GABRIELA OSORIO VILLASEÑOR PSY. D. WWW.PSICOTERAPIACATOLICA.COM 7 Catholic psychotherapy In my personal and work experience, I came across so many professionals from different therapeutic schools. In many of them it was evident that there was little professional vocation and a purely economic interest in their visits; almost all of them also maintained that faith should not interfere in the least with their professional practice. John Paul II would surely disagree...in his encyclical Fides et Ratio he wrote, "Faith and reason are like the two wings by which the human spirit rises toward the contemplation of truth." I, Gabriela Osorio on the other hand, partly as a result of rather traumatic family events that have profoundly changed me, felt very strongly within me the need to unite my profession and my thinking, integrating my true and non-negotiable Catholic faith into my psychotherapy techniques. The adventure began with the birth of my website www.psicoterapiacatolica.com (one t, not a mistake as I am a family psychotherapist in Mexico), later discovering that there are many psychologists and associations all over the world who follow this line and help patients with their own "scientifically inaccurate" psychological tools. In my very humble opinion, the starting point of any form of psychological therapy should be a phrase from St. Augustine found in his magnum opus "The Confessions": "You made us for yourself O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." Man possesses an inherent desire for goodness and happiness, which can never be fully satisfied without God. We Catholic psychologists cannot think of limiting our intervention exclusively to techniques for the exploration of the unconscious (Freud) and defense mechanisms (Anna Freud), analysis of attachment type (Bowlby), modification of thoughts to change emotions (Albert Ellis), search for stimuli to induce or condition desired behaviors (John Watson and other behaviorists), existential analysis (Viktor Frankl), or various problem solving or motivation techniques. Nor can we think that the main and ultimate goal of our work is mere personal gain (from our point of view), and only the self-realization of the person, the fulfillment of one's goals and dreams as Abraham Maslow stated in his famous pyramid of needs (from the patient's point of view). Of course, that too-but not only that! Any form of therapy that seeks mental well-being and happiness for patients cannot be in conflict with either man's ultimate purpose, that is, his Eternal Life, or with the Divine Design that our "Chief" has designed for us. The Catholic psychologist should help people discover not only "who I am" or "how I want to be," but more importantly "who I am called to be," a much deeper and more complex question that is answered only in the discovery of one's vocation, seen as a Divine call.
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