GABRIELA OSORIO VILLASEÑOR PSY. D. WWW.PSICOTERAPIACATOLICA.COM 6 And then there is he, the most famous psychologist on the planet whom everyone in the world knows, no matter how layman he may be of the subject: he is the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, who was an avowed atheist, so much so that he openly told his colleague Renè Laforgue that religion, and the Catholic Church in particular, was his greatest enemy. Psychology has developed over the years, however, without ever acknowledging the two true fathers of the discipline, namely Aristotle (4th century B.C.) and St. Thomas Aquinas (13th century A.D.). Indeed, in science, in the world and even in the Church itself there is a general trend toward a progressive modernism that increasingly disavows and rejects tradition. Aristotle, in his work "On the Soul," focuses on its definition, analyzes its nature and describes its functioning; Aristotelian "psycho-philosophy" would later be perfected by the work of St. Thomas Aquinas, the first real author of a psychotherapy manual, namely the second part of his "Summa Theologica," in which he states that man is the substantial unity of soul and body, that is, "an embodied spirit" (as Father Ramòn Lucas Lucas writes). In its early days, therefore, psychology began as the "science of the soul." After all, etymologically the terms psychology and psychotherapy are derived from the Greek terms psyché (ψυχή) meaning spirit, breath, soul, and not "physical mind" or "capacity for certain brain functions" as is often believed. Let us, therefore, reappropriate our origins without disowning tradition: we are not only therapists and scholars of the mind, but also.... drum roll... doctors of the soul! Unfortunately, instead, almost all psychologists today are avowed atheists, or if they are not, they do not integrate their faith into their professional practice, whether out of fear, fear of lack of professionalism, or because in today's post-Christian society declaring oneself Catholic has almost become something to be ashamed of, especially among health professionals. Many Italian psychologists even believe (erroneously) that declaring themselves believers constitutes a violation of the code of ethics, which in Article 4 (Principle of respect and secularism) says "[...] Recognize individual, gender and cultural differences, promote inclusiveness, respect opinions and beliefs and refrain from imposing their own system of values." But "imposing one's own system of values," means anything but hiding, or worse yet, denying one's own religious thought, or avoiding proposing (a decidedly different verb from imposing...) with politeness, politeness, absolute respect and tolerance of diversity of thought, a Catholic "reading" to the various issues that gradually arise. "Imposing one's own value system" does not even mean declaring oneself an atheist and denying the spiritual and transcendent component of man, limiting oneself exclusively to standard approaches or techniques well known in the literature.
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