CatholicPsych Blog
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Therapy Isn’t Advice… That Would Be Too Easy
There’s a reason we crave advice. We value our elders for a reason: grandparents, pastors, people who’ve lived long enough to have earned some wisdom. Advice has its place, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting it. But somewhere along the way, a lot of us started expecting therapy or mentorship to function the same way. Walk in with a problem, walk out with an answer.
Devotion Is Not a Detour: Identifying Spiritual Bypassing in Our Friendships with the Saints
I lost my own father several years ago, in that same season of life when I was becoming a father myself. Grieving a father while trying to become one has a way of making a devotion to St. Joseph feel less like an idea and more like a lifeline. There was real comfort in bringing that grief to him, in letting him father the parts of me that were still, in some sense, a son who had just lost his dad. That comfort was legitimate, and still is.
THE DESIRE BENEATH DESIRE: A Psychologist Reads Nolan’s Odyssey
Odysseus needed the ropes because the song, heard alone, would have destroyed him. That much has not changed; self-knowledge without accompaniment is dangerous, and anyone who has sat with a person in the early stages of seeing themselves clearly knows it. But we do not hear the song alone, and we are not tied to the mast waiting for it to end.
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When You’re Trying to Grow…But Your Partner Isn’t
You’re confronting your not-so-ideal habits. You’re naming your wounds. You’re in therapy, mentorship, spiritual direction—or maybe all three. You’re growing. And your partner isn’t.
Is It Love, or Is It Just Codependency?
Regardless of the exact dynamic, it’s common for codependents to be overtly involved in their partners’ lives. They often have the best of intentions, but it doesn’t change that it is not their responsibility to control or manage their partners’ behaviors.
What If Your Constant Self-Sacrifice Isn’t Love?
For some people, self-sacrifice isn’t a free gift. It’s a compulsion. A need. Something to calm the inner anxiety of not feeling enough. So they give and give and give, even to their own detriment.
Dependency in Marriage: Why “Headship” Can Become Spiritually Dangerous
People started looking for someone who “completes” them or talking about their loved one as someone who “completes’ them as if it’s what love looks like. But, if you really understand what love is, it’s not love.
How St. John Paul II Is Essential to Healing Narcissistic Parts
A narcissistic part is not a monster. A controlling part is not a villain. Nor is a martyr part proof of holiness.
5 Signs You May Be Spiritually Narcissistic And What to Do About It
A pattern of spiritual narcissism is a really touchy, sensitive, and difficult topic. It’s one of the hardest things I talk about…ever.
How to Spot Spiritual Narcissism
So how do you actually begin to spot spiritual narcissism, especially when it shows up in parents, spouses, ministry, or spiritual direction?
Narcissism and the Problem of Change
Every January, people make resolutions. We want to change. We want to do better. We want to pray more, be healthier, be more…
What Guadalupe Teaches Us About Evangelization
When Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego in December of 1531, it was not a divine interruption. It was a divine fulfillment.
Long before…
A New Year’s Resolution You Didn’t Know You Needed
Every January, we rush toward resolutions that promise quick transformation. Pray more. Work out more. But what if the most important…
K-Pop Demon Hunters; a Catholic Response to Shame
Not a clever book. Not a popular book. A disruptive book. The kind that reframes your assumptions. For me, that book is…
The Most Important Book I’ve Read in Years
Not a clever book. Not a popular book. A disruptive book. The kind that reframes your assumptions. For me, that book is…
How St. Joseph Can Help You Make Decisions When You Feel Paralyzed
Joseph doesn’t ask for signs or a clearer plan. He receives a word from God, gets up, and moves. For anyone who feels stuck…
The Hidden Sorrow Behind the Immaculate Conception
As we look forward to celebrating the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we remember the reality of how this day came to be…
A Mosaic of Hope: Rebuilding Life After Loss
My husband Tom died suddenly in 2019. He was 46, healthy, and we’d just had a wonderful weekend together. In the middle of the night…
ADHD in Marriage — When Two Brains Share a Life
When ADHD enters a relationship, it doesn’t just affect one person. It becomes a third partner — shaping communication, rhythms, and even…
Loving Difficult Parents: What St. Francis Teaches About Family and Freedom
It’s one of the hardest spiritual and emotional challenges a person can face: trying to honor your parents when the relationship feels…
Inside the ADHD Brain — The Science Behind the Struggle
When I first began learning about ADHD, I thought it meant I just had to “try harder” to focus — that I needed more…
Practicing Mercy at the Holidays
Perhaps despite your best intentions, there is something about going home that can bring you back 20 years in the blink of an eye…
Attention Deficit? More like Executive Functioning Deficit
If we named ADHD more accurately, we’d probably call it Executive Functioning Disorder. it doesn’t really affected attention itself, it…
From Attila to AI: Why the Church Must Defend Humanity Again
What It Means to Be Human? This is the question our culture is asking, sometimes without knowing it, is simple: what is a person?
ADHD and Me, The Handicap That’s Getting Me to Heaven
I had every classic sign of ADHD, long before anyone called it that.Detentions, missed recess, notes home, “Needs Improvement” stamped on…
Memento Mori: Three Powerful Truths Offered by the Church in November
When someone experiences trauma it doesn’t just live in memory. It gets wired into the brain. Certain triggers…
Why You Can’t Separate Brain, Body, and Relationship
When someone experiences trauma it doesn’t just live in memory. It gets wired into the brain. Certain triggers…
That’s So ADHD!
But here’s the big question: What’s the difference between someone having an “ADHD moment” and someone who actually has ADHD?
Correcting Aquinas: Why One Small Error Still Wounds the Church
St. Thomas Aquinas built parts of his anthropology on Aristotle’s biology. From that premise, Aquinas could write that woman is…
Beyond the Bedroom: What JP2 Really Taught in Theology of the Body
Reducing Theology of the Body to “Catholic sex talks” is like reducing the ocean to a swimming pool. You’re missing the depth, the…