How Important Is It To Choose A Catholic/Christian Therapist?

Episode 125   

In this episode of our current series, I delve into the topic of whether choosing a therapist or spiritual director of the same faith, specifically Christian or Catholic, is crucial for one's journey towards interior integration. How important is a therapist’s faith in their effectiveness for our interior journey and how much difference would having a Christian/Catholic therapist make vs one who doesn’t share our faith?

In this video I unpack the subconscious assumptions we have about Christian/Catholic therapists and systematically explain why a therapist’s professional competence and ability to offer a safe, judgment-free space for healing is much more important than their professed faith in helping us in our interior integration journey.

Watch this recording on YouTube.

Follow me on my Instagram account @animann for more material on the integration journey and subscribe to my monthly reflections on Begin Again.

CHAPTER MARKERS
(00:00:00) - Introduction
(00:00:48) - The Importance of Choosing the Right Therapist
(00:02:03) - Choosing a Catholic / Christian Therapist
(00:03:38) - The Significance of a Therapist's Faith
(00:13:33) - Why Professional Competence Outweighs Faith in Therapy
(00:19:23) - Understanding What 'Catholic Therapist' Really Means
(00:26:36) - The Impact of Professional Competence and Integrity
(00:29:43) - Navigating Therapy with Faith and Emotional Healing
(00:31:44) - The Importance of Choosing the Right Therapist
(00:32:26) - Personal Responsibility in Therapy and Integration
(00:43:56) - The Role of a Therapist's Faith
(00:57:06) - Conclusion

TRANSCRIPT
Available here.

REFLECTION PROMPT
After listening to my sharing, how do you feel? Do you still think that a counsellor or therapist of the same faith is important? Why do you feel this way? If you have been for counselling or therapy, what was your experience like? Was it a safe space for you? If you're looking to start your counselling journey, what do you look for in a counsellor or therapist?

Transcript

EPISODE 125 | HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO CHOOSE A CATHOLIC OR CHRISTIAN THERAPIST?

[00:00:00] We remember it is still ultimately our responsibility to effectively discern and take action for our integration journey, especially the integrating part, right? That's why this is so important. Then, whether or not you have a Catholic or Christian therapist, you will realize that it doesn't make that much difference. It doesn't take away the work that you need to do. 

[00:00:19] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:00:48] EXPLORING THE IMPORTANCE OF CHOOSING THE RIGHT THERAPIST
Hello, good morning again. Okay, so, today's sharing is going to be the fourth in a series about discerning and choosing spiritual director and therapist as resources for our interior integration journey. So, the first of the series, I did a Live, I did a sharing about how can you tell or some signs that may indicate that it's time for you to change a spiritual director or to change a therapist.

[00:01:24] And then the second in the series, I talked about five considerations to consider to keep in mind when you're choosing or deciding to choose a spiritual director. And then the third in the series, in yesterday's Live, I added on to the five considerations in choosing the spiritual director, four more considerations you need to keep in mind when you are discerning and choosing a therapist, right?

[00:01:47] So, I went into quite some detail, the hope is to offer you perspectives that you didn't expect think of before. And these are all important perspectives. So, for you to be able to choose a good fit whether it's a spiritual director or a therapist. 

[00:02:03] CHOOSING A CATHOLIC OR CHRISTIAN THERAPIST
So, yesterday when I did yesterday's Live, I mentioned that there is one other topic related to choosing a therapist that I was going to keep as a separate Live and that is today's topic on is it important to choose a Christian or Catholic therapist. 

[00:02:20] Now, I wanted to do this topic because it comes up a lot in my experience and my journeying with people. Okay, what I mean by it comes up a lot, it's not that people ask me this question. It's more that I find that, I suppose in, you know, in the milieu that I'm in, you know, mostly Catholic and Christians, especially Catholic who are looking to deepen their interior journey, their integration journey. Kind of like the first thing they ask is, "can you recommend a Catholic counsellor" or "can you recommend a Catholic therapist"? 

[00:02:53] So, yesterday I did a kind of like a poll on the Instagram and I asked, is your therapist's faith an important factor for you, right? So, is it important that your therapist shares your faith like Catholic or Christian?

[00:03:08] And an overwhelming 89% voted yes, and only 11 percent said no, that the therapist's faith is not an important factor for them when they're choosing a therapist. Right, so, this is not surprising. It's not surprising to me because like I said in my experience, by and large, when somebody who is Catholic asks for recommendation for a therapist, it's very, very often that it's like, oh, do you have a Catholic, a good Catholic counsellor, a good Catholic therapist to recommend? 

[00:03:38] UNPACKING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A THERAPIST'S FAITH
Right, so, I want to unpack this a little more to help us think about this in a more all-encompassing manner, right? I want to invite us to kind of look beneath this concern or care that we have, that we want to have a Christian or Catholic therapist.

[00:03:57] I think for a lot of us, it's, it's so much a part of us. So, what it tells me that so many people want to look for a Catholic therapist or at least a Christian or Catholic therapist is that you take your faith seriously. It's a big part of your life. And of course, we know instinctively that when we are opening up about the areas of our struggle, that we look at our struggles also through the lens of faith.

[00:04:22] And I think maybe, you know, we have this instinct that it's going to be a lot harder maybe to communicate this if the therapist that I'm seeing doesn't share the same understanding or doesn't share the same context that I am in. Like if they don't understand how important my faith is, if they don't understand how important my relationship with God is, you know, maybe it would be harder to have a mutual understanding.

[00:04:43] Maybe your concern, like those of you who would like to choose a Catholic Christian therapist, your concern may be, maybe I won't really be understood, right. And maybe there's also some concern that I don't know if they will give me advice or, you know, kind of like in the therapeutic setting, that may conflict with my faith.

[00:05:00] Maybe that could be a concern for some of us who take our faith seriously, right. So, all these are valid concerns and I really hear them. I honour them. I share them as in, I know, in this whole journey, that I've been in, I shared all these concerns. At the same time, through my experience in working with spiritual directors and counsellors and therapists myself, and in observing other people's journey whom I accompany, there's arisen certain things that we don't probably think of, but they're very important as considerations.

[00:05:31] So, I'm going to share this in this Live today. What I'm going to do is I will go through kind of like five points to keep in mind when we unpack this question. Is it important to choose a Catholic therapist, okay? It's going to be very systematic because I think it helps for us to be able to see it in a systematic manner.

[00:05:49] After I talk about five points, I'm going to share the responses that some of you gave. So, after I did the poll. I actually asked, okay, so, if you voted yes, why did you vote "yes"? And if you voted "no", why did you vote "no"? Okay, so, not everyone who voted actually gave this response, but quite a few of you did.

[00:06:09] And I want to address your responses in the context of the larger framework that I'm going to be talking about first so that you can situate your own concern or your own presupposition about why you need a Catholic therapist or a Christian therapist within this larger conversation that we are in or that I'm holding in this Live, okay, in this episode. 

[00:06:33] Okay, so, the first point, the first point I think, when we are thinking, is it important for me to choose a Christian or Catholic therapist, the first thing to bear in mind is why am I choosing a therapist in the first place, right? Before we talk about whether this person should be Catholic or Christian, let's look at why was I even thinking about choosing a therapist in the first place? Why do I think I need a therapist in the first place? 

[00:06:58] So, if you are also seeing all of this through the lens of the interior integration journey, if you've been following my content, okay. So, I'm speaking from that context in which I always talk about integration, like of the whole person, right? So, we understand, maybe you're already at a point where you think, okay, to become integrated as a human being is a very necessary part of being a disciple of Christ, right, that maybe I recognize that even as I've grown in my understanding of my faith, maybe even as I've grown in my desire and love for the Lord, I keep coming up against my limitations.

[00:07:34] That's what brings me to confession. For example, always struggling with the same kind of sins or the same kind of inability to love or the same kinds of insecurities and anxieties, right? That's what hopefully is making you realize that It's not enough to just go to church to go for faith formation. There's this other dimension, this other dimension that increases my actual capacity to love as a disciple. And that dimension, you know, it's what I like to call embodied faith, not just intellectual faith, conceptual faith.

[00:08:08] It needs to be a faith that is incarnated in my flesh, in my body. It manifests itself in my relationships, right? So, a big part of. The awareness I've been trying to create through my content is that in order to be a disciple of Christ, there's this whole other dimension that we don't even think about, which is emotional maturity, which is affective maturity, right?

[00:08:33] If you think about it, the most important commandment is to love. You can't love without emotional maturity. And no amount of theological understanding or philosophical understanding is going to give you the affective emotional maturity to love. So, if we actually want to love, if we really care about loving well and not just loving much, many of us we, you know, if you are already so intent on wanting to follow the Lord, I know you desire what is good for others.

[00:09:00] The good intentions are there. But perhaps over and over again, you have noticed that in spite of your good intentions, you keep hurting people and you keep getting hurt yourself. And maybe there is beginning to be an awareness that there has to be something more than just trying hard. What am I missing, right?

[00:09:20] And if you have begun to become aware about things like insecure attachment styles versus secure attachment styles, you realize, oh, my history, the wounds that I have received from maybe my family of origin and other, you know, other periods of my life, they can all act to compromise my interior freedom to have the detachment to follow Christ, to love without clinging to people, for example you know, to be more compassionate, like some of us may find it very hard to balance compassion and zeal for the Lord.

[00:09:54] We can't see how they come together. That shows usually a lack of integration, okay? And a lack of integration, it's not a morally bad thing. It's not like a spiritually bad thing. It often reflects an earlier stage of our development as whole human beings, right? We're journeying towards greater integration, greater maturity, right. And that's the desire.

[00:10:14] So, if that's what we're looking for, then when we start thinking about choosing a therapist, we want the kind of help that we can't get from our churches. We want the kind of help that we are not going to get from the pulpit, the kind of help that we're not going to be able to get from our spiritual directors, no matter how good they are.

[00:10:32] In fact, I would say, really experienced and wise spiritual directors will often, they will know when there's something else that's coming up, manifesting in a spiritual life that has this human and emotional dimension. And they will often recommend you to go and see a counsellor, okay. Or to go and see a therapist, a psychotherapist, because they know that's not in their area of expertise.

[00:10:52] Right, so, some examples of the kind of. Experiences you may have that may start you thinking about looking for a therapist would be a lack of emotional regulation. Like you find you're often emotionally dysregulated always losing your temper, for example, or always very anxious, maybe you know you suffer from depression. Maybe you are getting frustrated at your own black and white thinking.

[00:11:16] Maybe you're aware, I want to grow in compassion. I would like to have more expensiveness to be able to embrace, you know, people more holistically and not just those people that I agree with. I struggle to do that because I still am stuck in black and white thinking. I can't get past, okay - if you're not with me, you're against me.

[00:11:36] If you're not with Christ, you're against Christ. And that doesn't help me to love more maturely, for example. Okay, so, inability to hold tension in ambiguity, in relationships that will cause trouble, whether it's at home, in marriage or at work or in church. And a lack of emotional maturity is often the cause of great suffering in our communities.

[00:11:58] Okay, another example, maybe you find you can identify repeated kinds of patterns in your life that are dysfunctional. The kind of person that you're attracted to perhaps, or the kind, same kind of friendships that you enter and then later gets broken. You notice there's something off and there's a repeated pattern.

[00:12:21] And maybe now you have some awareness that this has got to do with my woundedness. Perhaps you are a survivor of complex trauma, you've learned about complex trauma, and you know that you are a survivor of complex trauma, and you know that this also affects the way you can see others, and the way that you want to be in relationship with others.

[00:12:40] So, all of these are really good examples, I mean, they're clearly not exhaustive, right? But these are examples for which we start looking for a therapist, right? Especially a psychotherapist, when you want to work on integration. Okay, so, that's the first point I want to, for us to remember. This is why we're looking for a therapist in the first place, before we even think about Catholic or not, Christian or not, okay?

[00:13:02] That's why we want a therapist. Because they can help us with this dimension of being human, this dimension that we cannot get from the usual faith formation, from spiritual direction, from homilies, from preaching, from the pastoral journeying with religious and priests. Okay, this is something distinct that requires distinct training. So, okay. So, that was the first point. Let's look at the second point. Okay, it's linked. 

[00:13:33] WHY PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE OUTWEIGHS FAITH IN THERAPY
So, the second point is, a therapist's faith tells us nothing about their professional competence and effectiveness as a therapist. Okay, I think it should be rather obvious, right? I mean, it's kind of a given, but I just want to emphasize, because we sometimes miss this point, right?

[00:13:52] So if we know why we're looking for a therapist, kind of like if you're sick and you need a doctor, maybe you're having, you know, ear, nose, and throat issues, and you know, you need an ENT doctor, right? There's a reason you know why you're looking for an ENT doctor. Think about it. Your doctor, the doctor that you're looking for, your ENT doctor's faith says nothing, tells you nothing about the level of their professional competence and their effectiveness as an ENT doctor, right?

[00:14:22] So, let's acknowledge that the field of psychology, of neuroscience, all these new developments about understanding the human psyche and how we hold trauma in our bodies, how that even affects our physical health, but how that's connected to our emotional wounding and how that keeps us back from being able to love in a mature way, right?

[00:14:45] I mean, Christians and Catholics don't have the monopoly on love. In fact, we often find that many of us are actually lacking emotional maturity, right? So many people in the fields of psychology and neuroscience, especially in the area that link these two, they're interested in healing people's lack of ability to be in thriving relationships, right?

[00:15:09] They want to heal. So, this is an entirely separate field, just like medicine is a separate field, right? Just like, I don't know, like, architecture, music, all these would be, you know, they're like all separate fields and the training and the skill required to be an effective therapist, it's very distinct and separate from the faith.

[00:15:32] So, I just want to make this kind of like conscious and obvious for us, okay. And I think it's logical, right? it's a different set of skills. So, I said, whether you are, let's say, if you need to go for surgery, are you going to select your surgeon, would the faith of the surgeon be, like, foremost in your mind?

[00:15:49] Perhaps you'll be happy and very grateful if you found a great surgeon who's also a Catholic. I mean, who wouldn't be? I mean, I would be, right? But that's not the first consideration you're going to make. You want to make sure you choose, if you can, a good surgeon, a professionally competent and responsible surgeon, who's going to do a good job on the surgery, on your surgery, right?

[00:16:06] Because your life's at stake. If you were, for example, a musician and you are looking to apprentice and study under a master musician, because you want to hone your skill and you want to be, you know, a better musician, to glorify God for the talent that He has given you in music, for . , would the faith of your music teacher or the music master that you want to apprentice under, would that be the most important consideration?

[00:16:32] Or would the Reputation or their own skill and expertise in the art and maybe their reputation as a teacher, you know, how good they are apprenticing new musicians or younger musicians, would that be a higher priority, right? You get the logic I'm trying to kind of put out there, right?

[00:16:53] So, there is something else, professional competence, professional skill, If, if their effectiveness in that field is something separate from their faith. So, let's remember that, okay? They are distinct. And when we are looking for help from a particular profession, like I mentioned, like a surgeon or you're looking to apprentice under a master musician, that skill or that ability that you're looking for to help you, that takes precedence over their faith, right?

[00:17:23] And let's remember, God acts through everything that is true, that is beautiful, that is good. He doesn't just act in, you know, through Catholic people or Christian people, right? Thank God for that. That's not just the way He acts. So, if we remember this, right, that the faith of our therapist says nothing about their professional competence and, you know, efficacy, let's just remember that the first thing we need to look at, we need to choose first when we are talking about a therapist, is their ability and their competence.

[00:18:00] Because therapy, really, I'm going to say also I think maybe a lot of people when they start thinking about choosing a therapist, we don't know what therapy entails. We don't know the breadth and the depth of the expertise and the sciences and the different modalities that are out there that can be very powerful tools for healing and the level of competence and training and experience that is Needed to use those methods effectively, right.

[00:18:25] Therapy is not just active listening. It's not just having someone giving us pastoral counselling. It's very, very different. It's a profession, okay. It is complex and deep and rich, and we need to remember that. So, it is just as difficult, for example, to find maybe a really good lawyer or really good surgeon who is really good at their job and can do their job professionally but also happens to be Catholic and Christian. Even harder if you want to unpack what Catholic Christian, Catholic or Christian actually means, which is my next point. But, you know, it's just as hard.

[00:19:02] It's something that is an added on. It's just as hard to find a good, effective therapist, okay, who is also Christian or Catholic. So, I just want to Drill this point in, right, that the faith of our therapist doesn't tell us anything about their professional competence and effectiveness. And if you're looking for a therapist, that matters more than their faith.

[00:19:23] UNDERSTANDING WHAT 'CATHOLIC THERAPIST' REALLY MEANS
Okay, the next point, the third point that I wanted to talk about - okay, so, we say we wish, you know, we could have a Catholic therapist. Now, when someone comes to me and asks me can you recommend me a good Catholic therapist or a good Catholic counsellor, I will always ask them, what do you mean by Catholic? 

[00:19:43] And what are you looking for when you say you're looking for a Catholic counsellor or Catholic therapist, right? What do you mean by Catholic? Why do I say that? Because the mere fact that a therapist is Christian or Catholic, like if we know, oh, this person goes to church, this person goes to this parish, for example, so this person is a Catholic, this therapist is a Catholic.

[00:20:01] I think it could be, it's also like, it's also a tribal thing, which is a very human thing, you know. There's immediately this sense of recognition, like, oh, we share the same faith, right? And we go like, oh, and then you feel maybe instinctively a little bit more comfortable, like, oh, this person, you know, shares the same faith as me.

[00:20:17] But if you think a little deeper about it, the fact that you know this person could be a baptized Christian or Catholic and goes to church doesn't tell you anything much at all, objectively, about their lived faith, right? And there are a lot of assumptions we may be making when we think of, okay, I want to choose a Catholic or Christian counsellor.

[00:20:37] There may be a lot of assumptions there beyond they're baptized and they go to church and they kind of like belong to the same faith as me. You will see more of this when I go through some of the responses that you guys had given me in the poll. After the poll, some of you shared your reasons as to why the faith of your therapist would matter to you.

[00:20:56] So, I will unpack that later when we go to that. Okay, but here, I'm just saying we do have a lot of assumptions about what it means when we say somebody is Catholic. So, for example, just knowing that a therapist is Christian or Catholic doesn't tell us about the maturity of their faith. And depending on the maturity of their faith, the experience of what they can be as a Catholic or Christian counsellor or therapist can be vastly different.

[00:21:19] Okay, I think most of us assume when we say we're looking for a Catholic or Christian counsellor or therapist, that person will be someone of mature faith. Or we hope, without even really realizing. Okay, because if that person isn't really mature in their faith as a Christian or a Catholic, if they're not a disciple intentionally pursuing that relationship with Christ, with God, then really what difference does it make if they're Catholic or Christian or not as a therapist, right?

[00:21:48] Secondly, like just knowing that someone is Christian or Catholic doesn't tell us whether they approach their faith as a matter of religious practice or if they have a personal relationship with God. It doesn't tell us how well formed they are in their faith. So, let's say, for example, you have a presupposition that going to a Catholic counsellor and therapist may be better because they understand, they have the same assumptions or understanding as you about your faith.

[00:22:13] That's a big assumption. You don't know that. We wouldn't know that, right? You wouldn't know that from any description of a professional, right? The same thing would apply for a doctor, a teacher, an artist, and in this case, I'll say, it's not the most important thing when you're looking for a therapist, you're looking for them in the professional capacity, right?

[00:22:31] But you don't know this about them, about their faith. You don't know how integrated they are in the exercise of their faith. You don't know if they are black and white in their thinking when it comes to their faith, or if they have already gone to the part, you know, they've integrated enough, they've struggled with their own integration, to be able to hold more tension. 

[00:22:51] And believe me, in therapeutic sessions where you are exploring what you're struggling with, you really, really would want a therapist that can hold tension and ambiguity, and not just give you black and white answers, or chide you, or tell you that what you're saying or what you're thinking is against the faith.

[00:23:07] That's not the right place and time for that conversation. In a therapy setting, that's not the right place or, o

kay? So, that's something I want you to bear in mind, okay? And knowing that someone, like a therapist, is a Christian or Catholic, also doesn't tell you whether or not they actively discern how the Holy Spirit is leading them in the session with you right?

[00:23:32] So, we have to ask ourselves, when we hope for or when we want to choose a Catholic or Christian therapist, are there these presuppositions or assumptions that we subconsciously have? And then when you look for a Catholic or Christian counsellor, and you find that they can't operate with emotional or spiritual maturity, that's going to disappoint you and hurt you.

[00:23:54] And this has happened to several people that I know of, right? Who sought out a counsellor or therapist because, you know, this is from, let's say, a Christian organisation or a Catholic organisation or even a church-based kind of a counselling situation. And it's kind of like touch and go. You see, whether they are effective and good as a therapist or as a counsellor, it depends not on whether they're Christian or Catholic, but it depends first and foremost on their level of competence and their skill as a counsellor and whether they're attuned.

[00:24:24] So, by professional skill, I include, you know, being attuned to you as a client, being able to make you feel not like a project, right? Being trauma informed. So, that's something that the faith of your therapist doesn't really tell you whether they can do that. And if you're hoping for someone who also is kind of like there and understands how important your faith is to you, etc., you also don't know if that's going to happen because you won't know the level of maturity of a therapist faith and whether or not their faith is as important to them as it is to you. 

[00:25:01] All right, so, there's a great range, okay? There's a great range. Potentially if, let's say you do have a ca manage to find a Catholic or Christian counsellor from maybe somebody being just you know a Catholic or a Christian by membership, you know, kind of, we say it's a cultural thing for them.

[00:25:17] They identify as Christian and Catholic, and they could be going to church, but they may not yet have that intimate close relationship with God and with Christ that maybe you are pursuing. Then they may not understand you if you're talking about God and faith in that deeper intimate terms either right even if they share the same faith as you.

[00:25:37] And of course, I mean, you know, on the other range, if you're so fortunate, of course you, there might be, there could be, and there will be, I'm sure out there, Catholic therapists and counsellors who are very mature in their faith, very integrated in their persons, and who are manifesting charisms from the Holy Spirit that show up even in their exercise of their craft, of their profession, right?

[00:25:57] But what I'm saying is, just simply looking for a Catholic therapist, or whether somebody, a therapist is Catholic or Christian, or whether they are working for a Christian or Catholic organization, you can't tell if they are a mature Christian, with all that you hope to maybe receive from a Christian or Catholic counsellor, or is someone that can't provide you with that.

[00:26:20] And perhaps, maybe, might set your healing journey back, sometimes, and it has happened, because professionally, you know, in terms of competence, they are not that good or just not that effective, right? 

[00:26:36] THE IMPACT OF PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE AND INTEGRITY
So, that brings me to my fourth point. Okay, it's a separate point, but related to my earlier points. And this is so important because when you go into therapy, you're in a very, very vulnerable place. Professional incompetence and ineffectiveness can harm you, regardless of whether your therapist is a Christian or a Catholic, right? So, even if your therapist is a Christian or a Catholic, professional incompetence and ineffectiveness will harm you.

[00:27:08] And look, there can be excellent Christian and Catholic therapists, and there are also, and can be, and are also, unprofessional, incompetent Christian Catholic therapists. Professional integrity in any field is something that's distinct from a person's faith, right, of a person's lived faith. They may belong to a religion, which is all that you can find out really, you know, when you're looking for a therapist or a doctor, for example.

[00:27:36] It's very different from whether they have that integrity professionally to care for you. And look, it's part of the definition. It's like, you know how in doctors, they have to do no harm. You know, like, or else they are unethical and like, they fail on professional ethics and integrity if they do harm to their patients, right?

[00:27:53] So, how do you determine someone is a good doctor? Apart from their skill and competence, their professional integrity. The same thing goes to counsellors and therapists and psychotherapists, right? Therapists in general. The nature of that profession, the ethics and the integrity is to do no harm to you, right?

[00:28:11] Not so much as body, but psychologically, emotionally. And the competence and skill that they have will help them to heal or to harm you. Depending on their ethics, the level of their ethics, integrity, right? But if they don't have the competence, or for example, they're not trauma informed, they could re traumatize you instead of healing you, right?

[00:28:34] Not because they intend to, but they lack the competence that you need or they lack the skill that you need for your healing. So, great harm can be done when we go to a therapist who don't have what we need or who are not attuned to us, who is judgmental perhaps because of the situations that we're facing in our life.

[00:28:54] So, for example, if you're struggling with complex trauma in, let's say, a very toxic and dysfunctional relationship with your parents, right, and right now you're dealing with a lot of anger, and you really need that distance from them. If your therapist, regardless of their faith, is able to honour their role as a therapist and give you that space to explore what is it that you need. For your healing at this point and not that that's the one important thing, right?

[00:29:29] You do not want someone who gets compromised in the professional capacity because they haven't integrated their faith into their profession and maybe tries to tell you that you know, but you still need to honour your parents. That's not going to help you in your healing journey.

[00:29:43] NAVIGATING THERAPY WITH FAITH AND EMOTIONAL HEALING
I mean If you are a disciple, or you're aspiring to be a disciple, you already know, you're already struggling, that's why you're there, you're struggling to honour your parents, for example, right? You need permission and allowingness to go beyond your current perception and interpretation of what it means to be faithful, because you're on this journey of integration.

[00:30:03] Okay, so, there again, if you go to someone who is not trauma informed, and especially if, for example, you experience religious trauma. Or you've experienced trauma in the context of church, spiritual abuse, and all that. All the more I want to say, if you go to a therapist, you could be more vulnerable to be re traumatized.

[00:30:26] If, let's say, they are Christian and they share a faith and Catholic and they haven't integrated that with their faith because what happens often is - and this really happens. Okay, I experience it in my own life. We can be very developed professionally, intellectually in other dimensions of our life, but when it comes to our faith, if our faith is not yet differentiated from the institutional, from the whole organization, for example.

[00:30:53] If our faith has not yet matured and integrated with our emotional maturity, we can tend to have a very black and white, oversimplified way of seeing things when it comes to faith. And anybody, no matter how competent they are professionally, in their own faith life that faith life, that's a possibility, right?

[00:31:16] And so, again, I just want to say, use your own instinct and intuition, whatever therapist you have, regardless whether they have their share of faith or not. If you recognize that they cannot hold that space for you without you feeling judged, you don't feel safe with them, then that's usually an indication, that's an indication that perhaps this is not the right fit for you. Okay, that this is not going to be a helpful or healing experience with this particular therapist for you. 

[00:31:44] THE IMPORTANCE OF CHOOSING THE RIGHT THERAPIST
So, remember why you're choosing a therapist in the first place, right? For their professional help and their professional capacity. So, professional competence and effectiveness is the more important consideration here.

[00:31:55] Because what's at stake is there could be real harm done to you. And then, and I've seen this before, people give up on counselling, or people give up on therapy because they had a bad experience. And they didn't realize that that bad experience that they had was not therapy as it should be, right? They didn't experience the attunement, the unconditional support and acceptance that they need for that healing. So, that's something to think about. 

[00:32:26] PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THERAPY AND INTEGRATION
Okay, the last point I want to share here. It kind of rounds these other points up, is that it is still our own responsibility, okay. It is still our own responsibility to actively discern and take action in our integration journey. And to integrate our faith with emotional healing.

[00:32:48] Now, yes, I also feel this way. It would be wonderful if all this could happen in the context of someone that is also integrated and integrating the same faith and understanding with God, together with the professional competence that they can bring to help me, right. But that's very, very, very rare. And if you're trying to wait for a therapist like that, chances are you might never start therapy, okay. 

[00:33:11] Really, this is hard enough to just find a good, really good counsellor or therapist, regardless of their faith. Just like it's, you know, it's hard enough to find a really good spiritual director, even though they all, you know, imagine like you can have a selection of a lot of different spiritual doctors that share your faith.

[00:33:26] It's hard to find the right fit. It's hard to find good ones that are the right fit, right? So, we must remember, it is our responsibility to do the integration work. It is not our therapist's responsibility to make sure that the component of emotional healing can be incorporated into our lives or integrated into our lives with our faith.

[00:33:51] That's not their job. And that's also why, like I said, you know, even if it was a good spiritual director, they know when it's not their job, when they know that they know when what you need goes beyond their competence. And they will ask you to go find a therapist, psychotherapist or counsellor because that is something that you need to kind of like integrate yourself.

[00:34:12] Okay, so, I just want to say, I think we sometimes subconsciously abdicate this responsibility, you know, we're all kind of lazy. I think we're all naturally lazy. We love it. We would love it if things can just be given to us, right? So much easier, especially since the interior journey is already so hard.

[00:34:29] We really, really, really would love if things like, you know, we could find help that could make things easier for us. But the nature of discipleship and the nature of the interior journey is one where what did Jesus say? We've got to pick up our cross right and follow Him and there's no running away from that work that we need to do, okay. That means we have we have the onus to be actively and intentionally discerning in our journey along with the resources that we have, along with, let's say for example, spiritual direction and therapy, we need to put it together in our prayer life with the Lord.

[00:35:07] It is the Lord ultimately who is leading us. It is the Lord who is the ultimate source of all these resources after all, right? So, remember that no one, right, no one - not your spiritual director, not your therapist, not even the church, can replace your conscience. They cannot replace your role in the active discernment of how the Lord is leading you. No one can tell you, no one can tell you that.

[00:35:33] You know, one of the cardinal rules of spiritual direction, in fact, really the ethics in spiritual direction is that your spiritual director should not be telling you what to do. They should not be replacing your conscience. You have to meet God where you are and, you know, at the best where you can, what is the best that you can do now, experiencing the love that you can now make that choice because it is constantly a movement.

[00:35:57] It's not an all or nothing thing, right? Often black and white, all or nothing thinking is precisely a sign of a lack of integration, a lack of maturity, right? Again, like I said, I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing. Immaturity is not a bad thing. It's just, but it's a reminder that this is not the fullness of what we're called to. There is more, there is more, right? 

[00:36:24] So, if we remember it is still ultimately our responsibility to effectively discern and take action for our integration journey, especially the integrating part, right? That's why this is so important. Then, whether or not you have a Catholic or Christian therapist, you will realize that it doesn't make that much difference. It doesn't take away the work that you need to do.

[00:36:47] Even if you have a wonderful, really mature Catholic or Christian therapist, that's like having a really mature and wonderful, you know, Catholic Christian spiritual director, that doesn't make your interior journey of integration any easier. So, it's not going make that much difference, okay? I mean, yes, some difference, but it's not making that much difference. Maybe less than you would imagine.

[00:37:08] RESPONSES TO FAITH-BASED THERAPY PREFERENCES
Okay, so, now I'm going to go to the responses that some of you had given me when I asked, "why did you say that the faith of your therapist is important to you?" why is it important to be a Christian and Catholic therapist? And I will kind of like just give some brief responses to that and refer to these five points that I've been talking about. Okay, so, now that I've covered the five points, you can see how I link my responses to what you shared to those five points.

[00:37:36] Okay, so, the first response was I’m a Christian who was struggling with issues that tapped into my faith. So, I sought a Christian counsellor and I happen to know that the person who gave this response is seeing a Christian counsellor who is also really effective and really helpful. Alright, so, congratulations that you found such a counsellor.

[00:37:55] And yes, of course, it's true, if you're struggling, if you're a Christian and you're struggling with certain issues that are very wrapped into your faith. So, in that sense, maybe the integration issue is front and centre with faith. The hope would be that you can find someone who can talk about these struggles, but who also understand your context.

[00:38:16] But I just want to say that it is still very possible, even with this struggle, because that's a big part of my own struggle as well. It's about how to incarnate my faith, right? Ultimately, I sought therapy and counselling because I want to know how do I incarnate my faith. That I still found that a counsellor can be very effective even if the conversation really doesn't include much of faith or God at all, okay?

[00:38:40] Because I did the integration myself. I also have a spiritual director. I kind of integrate both journeys with my journey. As in both the journey with my spiritual director and my therapist with my ongoing life journey, okay. 

[00:38:56] Another response was faith is everything to me, so, explaining things in faith makes the extra difference. Okay, I hear you and I so get you. This is me also. And so, regardless of whether my therapist is Christian, Catholic or not, so like, for example, my current therapist is not Christian. She doesn't have any religion. I still talk about God because it's such a huge part, you know, in my life and she's perfectly fine with it and she's really effective because for her, for my therapist, it's just very telling that one God is a huge resource in my life, like the main resource in my life.

[00:39:36] So, this is using language, let's say in therapy language, right? What are the resources that help us when we're dysregulated to help us connect with the ground to become more grounded? She knows God is, you know, a huge resource. So, she asks me sometimes what can help you, who can you bring into this situation or this memory? Who would you like to bring anyone at all? It doesn't have to be someone who is human in your life. 

[00:39:54] It doesn't even have to be someone who's alive or someone that you ever met, you know? She's even suggested before like you have saints right in your faith. Like you could you could bring in the saints.

[00:40:02] All right, so, I’m just sharing, you know that a good and effective therapist may not have to be Christian or Catholic to allow you to be free to speak about your faith and about God. And in fact, I will also say, I know that there are people who have had experiences where they went to a Catholic counsellor and the counsellor didn't want them to talk about their faith in the context of counselling because - okay, so, this is kind of like a school of thought thing.

[00:40:33] There are some people for whom they feel that the boundaries need to be more rigid between spiritual direction and counselling or therapy. Okay, it's a school of thought thing. There are people on different sides of this. But there are definitely Catholic counsellors and therapists who don't want to talk about faith in the session of counselling and they have asked clients to like, you know, talk about that to a spiritual director instead.

[00:40:59] We're not going to talk about this. So, again, that's an example. I honour this, that faith is everything to you and explaining things in terms of faith makes the extra difference. I think you're talking about how the counsellor maybe can explain things to you, but I want to say for you to even be able to talk about your experiences in terms of faith, a Christian or Catholic counsellor may not necessarily allow you to. And a non-Christian, non-Catholic counsellor, like the one I have right now, can be very good at listening and even engaging in that language with you, okay.

[00:41:34] Okay, next response. I find comfort knowing that the therapist understands what I'm saying. Okay, so, here is like, you know we all seek to be understood, to be heard, to be seen. And it's not necessarily the cognitive understanding that you're looking for. Like somebody can understand you, what you're saying intellectually and be very unattuned to you.

[00:41:58] So, what am I saying? You could have a very bright therapist, for example, right? And have no problem understanding some problem that you're trying to articulate. But the fact that they understand intellectually what you're talking about doesn't make you feel safe or seen or heard, right? We all want to feel that our concerns, our struggles are valid and that I'm understood what we're seeking is actually attunement, emotional attunement beyond cognitive understanding.

[00:42:25] And this, I guess it's connects to, if you talk about things in terms of faith, you think or you hope or you assume that if your counsellor shares your faith, they would be more attuned to you. Not just understanding intellectually, like I said, what you need is attunement, and that's not a logical necessity. It's not necessarily true. There can be and there have been Christian Catholic counsellors who fail to be attuned to the client just as there can be non-Christian, non-Catholic counsellors who can be very attuned to you even if cognitively, intellectually, they may not understand everything you're talking about if you're explaining things about God or the faith.

[00:43:06] Okay, God still works through them. So, again, I just want to emphasize, okay, I'm not saying we shouldn't be. As in, it's not a better thing if we can have like a Catholic or Christian counsellor. I'm saying it makes less difference than you probably think. And that there is a bit of a false assumption there. If we think that having someone who shares our faith means that they will be more attuned to us. That's not necessarily true.

[00:43:32] And I'm sharing all this because I care about you guys, okay? I hope that when you go into therapy, especially if it's your first therapy journey, that you will have the experience of being attuned to, that you will have the experience of having someone, you know, facilitate your healing and not compound your hurts. And that's why I'm going into all this depth and sharing this, alright? 

[00:43:56] UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF A THERAPIST'S FAITH
Okay, so, here's another response to someone who says that the therapist faith is important for you and she says it feels like that they might be more pastoral, and you won't feel like a test subject, okay? So, I think she's saying that if the therapist is Christian or Catholic, she feels that they might be more pastoral, and you won't feel like a test subject.

[00:44:15] Now, I don't know if this person you know, if you're watching this or listening to this, if you're speaking from personal experience, that you have the experience of being like a test subject with a therapist or a counsellor. If you are, I am so sorry that you did. But I just wanted to say that this has nothing to do with your therapist's faith or lack of faith or, you know, affiliation, similarity with your faith.

[00:44:39] All good therapists are pastoral in the sense of like, they should be attuned to you and not see you as a project, as a subject, you know, but as a human person that is part of the professional integrity and ethics of a therapist, okay, of a good psychotherapist, a good counsellor. It's a very fundamental thing.

[00:45:00] So, this is actually more in the area of their professional ethics and integrity and competence. Okay, I'll just say professional ethics and integrity rather than what faith they have, alright?

[00:45:14] Another person says that the therapist's faith is important because of values. Okay, so, this is rather vague because it's just saying values, but I'm going to infer that you, you're saying that you think that if you find a Catholic therapist, because this person is Catholic that you have shared values.

[00:45:29] Now, I just want to say, unpack a little bit more, what do you mean by shared values? And remember, I refer you to my first point that I covered today, the main reason why we need a therapist in the first place, right? The kind of help that you need from them. What kind of values are applicable or relevant in that context?

[00:45:52] There are many values that in general may be important to you to have, let's say, let's say in a spouse, in a good friend, that is not applicable in the context of, for example, having a doctor or in this case, a therapist, right? Or a music teacher. Remember that choice is always yours and if you are growing your faith, you're actively learning about your faith and you desire to exercise your options and choices, which are your life choices, so nobody, no ethical therapist should intervene or, you know, kind of intervene with your freedom of choice.

[00:46:27] That is very important. Your dignity as a human person and the freedom of your choice, that is very important, okay? So, which means that you are free. In terms of how it applies to your own life, what you do, that's your choice. So, if your values are important to you, that's great, right? But that doesn't really bear in on the session, the kind of therapeutic session, the healing, the expertise that they need to bring in or that they can bring in to help you become more integrated emotionally, more healed emotionally as a person.

[00:47:04] So, another person says, it's to have the same point of reference, okay? So just as I mentioned earlier, if you remember the five points I talked about, it depends on what you mean by the same point of reference. There's a huge assumption that just because a therapist may be Christian or Catholic or goes to church, that they are at the same level of faith development as you, that they share or express their faith in the same way as you.

[00:47:28] I mean, there's so many differences. There's so many factors and you know, that could be very different from what you imagined in your head. So, just because you might have a Christian and Catholic therapist, you might find one does not necessarily mean that you're going to have the same point of reference with regards to your spiritual journey.

[00:47:45] Okay, and same thing for the larger, if you understand what therapy is about, this isn't a very important point. There's so much else that's actually going on that actually needs to happen in a therapeutic context to help you build your capacity to be more human, to love, you know, more authentically.

[00:48:05] Okay, so, this is actually, if you really know, if you think about what the therapy is for, it's not that big a consideration, okay? They just need to be attuned to you, enough to do what they need to do for you, okay? And that's their professional capacity, and their discipline, and their whole field, which has nothing to do with what faith they may have.

[00:48:35] Okay, so, here, this is the last response among those of you who shared that, you know, why is it that your therapist's faith is important to you, and this person says because they will understand the importance of why I do the interior journey, okay. Because they will understand the importance of why I do the interior journey.

[00:48:57] Again, I just want to say this is a presupposition that you have that is not necessarily true, okay? Because like I think I said, I think it was point three in what I covered today. The mere fact that a therapist is Christian or Catholic does not tell us much objectively about their lived faith at all.

[00:49:16] So, there are many Christians and Catholics who do not yet have an interior journey. Alright, so, that's not necessarily true. But I hear the desire that you have, you would love and yearn, right, to have someone who understands why. But here's the thing. A good, effective therapist doesn't have to share your faith to understand this desire to be more integrated and that for you to be a more integrated human being part of it is being expressed as a disciple of Christ, right? 

[00:49:51] Just like if there was a Muslim client or a Buddhist client who takes their religion or faith very seriously for them, it is important that their integration and emotional healing helps them to be a more faithful Muslim, a more faithful compassionate Buddhist, for example. A good therapist should be able to help you on that journey regardless of your faith, okay?

[00:50:13] And it's enough to know that it's important to you. They bring their expertise. They don't need to understand it in the exact same way that as you do, which is nearly impossible. Just nearly impossible, okay? So, I hope that I've given you some new perspectives to think about this question more critically more holistically.

[00:50:37] All right, I hear your concerns the desires I share them. I share them but sometimes when we have all these you know, we haven't reflected on our presuppositions. We haven't reflected on our assumptions. We act in ways that actually don't help us. And that's what I'm trying to avoid. This is why I'm doing this sharing because choosing a therapist and finding the right therapist is so important. It's so important, okay. 

[00:51:03] Alright, so, now I'm sharing, I had two responses to why is your therapist's faith not an important consideration for you, okay, from the minority that voted that is not that important consideration. So, this is one person who says, so long as my therapist is able to create a safe and judgment free space, I'm fine because I have a spiritual director for the faith conversations.

[00:51:25] Okay, so, I understand that. That's also where I ended up because I realized that, you know, I had been going to spiritual direction for many years before I started my counselling journey, my therapeutic journey. And I have good people who. Can help and guide me on the spiritual faith dimension, but what they lacked was the professional expertise from psychology and neuroscience, right?

[00:51:49] So, that was what specifically I was looking for specifically, right? So, having a Christian or Catholic counsellor was like a secondary point. It wasn't even a criteria for my choosing, but I just surrendered it to the Lord. The Lord knows what's best for me at this point. The Lord knows what I need, who I need, and I trusted.

[00:52:05] So, I tried and then in the end, I just took on who was assigned to me because initially when I first started, my spiritual director recommended a particular person. But when I sought that person out, that person wasn't taking clients anymore. Like she had too full a plate too. But that organization that I went to asked me if I was open to seeing a different counsellor instead and I thought, you know, I was really led to this organization I said, yes, okay you know just recommend me a counsellor based on what I submitted in terms of what I'm looking for the kind of needs that I had and I decided to just trust the Lord and the match was amazing, okay. Because the very first session I had when my counsellor came out to say hello to me, really, from the moment she said hello, and I saw her face, I just felt so safe. I just felt so safe before we even had a session. So, that was my first counsellor whom I journeyed with for three years. It wasn't someone I chose.

[00:52:59] Okay, and then the last one, somebody said that the consideration of the therapist faith is not a big consideration is because it reduces the pool of therapists I can choose from.

[00:53:09] Yeah, so, yes, it's very true. Like I said, it's hard enough to choose or to find a good therapist a good counsellor. Even if you're not putting in the faith factor, if you want to put in the faith factor is even harder to find a good counsellor. And like I said in my earlier points; even if you can find like a so-called a Christian or Catholic therapist, who is also a good therapist that doesn't say anything about how mature they are in their faith and how much they're going to integrate that into your therapy sessions. 

[00:53:40] It may have a much lesser impact, like the faith of a therapist probably has a much lesser impact on what you're looking for in the therapeutic journey than you think. I have a feeling that a lot of people who responded to this poll, by the way, what it was like the most respondents responses I have ever gotten for any poll and the most responses I have in quest in when I asked a question on Instagram and that's so wonderful.

[00:54:07] Thank you for responding. But I also have a feeling that maybe some quite many of those who responded is not yet on a counselling journey or a therapeutic journey. I could be wrong because only one person specified that I don't actually have a counsellor, but I think it would be important to me and she kind of shared why, right?

[00:54:23] So, I just want to say, when you get more familiar with what actually is, what kind of resource therapy, especially psychotherapy is, and how it's meant to help you, the dimension in which it's meant to help you, I think this factor, you will understand why it's actually not the most important thing.

[00:54:42] Okay, so, I hope that I've given you something to think about and I think bottom line is the Lord knows what we need and we can tell him honestly what is it that we want, what we desire, what we hope for, but we can trust God to give us what we need and God works so much outside of our expectations, you know.

[00:55:03] God is, He exceeds and is not limited by the church, by the sacraments. He's not limited by, I mean, He can work through anything or anything. That's beautiful and good and true is God's presence in our lives. So, he reaches us through anything. So, I just want to urge you, if you are beginning to seriously think about looking for a counsellor or a therapist, you know, a psychotherapist to commit this to God, and then to remember what I've shared in this particular sharing.

[00:55:31] Because I think it's important you know what the reason why you're looking for therapy and what's important when you look for a therapist, okay? And I just want to say, this being the last in this series about discerning and choosing spiritual director and therapist, that the points and considerations that I had raised in the earlier episodes, they actually all work together with what I've shared here.

[00:55:53] So, see it as a whole, okay? And if you're only hearing this episode or watching this episode, please go back and watch the earliest sharing that I did. I made because you need to see all of this together as a whole and if you're thinking, oh my gosh, there's so much work in in discerning and choosing a spiritual director and therapist.

[00:56:11] Well, yeah, I mean, yes, if you care about the kind of care that you will receive, yes, if your wellbeing your soul's wellbeing your and by soul, I mean really the whole holistic soul, not just like, you know, you're the Catholic part or the Christian part of your soul, but you know, you're embodied your emotions, the wholeness, the entirety of the way God created you, you deserve love and you deserve wholeness, right? And God wants to give it to you. 

[00:56:40] So, this is why I spent so much, I guess, effort in these few sharings being very systematic and quite comprehensive. I hope that it helps you, it blesses you. So, that's it. And if you have any other questions regarding this, any responses, I welcome direct messages in my Instagram on this. Okay, bye!

[00:57:06] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

If you like what you hear on this podcast, would like to receive a monthly written reflection from me as well as be updated on my latest content and offers, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter Begin Again. You can find the link to do that in the show notes. Until the next episode, happy becoming!