The last blog, ‘2+2=4?’, gave a brief insight into how mental health professionals can push falsehoods on their clients. It highlighted how mental health professionals can convince or persuade their clients that the client’s refusal to accept falsehoods is due to psychological or emotional issues that the client is experiencing or has experienced in the past. This can be done in a subtle and clever way under the guise of care (as outlined in the blog) or these falsehoods can be pushed more directly and violently on people, e.g. involuntary electroshock or involuntary injection of ‘non-compliant’ patients by mental health professionals (as outlined in the first blog, ‘Introduction/Bricks in the Wall’). This blog looks at how modern psychology gives the false answers from the outset and how it is sending many people the wrong way.
‘An error in definition is always fatal’
Fr Doolan’s quote above outlines the importance of accurate definitions in philosophical endeavours. This applies equally to psychological endeavours. To help a person, one must understand what a human being actually is. In the blog, ‘Be Yourself’, it was outlined how important an accurate answer to the question, ‘what am I?’, is if one wants to be truly free. As the discipline of psychology is concerned with understanding the human mind and human behavior, it is essential that those who study and practice psychology have a clear understanding of what a human being is. Defining the object of study, i.e. human beings, is the first task that a psychologist must do. Understanding what a human being is involves scientific analysis and speculation to reach the right answer. One must be very careful in this initial process to avoid error as this will have devastating results further down the line if an error in definition has crept in.
‘A hair,’ they say, ‘divides the false and true.’ But a hair’s breadth departure from the heights of speculation from what is true and straight, will mean an ever widening gap as the stream of thought is followed from the heights, down to the lower planes whereon men’s everyday lives are passed.’ – Fr Doolan (‘Philosophy for the Layman’)
A thorough examination of philosophical science, driven by good will and a sincere love for the truth, will bring one to the conclusion that a human being is made of a soul and a body, with the soul being the more noble part of man. Further philosophical analysis informs us that God is the Creator of each individual’s soul. The Catholic Faith shows us that the purpose of human being’s existence is to know, honour and love God and it gives us the necessary supernatural assistance to help us do so. Continuous deviation from or a rejection of this task of knowing, honouring and loving God will only mean misery and destruction for ourselves and the society around us. ‘As we approach God we approach unity and perfection; as we descend from God we descend into multiplicity and imperfection.’ (Bishop Fulton Sheen, ‘God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy’). Any definition of man that does not acknowledge this true nature of man is already set out on the wrong path. Any psychological service that does not work with the person in helping them to achieve the task of knowing, honouring and loving God is only intensifying the disease it is attempting to cure.
Breakdowns:
When a person is experiencing a psychological breakdown, it is often a sign that the person is deviating from the task that they were created to fulfil. An analogy will help to make this clear. If a car has broken down and you are unable to start it, it indicates that something is wrong with the car as it is not performing the function it was designed to do. If a person is living a disordered life where God is dismissed, mocked, ridiculed and insulted, it is a sign that something is wrong as they are not fulfilling the task that they were created for. The car needs fixing and so does the person. One fix involves a mechanical or electronic readjustment so the materials necessary to start the car work efficiently. The fix for the person usually involves a divine remedy which nourishes the soul so that the person can work efficiently in their task of knowing, honouring and loving God. Viewing sinful behaviour as ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ behaviour is like the mechanic viewing the car being unable to start as ‘normal’. Both require interventions. A competent mechanic who understands what a car is and what it was designed to do is far better than one who believes a car being unable to start is ‘normal’ for cars! A competent psychologist who understands what a human being is and what human beings are designed for is far better than one who believes sinful behaviour is a sign of good health and ‘progress’. However, unlike the car, people who are offered fixes from mental health professionals have a choice over whether they accept the fix or guidance offered. God gifted humans with free will and gave them a choice over whether they decide to live a life ordered towards His divine plan or not.
‘It is not our privilege to measure out the kind of God we shall have…If there is any fitting to be done, it is we who are to fit ourselves to God, and not God to ourselves.’ (Bishop Fulton Sheen, ‘God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy’).
Modern psychological services are encouraging people to not live life in accordance with the divine plan or they try to twist God’s plan to fit the client’s disordered lifestyle. These psychologists encourage people to continue in their disordered lifestyles and they blame society for any pangs of conscience that a client engaging in sinful behaviour experiences. For example, being registered as a psychologist with the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) is contingent on affirming and encouraging homosexual behaviour (see: https://www.cancer.ie/sites/default/files/content-attachments/psi_guidelines.pdf) and the PSI blames societal ‘stigma’ for women feeling bad after an abortion (see: https://www.psychologicalsociety.ie/footer%202/PSI-Guidelines-Policies–Papers). By not understanding what human beings are and what they were designed for, modern psychologists push man away from the Truth and further into a disordered and chaotic lifestyle. If the distressed person believes and acts on false information provided by the mental health professional the inevitable result will be more misery in this life and an increase in the likelihood of experiencing eternal misery and torture in the next.
Clear Reflections:
Bishop Fulton Sheen highlights how necessary it is for us to gain a true picture for those leading a destructive life: ‘As a drunkard will sometimes become conscious of the gravity of his intemperance only through the startling vision of how much he has wrecked his own home and the wife who loved him, so, too, sinners may come an understanding of their wickedness when they understand what they have done to Our Divine Lord.’ (Peace of Soul). Just as there is a duty to point out the destruction the drunkard is causing for their own good, it is a duty of mental health professionals to point out the sinful behaviour of their clients for their own good. If people living in sin are not given the truth about their situation and not encouraged to change their lifestyle and seek divine remedies, then the chains around them will only become tighter. There are solutions and people should be directed towards these.
It is the intention of this service, Truth and Freedom Therapy (TFT), to provide an alternative to the predominant, false and destructive direction modern psychological services are going in. A true understanding of what it means to be human is the foundation for TFT. Understanding what us, human beings, are and acting on this knowledge is the starting point on the road to freedom. This is the way to happiness.
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