and for all my patients in some way that our work together and our work together, she can learn that it is safe to depend that in the holding, provided she can use her own creativity toward healing, developing with me the wonderful, rich images. This is just one, she's such a rich mind actually. this dear patient of mine has, she can symbolize previously unthinkable anxieties such that in time she too will feel solid ground beneath her feet. Holding her up ongoingly, giving her the experience of a continuity of being such that she can be herself. And allowing her to walk to sleep, to imagine, and to play on and outta that good and given ground. Thanks

Introducing Mark Gehrig

Speaker 10 41:53

Dr. Larisey. Thank you. What an invitation to see our vulnerability, our dependency, not as a threat, but as an invitation into our need for communion. Alright, our final paper today will be offered by Dr. Mark Gehrig. Dr. Gehrig is a professor of counseling at Divine Mercy University and he's a clinical mental health counselor in Indiana, as well as a licensed psychologist in Michigan. His professional career has alternated between full-time clinical practice and graduate education. He's been honored by the Indiana Mental Health. Coalition as the counselor of the year, as well as American Mental Health Counselors, counselor Educator of the Year. He's the author of Foundations in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, a book that I engaged as a student of mental health counseling and his current research interests include the role of the intellectual virtues in the practice of professional counseling, the professional identity of clinical mental health counselors, and the application of wellness interventions in the remediation of mental illness. He presently resides not too far from us in Marion, Indiana with his wife Michelle and Brimley, their black lab. Thanks Dr. Gehrig.

Unpacking Client Metaphors

Playful Breakthroughs

Speaker 7 43:27

Always have to mention Brimley or Black Lab. Very much of a member of our family. Into about everything we do. Well, it's a very much a pleasure to be a part of this panel and to briefly speak to you this morning on the role of metaphor and imagination in facilitating therapeutic change from a constructivist perspective, our acquired knowledge and sense of reality goes beyond the incoming data sensed and perceived by perceiving similarities and differences between ongoing experiences and stored memories, which includes words sometimes in the form of labels and symbols and imagery. Persons bring understanding, coherence, and a sense of order to the way things are. It's from this vantage that metaphor and imagination are considered by contemporary cognitive scientists and mental health professionals to be much more. Then figurative speech or literary device. These can be viewed as active cognitive processes that occur as the mind, the context of the person and ongoing experience interact. Lake Hoffman Johnson View metaphor simply is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Herein lies the mystery though of asserting something to be what it is not. For example, a person might state they are hitting their heads against the brick wall as a creative process metaphor activates what might be widely separated and unassociated concepts or images and joins them together in novel or non formative ways that yields non literal. Interpretations. Counselors use the term metaphors synonymously, uh, in reference to varied uses of figurative language, storytelling, assignment of specific tasks. The creation or the use of objects in therapy or artistic creations can also be used metaphorically to promote new ways of understanding and experiencing. What these all have in common is that one thing is understood in terms of another thing, and I, in the process of doing, counseling, I think we're very remiss to allow the client to share a metaphor. In discussing their presenting situation or experience and simply let it pass because of the fullness of information, which allows us to really gain insight into the experience. So much of what we do in counseling and use of metaphors when it's a client generated metaphor is to unpack it, to sit with the client. It's been customary to, uh, analyze the components of metaphor using the terms tenor vehicle, and ground Tenor refers to the subject of the metaphor and its intended, meaning the vehicle refers to the language used to describe the tenor. Finally, the ground has to do with the relationship between the tenor and the vehicle. We might think of the vehicle as holding the tenor and transporting it along the ground from one, one location or context to another. Richards also recognized the degrees of tension, that one's experience of metaphors, that can be a consequence of the relative incompatibility between the tenor and the vehicle. To say that my head's, my head is in the clouds, is patently false in the literal sense. Yet it works by taking two concepts not normally associated together, juxtaposing them in meaningful ways because of a similarity that exist in some way between them. Thus, in the above example, my head is the tenor clouds or the vehicle, and the uniqueness of a good metaphor is that the novelty of the non-literal expression engages our imagination. Which tends to make the deciphering and the unpacking of the metaphor a creative cognitive process and a more memorable experience. Now, metaphors are frequently generated by clients, and we used them in a variety source of ways. I'm going to just go through several examples here. For example, a client might describe their presenting problem or symptoms through metaphor. In describing, for example, their experience of anxiety. The client may say, my stomach is tied up in knots. In describing the impact of receiving unexpected news of a close friend's suicide, a client might state it hit me just like I was blown away by a tornado. In these instances, clients rely on metaphorical expressions to more accurately. Describe the emotions and the experience that are, that they're actually, going through in the moment, but that are too difficult or complex to identify and describe directly. It's also possible that client displayed symptoms might function as metaphors underlying relational dynamics. For example, a former client presented with elective mutism. She moved from home into her apartment and at around three months after following this transition, she found herself unable to produce vocal sounds or verbally communicate. When she returned home to visit her parents, the loss of her voice served as a metaphor and expressed how growing up, she had never felt heard by her father. For client generated metaphors to be used a clinical advantage, the counselor must first recognize that the word phrase image is metaphoric. Duh. once identified, the counselor must decide whether to overtly acknowledge the metaphoric expression and make use of it. Let it pass or mentally store it for later retrieval. Finally, if the counselor chooses to use it, the counselor must decide specifically how to do so. Doing so might be as simple as to repeat the phrase or the word with added inflection. For example, the breakup has shattered your world. Doing so allows you invites the client to elaborate on the intended meaning. The counselor can paraphrase the statement, reflect associated effect. Ask open ended questions to better understand the nature of the client's intent, enabling the client to elaborate accent and expand on the meaning of the metaphor. For example, the client might say, when I am asked to speak in front of a large group of people, I feel like such a mouse. The counselor might respond Well. When I think of a mouse, I think of a small, very timid, four-legged critter that runs and hides in corners, crawls into holes, and occasionally gets caught in traps. And after all, who'd wanna listen to what a mouse has to say. Anyway, drawing out such unstated, metaphoric features allows for comparisons and implications of the metaphor to the client's current life situation to be identified. Doing so facilitates, among other things, empathic understanding communicates a with. With the client and such, metaphors also facilitate a therapeutic conversation that parallels the social phobia, but at a safe distance from the presenting problem. This can ease tension and resistance often experienced by clients when discussing symptoms. Directly. Reframing can also be viewed, viewed as a metaphorical process. For example, a client in describing early childhood experiences with her parents that, noted that she was always told that she was stubborn, hard to deal with, and this had been internalized into her negative self schema. But then she went on to provide other evidence, that seemed to run contrary to this conclusion that she had made about herself. The council reframed this by saying, you are not a stubborn mule. You are a bulldog. Doing so help the be the client to begin to view self in, not in terms of a deficit, but rather as a characteristic of tenacity, a positive characteristic, and a source of resilience. And thus, through unpacking and working with this different view of self, she was able to view self differently. Counselors might also create novel metaphors for therapeutic purposes to bypass sensitive topics of client that, or client resistance. For example, if a couple is experiencing, difficulties or conflict in sexual relationships, but they don't want to talk about it. The counselor might move to an aspect of the couple's lived experience that is analogous in some ways, the sexual experience. In other words, it's running parallel, but, and then suggest changing the meta, you know, the meta metaphorical, perspective and not the sexual relations directly. much of this work draws on, gork of Mill Erickson, Jay Haley. for example, the, you know, this, this couple is experiencing difficult and sexual relationships. But now I wanted to talk about, the counselor might bring up the whole idea of eating dinner together and drawing out how differences are dealt with, when they're going out to, to eat. you know, for example, you have appetizers before you have the main course. diving into the meat and potatoes immediately having a quiet, leisurely dining experience or eating in a rush to get it open and move on to the next activity, or how much spice is desired in your food. The metaphor, again, is juxtaposed, not interpreted and explained. This creates a therapeutic tension, if you will, that enables a processing, even neurologically, you know, that, that runs, runs parallel. In a similar ma manner, counselors might construct an imaginary object that runs parallel to the presenting problem or dynamic displayed by the client system. For example, the parents of a 13-year-old son sought family therapy, and specifically we were doing strategic family therapy. I should note. That, um, sometimes times use strategic family therapy when working with highly difficult family systems, often makes use of co-therapy and supervisors behind a one-way mirror. This boy, their, their child presented with significant oppositional antisocial behaviors, incorrigibility and substance abuse. He had been through, uh, inpatient substance abuse, treat inpatient facilities two times and was at risk for heading back in for a third inpatient admission. Dysfunctional patterns of communication were displayed from the start of the first session as the parents unloaded on their young teen, to which, uh, the teen responded with counter attacks and characteristic flippancy. my co-therapist and I were no more than six minutes into the session when my clinical supervisor called in from behind the one way mirrors. I pick up the phone. We didn't have bugs. We had the old, you know, telephones. I get up my chair, pick up the phone, and I hear the familiar raspy voice of my clinical supervisor. say, who says, we have here a family who are therapy junkies. They know what you are going to say before you say it. We need to give them a different experience, one that is unexpected. So this is what I want you to say. It gets better. Tell them that the supervisory team behind the one way mirror has already determined the nature of the problem. Tell them in all seriousness that their child has been smitten by the puberty ferry, the puberty ferry hovers above the city of Toledo and swoops down and infects vulnerable young teenagers. The primary indicator of this condition is that the teen believes that their parents have no brains, when in fact, in, in fact, the puberty fairy has sucked out the brains of the teen emphasize that this is a chronic, very serious condition and can sometimes be fatal click. I return to my seat, glancing at my co-therapist, I suspect doing the char characteristic, Gary roll of the eyes. So had, but she had no idea what was coming. So I proceeded with all seriousness and appropriate. Level of intensity to break the news of this discovery to the family in an instant, the intense anger and finger pointing, blame being directed towards the sun ceased as the parrots directed their energies towards us, the therapeutic team. They were rather dumbfounded and were now in a place of therapeutic uncertainty. Suddenly, they were now attempting to persuade us that 13 in fact had a brain, to which we simply responded. Sadly, we knew that was not the case. The Paris continued to try to persuade us, noting that he had the capacity to be responsible. I stated, well, we truly wish that these statements could be absorbed by their son, but he will not hear or take such statements seriously because he believes you have no brain. Well, this dialogue continued on pretty much for the remainder of the first session. in short, and, and there, there's, there's much, you know, more we could talk about here. But in short, by creating this metaphoric object, the puberty fairy, we disrupted the dysfunctional pattern of family interaction. And on a side note, you know, we left being very concerned about them predicting that things usually get worse before they get better. And in fact, the next session they come back in, they're laughing and altogether and say, you know, this is really, we had a pretty good week. and so we turned the corner by altering the family dynamic and then was able to work on, on the, really the pre, the more clinical issue. The use of the paradoxical statements, you know, reinforced the positive dialogue as a team was now hearing the parents defending and supporting him to the counselors. And I suspect he had not heard this sort of parental support in a very long time. Sometimes metaphors arise quite naturally and unexpectedly. For example, I worked with another 13-year-old boy with oppositional disorder, who refused. He was just oppositional at home, oppositional and you know, in school. And of course here he is sitting in my therapy room, cross looking the floor. We went three sessions and he didn't say a word. upon learning from his parents that he had an interest in baseball, I invited him to bring his ball, glove and baseball. I said I'd bring mine and we'd go out and play a game of burnout. And I didn't even know what game of burnout. Okay, it's, we used to play it, you know, as, as kids where it's basically a game of catch. But you try to throw the ball as hard as you can, you know, to sting the other. And eventually the person, one person drops out, says, okay, that's enough. Okay. So he brings his ball glove. I bring my Mickey vintage Mickey mantle glove. And so we're winging the ball back and forth. And about a couple minutes into this game, he, he wings a good fast ball. And in to pre protect the palm of my hand, I catch in the pocket, but it blows the pocket of my glove right out the ball just rolls behind me and across the street. He bursts out laughing. I burst out laughing. He was just totally absurd. That broke the ice. We joined each other, and he began to see, you know, through this metaphorical incident, if you will. that, he was able to give power struggles of a humorous twist and to see authority figures in a different, more positive light. So the role of metaphor, you know, if the vehicle carries the meaning of tenor, imagination is often at the wheel driving the vehicle by sitting on the border between intuitive and rational thought and action. Imagination serves as a means by which the vehicle transports the meaning of the tenor. Thus, we see imagination as a primary cognitive process that facilitates movement from what is known to what is seemingly illogical, unknown, or beyond knowing. It enables clients to grapple with and explore the nature of the metaphor. Through cognitive imagination, humans possess a mental capacity to move beyond their temporal spa. Bodily constraints. and in addition, evolutionary evolutionary psychologists generally accept that humans have developed a transcendental imagination, enabling to a sense not only self-awareness, but allowing persons to, in seeking to understand themselves, but also to self transcend, to empathize with others, and imagine things that are just physically impossible and beyond them. Imagination is just conceptualized then is fundamental to therapy, to the process of therapy. The depressed client might express repetitive thoughts such as, I am worthless. I have no future, no one's there for me. The negative appraisal of self and others in the world is rooted in a cognitive process of imagination that enables them to jump to conclusions based on a restricted view of supporting evidence. Therapeutic approaches such as cognitive therapy or acceptance and commitment therapy involve re-imagining of self, the presenting problems, also the world. One conclusion, I just wanna note that I find it very fascinating to consider from a Catholic view of the person, the fundamental role of metaphor and imagination in our compa, in our capacity to make sense out of the way things are fundamental premises of the Catholic meta model of the person is communicated by vitz, nordling, and Titus, synthesize psychology, theology and western philosophy. And they identify several fundamental premises among these. God exists and we are created by him and in his image. Created being created in his image. We share in his attributes, though their expression is influenced by a fallen nature. These attributes include sensory, perceptual capacities created to be in relationship with others, rationality, emotionality, and volition and free will. For our purposes here, what is particularly intriguing is that if there is a God, if we were created by God to glorify him, and if human flourishing involves first and foremost knowing and loving God, then it naturally follows that imagination and metaphor are necessary. Human cognitive capacities. The task of knowing and loving God involves developing a relationship with the one who is both known and yet beyond knowing He's a being in the incarnation yet being. The alpha, the omega through him, through whom all things were made. It's difficult to wrap our arms around qualities of the divine, such as infinity, timelessness, eternity, perfect love, perfect beauty, the great I am in our attempt to know God, who is both in us, with us. Yet beyond us, we are provided with the cognitive tools of imagination metaphor to grasp an understanding of the greatness and awesomeness of God, and consequently to know and to love him. I suggest that is through the gifts of imagination and metaphor, that we are provided a means to encounter and experience God, and that it is therefore no accident. That imagination and metaphor are fundamental cognitive processes and useful in facilitating behavioral change and human flourishing. Thank you.

Q and A

Speaker 10 1:06:49

Thanks Dr. Gehrig. Boy, what insight into, uh, therapeutic practice? It certainly stirs my imagination for how to engage metaphor with some of my family members. Friends, we have until 10 15 for questions, so I'd love to open it to the floor for any questions that you all might have. Yeah,

Speaker 9 1:07:14

I think this is, if you into the mic. Thank you.

Speaker 4 1:07:19

Uh, this probably primarily for Margaret, but I think it overlaps in various ways that, uh, when do you know Therapy's done? Because the, the problem with, uh, having the mother in relationship as a model that makes sense. If they quit. Somebody who, uh, for whom therapy is interminable failed and therefore you failed as a therapist with them. So it, I I, I'm worried about that within this kind of a model.

Speaker 6 1:07:56

Yeah. No, no, no. It's a really good question, especially for psychoanalyst.'cause it's a long-term form of treatment. Right. In fact, Winnekot said at a certain point, we want our patients to end, to be able to go on living, like the creativity that they, they come to be able to express. You know, we, we want them to be able to go on with life and to express that in life, not in treatment, you know? But I mean, if you think about it from a developmental perspective, the role of the mother changes and she, you know, becomes part of the inner world. She's part of our inner worlds. Right? And so, I mean, from a psychoanalytic point of view, in this turn, when Aian turned to the primary object in maternal relationship, you know. It would be, you know, the thought like, like thinking of this patient of mine, yes, it will be a long-term work, but the, the aim is that that developed need gets met so that she actually internalizes a good object. Right. that's a psychoanalytic term, right? That she has a, a good, stable inner object. That our work, that I can become that internally for her through our work and that she doesn't need to keep meeting with me. You know, I mean, the point is not that she keep meeting with me, you know? Um, so that's the, but, but, you know, and, and that, how do you know that that's done? I mean, that's a dialogue between us to see and to see the, um, you know, the, the capacity. I mean that when our work is done, for example, not meeting with me won't leave her with the sense that she's hanging from the high bar. You know what I mean? I mean, so, you know, but, but it, it is a really good question that a lot could go in a lot of directions. But that's what I would say for now. Yeah.

Speaker 10 1:09:28

Thanks. Yes. Hi. Thank you. My question's mostly for Dr. Gehrig. psychotherapy can often be about challenging the patient's beliefs about themselves, about the world, right? So I'm wondering if you would say that with these metaphors, the, the goal here is to, is to show that maybe their perception of, of something is incorrect. And, and is that why we're expanding on these metaphors? Like you brought up the, the example from your practice and, and how you kind of shocked the family with that, and now they're, they're on the, they're on the offense. Is that kind of the goal there?

Speaker 7 1:10:06

In some ways it, it can be, you know, metaphors can be used for so many different ways. You know, obviously, I, I, it's usually not very successful to tell the client, you know, you need to change your thinking, you know? yeah. So, so I think what metaphor does, when, when done skillfully is you pick up on the language and the metaphor is used by the client, again, that are running somewhat parallel. And that can be used for the service of therapy and to talk about the issue in a way that is, that bypasses the resistance that, builds upon really what PJ called, you know, similar, you know, accommodation and assimilation in order to adapt schemes. And, and I think really that's how I see metaphor oftentimes working, you know, through a reframing or an understanding of their situation as this. And, and oftentimes, you know, I think in my use of metaphor more times than not, allow them to connect the dots. Does that.

Speaker 10 1:11:15

Yeah. Yeah. So instead of saying, Hey, you should think this way, kind of getting them to figure it out on their own. Makes sense. Yeah.

Speaker 7 1:11:22

Yeah. Now, admittedly, there's some forms of therapy that will go that route and it'll be very, yeah. This is not one of those approaches. You're welcome.

Speaker 10 1:11:33

If I could ask a question of our panelists, so you offer a distinct anthropology of the person, but nowadays we tend to not see the needs of another. Oftentimes in a good light, for instance, how often do we hear a language of, gosh, this person presents a negative impact on my life, especially in relationship to my mental health. We've heard it spoken of, of like, this person is toxic to me, whether it's a family member or someone in one's community, it could be someone living with addiction or serious mental illness, even. So I perceive, especially in your remarks, Dr. Larci, and for you Father Brophy, that you're inviting us to see the person through another light. So for those of us who are lay men and women, we aren't psych psychologists. How might we begin a process of maybe engaging the imagination to see another person anew? You know, is it appropriate to see another person as, as toxic or, or harmful to me and my mental health? Or are we instead asked to maybe see them differently, to engage with them differently?

Speaker 6 1:12:50

yeah, I mean, I, someone may be toxic. I, I don't know. I mean, into me, you know, I mean, so I don't think there's a, I don't think there's a, I think we can hold together two things, opening ourselves to trying to see. What is the other expressing because symptoms and, and negative patterns, they have meanings. I think this is something always to hold in mind, you know? Um, actually it came, you know, even like in what Mark said about, what was it? I, I had this thought while you were speaking about how symptoms are symbolic expressions, right? The mute, you know? Okay. So every symptom, you know, addiction, it hasn't, there's a meaning we are creatures that express meaning we have me. So things that seem meaningless, ways of acting that can just seem so destructive. There's something that it's expressing. So I think we can hold these two things in mind. This might be actually harming me, so I might need some distance from this person, right? But I can, in opening my, my mind and my heart to the other can have really the question, what is this expressing? What is the meaning of this? and there is, there is a meaning. I mean, I think that that's also a premise of psychoanalytic thought is that, Symptom expression is meaningful and it's, and, and trying to understand that meaning, but it might not be the role, you know, to, to sort of sort it all out for a family member. I mean, you know, so it depends. I mean, how you live that in relationship I think can vary widely, but I think we can dispose ourselves to trying to, um, open to the pot, to the prospect of the, the meaningfulness of the expression. Yeah, that's,

Speaker 3 1:14:17

yeah. I don't want to deny that. yeah, of course people are toxic and sometimes even abusive. and it may be important for me or somebody else to be at or remove from that person. But I guess the one thing I would keep in mind is that in my own way, by my, I mean all of us, I'm toxic too. and I require the death of Jesus Christ for my own salvation, just as this other person does. And so in this regard, we're on the same plane.

Wrap Up

Speaker 10 1:14:47

Thank you friends with that. We're at time. So, Tom, yeah. Any final. Please come on.

Speaker 2 1:14:58

So a lot of the, uh, the insights that you heard today are encapsulated in the foundational text that we use at Divine Mercy that Beth and, uh, Margaret, uses students. And that Mark teaches from, it's called the Catholic Christian Meta Model of the person. And we're actually giving, giving it away for, uh, free, what is it? Free will donation. It's in the, uh, publications hall. And I think it's really, it's, it's making a very big splash because what's it, it's proposing is that there is this Catholic approach to the social sciences that can replace this sort of reductionistic view. Margaret put on a very great example of how this is done and'cause we approach it from a philosophical, theological, and psychological. the human person. So the idea that a child is dependent on her mothers the same way that all created beings are dependent on God, and this triple vision of the person is used to reinforce and to help therapy and the idea of the human person. So if you have a chance to come to the publisher's Hall, I would love to tell you more about it and, uh, just wish you all a beautiful rest of the day.