Theology of the Body – Page 3 – Ruah Woods Psychological Services

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The Tragedy of Sin — Part 2

June 20, 2023/in Introduction to Theology of the Body /by Dr. Emily Dowdell

As we began to explore last time, at the beginning of human history, there was a fundamental break from the state of original innocence enjoyed by our first parents, who enjoyed harmony within themselves, in their friendship with God, in relationship with each other, and in relation to the rest of creation. The “ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev 12:9) succeeded in inducing our first parents to sin by sowing seeds of doubt into their minds and hearts. Let’s dig deeper into the nature of this temptation and see what relevance it has for us today.

Recall that, in creation, God bestowed a special dignity to man by creating us in His image and likeness and establishing man as lord and steward of the visible world. Even more, God breathed divine life into us, placing us in a special relationship with Him and destining us to someday partake in His glory. In this context, God commanded out first parents not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. While this may seem an arbitrary prohibition, Pope St. John Paul II, in his catechesis on sin, highlighted how this command is essentially a reminder to man that we are creatures. Through this command, God was saying to our first parents and to all of us,

“Remember that you are a creature called to friendship with God, who alone is your Creator. Do not wish to be what you are not! Do not wish to be ‘like God.’ Act in accordance with what you are, and all the more willingly since this is already such an exalted status, that of being ‘the image and likeness of God’… [This] status… obliges you to act in conformity with what you are. So be faithful to the covenant that God the Creator has made with you, a creature, from the beginning” (Nov. 12, 1986).

To be a creature, is to be the recipient of the unmerited gifts of life and existence. God loves His creation into existence and sustains it in being through the power of His love at every moment. With our creaturely status comes dignity, love, blessing, and obligations. All creatures are called to act in accord with the nature they have received and toward the end for which they were created. Being created as free, rational persons, man is called to freely cooperate with God’s will, using his gifts of freedom and reason to reign over the earth and make it more and more a reflection of God’s infinite love, beauty, wisdom, and goodness. Even more, man is called to come to know and love God with his whole heart and mind and enter into eternal communion with Him.

The prohibition from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, more than an arbitrary rule, is a loving reminder of man’s status and a protection against pride. Through this prohibition, God was telling our first parents that He alone has the authority to determine what is good and evil. Man cannot decide these things but must — for his own good — act in accord with the order established by God.

Satan casts doubt on God’s intentions and plants the idea in man’s mind that we can take good and evil into our own hands. We can become like God and determine right from wrong. He entices us to think that God is suppressing us, alienating us from our potential. In order to be fulfilled, we must reject His laws and embrace autonomy (i.e., become a law unto oneself). Only then can we truly be free and come into our own.

This dynamic between Satan and our first parents reveals the inner logic of sin, which affects us even today. How often does modern man seek to reject his Creator and the created order? How often do we try to re-create ourselves according to the image we conceive rather than receiving our nature and identity from God? How often do we reject God’s laws and those of His Church as arbitrary impositions that keep us from our happiness rather than seeing them as the royal road to happiness? How often do we suspect God of oppressing us and having evil intentions toward us rather than trusting fully in His infinite, unchanging, Fatherly love for us? How often do we take matters into our own hands rather than waiting hopefully upon the Lord?

In truth, it is not God who robs us of our dignity and blocks our deepest desires. Rather it is sin that alienates us from God, from ourselves, and from one another. It is sin that wounds our dignity, our hearts, and our world and robs us of grace, peace, and joy. By pondering further the tragedy of sin and its effects on us, we can learn to reject the lies of the enemy and receive more fully and gratefully the gift of redemption in Christ.

Note: This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

Continue Reading: The Wounds of Sin

Dr. Sodergren’s Introduction to Theology of the Body: A Collection of Articles from the Catholic Telegraph

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, December 2022 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

The Wounds of Sin

June 20, 2023/in Introduction to Theology of the Body /by Dr. Andrew Sodergren

In our last two reflections, we have explored the nature of the sin that occurred at the beginning of human history when Satan tempted our first parents to mistrust their Creator and seek to supplant Him. Being deceived, they grasped at divinity, thinking they could determine right from wrong and become gods themselves. In so doing, they broke faith with God, rejected their creaturely status, and allowed sin to enter the visible world. Let us reflect on the effects that this original sin had on our first parents and continues to have on their children.

Prior to the Fall, our first parents existed in a sinless state marked by the four harmonies. When they accepted Satan’s lies and rebelled against God, those four harmonies were all disrupted. As the fathers of the Second Vatican Council said, “refusing to acknowledge God as his beginning, man has disrupted also his proper relationship to his own ultimate goal as well as his whole relationship toward himself and others and all created things” (Gaudium et spes, no. 13).

Most fundamentally, original sin effected a fundamental break in our first parents’ graced friendship with God. “In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned Him” (Catechism, no. 398). As representatives of the entire human race, our first parents’ act of rebellion resulted in the loss of divine grace and the preternatural gifts not only for themselves but also for their descendants. As John Paul II taught,

“The first human being (man and woman) received sanctifying grace from God not only for himself, but as founder of the human family, for all his descendants. Therefore, through sin which set man in conflict with God, he forfeited grace (he fell into disgrace) even in regard to the inheritance of his descendants” (Sept. 10, 1986).

The first and most important wound of original sin, then, is our alienation from God. However, the legacy and effects of our first parents’ sin remains extending to our very essence for we now inherit a human nature that is not only deprived of grace but is itself deeply wounded. As the Catechism describes, original sin damages the essence of man in the unity of his body and soul. In our fallen human nature, man’s intellect is darkened, his will is weakened, and his passions become rebellious. Even the unity of body and soul is wounded such that we are now vulnerable to a myriad of sicknesses and disorders and will ultimately succumb to the separation of body and soul, which we call death. Due to the uncorrupted quality of human nature and the abundance of God’s grace and gifts prior to sin, man was immune to these maladies and the inevitability of death. Clearly, our situation after the Fall is radically different.

All of us inherit this fallen (i.e., wounded) human nature. We experience sickness, decay, and eventual death. We experience interior conflict rather than harmony and struggle to know what is right, freely choose it, and follow through in action while our impulses and desires pull us to go astray. St. Paul expressed well our conflicted, fallen existence in his lament:

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do…. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:15, 18b, 22-24).

All is not lost. Our human nature, though wounded, is not wholly corrupt. It is still essentially good and capable of being redeemed, sanctified, and glorified. Just as we can join in St. Paul’s lament over our fallenness, we can also join with him when he immediately exclaims, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25). For God did not abandon us to the power of sin and death but pursued man down the centuries, sparing nothing to bring about our Redemption, even taking up our human nature to heal and restore it and through His resurrection, re-open the path to eternal life.

Note: This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

Continue Reading: Original Shame – Part 1

Dr. Sodergren’s Introduction to Theology of the Body: A Collection of Articles from the Catholic Telegraph

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, January 2023 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

Original Shame — Part 1

June 20, 2023/in Introduction to Theology of the Body /by Dr. Andrew Sodergren

As we have been exploring the nature and effects of original sin on humanity, it is now time to plunge into the reality of shame with the help of Pope St. John Paul II. We could hope for no better guide. As a poet, pastor, philosopher, and theologian, he reflected deeply on the experience of shame. In Theology of the Body alone, he used the term “shame” 136 times and another closely related term 33 times. He also wrote an extensive reflection on “the metaphysics of shame” in his prior book Love and Responsibility. Let’s see what we can learn from his insights.

The pope took Genesis 3:9-10 as his starting point. There we read, “The Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” John Paul II saw our first parents’ new impulse to hide from God and from one another because of their perceived “nakedness” as evidence of the birth of shame in their hearts. He described this shame as a “boundary experience” because it demarcates original man and historical man, now affected by original sin (TOB 11:3ff).

It is important to clarify that original shame pertains not merely to physical nakedness. According to John Paul II, “‘Nakedness’ does not have only a literal meaning: it does not refer only to the body” (TOB 27:2). After all, God sees not only the body but also the depths of man’s heart. Indeed, our first parents were ashamed before God in part because they perceived the loss of harmony within them. They perceived their lack of full self-possession due to sin. Their interior life is now marked by disharmony and conflict.

Furthermore, because of original sin, the visible world is no longer docile to man’s authority but rebels against him. The forces of nature now threaten man, and his work to cultivate the world is marked by suffering and toil. The “resistance of nature against man and his tasks” gives rise to “cosmic shame,” which expresses a “sense of insecurity” and an “awareness of being defenseless” in a now hostile world. “The end of this toil, of this struggle of man with the earth, is death” (TOB 27:4).

Thus, our first parents experience shame over the loss of harmonious self-possession and mastery over nature. But why would they — or us — wish to hide from the God who is love, who created humanity out of nothing, and who bestows wondrous gifts? It is because they have become “alienated from the Love that was the source of the original gift” of creation, “the source of the fullness of good intended for the creature” (TOB 27.2). Through the influence of the tempter, man doubted God’s goodness and that Love is the ultimate meaning and motive behind creation. By believing the words of the tempter and acting upon them, man turned his back on our loving Father and “in some sense cast him from his heart” cutting humanity off “from that which ‘comes from the Father’” leaving only “what ‘comes from the world’” in its place (TOB 26:4). “Shame touches in that moment the deepest level and seems to shake the very foundation of their existence.” It gives rise to an urge to hide from God showing that “a sense of fear before God has matured: a fear previously unknown” (TOB 27:1, italics in original).

This fear is entirely different from the “fear of the Lord” praised in Scripture. The latter refers to awe and wonder in the presence of the all-holy God. It is closely related to reverence and is an essential and wholesome spiritual attitude for all of us to cultivate. Conversely, the fear that flows from original shame stems from doubting God’s goodness. If God is not pure goodness, then how can we let Him “see” us? How can we trust Him enough to let Him come to us at our worst moments? I invite all of us to reflect on the many ways we, like our first parents, hide from God because we struggle to believe that in the face of our brokenness and sin, He could possibly continue to see good in us, just as we in turn struggle to see His pure, infinite goodness.

Note: This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

Continue Reading: Original Shame – Part 2

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, February 2023 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

Original Shame — Part 2

June 20, 2023/in Introduction to Theology of the Body /by Dr. Andrew Sodergren

As described in my previous article, Pope St. John Paul II regarded the emergence of shame in the wake of the original sin committed by our first parents as a “boundary experience” that demarcates original man and historical man. Prior to this experience, man and woman were naked and felt no shame, but after their rebellion and fall from grace, they hid themselves from God and from each other. Last month, we looked especially on the impact of original shame on man’s relationship with God. Let’s now look at how it has impacted the relationship between the sexes.

Original shame reflects a decisive shift in the relationship between man and woman. Prior to original sin, we have seen that our first parents experienced a “fullness of consciousness of the meaning of the body” reflected in their experience of being naked without shame (TOB 12.3). The purity of vision they enjoyed enabled them to see the inner reality of the person made in God’s image revealed through the body and moved them to affirm the dignity of the person in all their interactions. Their desires, including for sexual union, were fully integrated with this purity of vision and intention toward one another. Being in the state of original innocence and filled with God’s grace, their interior and interpersonal lives were fully ordered toward love and respect for the person.

After their fall from grace, the situation of our first parents radically changed. The man begins to experience shame in regard to the woman and vice versa. This “reciprocal shame” “compels them to cover their nakedness, to hide their own bodies, to withdraw from man’s sight what constitutes the visible sign of femininity and from woman’s sight what constitutes the visible sign of masculinity” (TOB 28.1). Pope St. John Paul II attributed this sexual shame to the emergence of concupiscence.

Concupiscence refers to the inclination to sin that all of us experience because we inherit a fallen, wounded human nature. It emerged in our first parents after original sin, which damaged the harmonious integration they had experienced within themselves and in their relationships with God, each other, and the rest of creation. In particular, after original sin, “the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman become subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination” (CCC, 400).

The disharmony within the human person naturally leads to disharmony between man and woman. Their desires for one another are no longer properly ordered and instinctively guided by truth and love. Rather, when they see one another’s bodies, they now see primarily the exterior features rather than the interior reality of the person. The purity of vision that previously enabled them to always behold the dignity of the person now gives “up its place to the mere sensation of ‘sexuality’” (TOB 29.3). With concupiscence, man and woman are now prone to see each other as objects of use. Indeed, we struggle to see the inner reality and dignity of the person revealed by the body and tend to settle merely on the exterior features, judging and evaluating according to our selfish purposes.

This situation gives rise to shame between man and woman in two ways. First, we experience shame because we are aware that we are not in control of our desires toward each other and the bodily manifestations of these. We experience sexual feelings and respond to sexual signals even when we do not will it. Shame moves us to hide this inner state of disorder and the bodily manifestations of it from one another. Secondly, shame emerges to protect us from the now disordered gaze of others. Sensing that others may see us in a disordered way, shame takes on a protective function, moving us to conceal the sexual features of our bodies and exercise modesty. We will delve more into this positive, protective aspect of shame next time.

Note: This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

Continue Reading: Original Shame – Part 3

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, March 2023 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

Original Shame — Part 3

June 19, 2023/in Introduction to Theology of the Body /by Dr. Andrew Sodergren

With their fall from grace, our first parents experienced a decisive shift in their relationship marked by what I have been referring to as original shame. In my last article, I discussed how this experience emerged because of the new state of internal and interpersonal disharmony in which the man and woman found themselves. Original sin caused a weakening of “control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body” and brought about “tensions” between man and woman, “their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination” (CCC, 400). Catholic tradition refers to this inner state of disorder that leads to lust and domination, which we all inherit, as concupiscence.

Because of this new situation that the man and woman found themselves in, they experienced a new urge to cover the signs of their sexuality, which John Paul II referred to as “reciprocal shame” (TOB 28.1). Being a result of sin, it is not hard to see this new experience of shame as a bad thing. Clearly, it’s not supposed to be this way. We were made for communion, not hiding. However, God never abandons man and always seeks with His infinite power, wisdom, and love to draw good out of evil. In this light, even our experience of shame can be used to guide us back to a deeper appreciation of the dignity of the human body. Let us examine how.

In contemporary psychology, shame is typically seen as toxic for the human person. This is because psychologists tend to equate shame with the experience of seeing oneself as bad, defective, or unworthy. If I see myself in this way, I will dread self-disclosure because I anticipate that I will be harshly treated and rejected by others. In the face of such a situation, mental health professionals — myself and my colleagues included — work to increase self-acceptance and awareness of one’s goodness.

While this contemporary approach to shame is valuable, it differs significantly from Pope St. John Paul II’s use of the term in TOB and his prior work Love and Responsibility. When he spoke of shame, especially the reciprocal shame experienced by man and woman, he had in mind the urge to hide the sexual features of our bodies from one another. This flows from our experience of concupiscence. Shame moves us instinctively to shield from the eyes of the other those aspects of our bodies most connected with sexuality because we perceive that others may look upon our bodies not as the sacrament of the person but as mere objects to be used. Thus, shame, in this sense, is a reaction to the possibility of being used.

In TOB and Love and Responsibility, the saintly pope wrote extensively about how the dignity of the human person requires that we never treat another human being as merely an object of use. Rather, the only proper response to another person is love. He applied this “personalistic norm” especially to the relations between man and woman in which the sexual appeal of the body — in the presence of concupiscence — can become a source of temptation to use the other for my own selfish purposes. Shame moves us to prevent this by “concealing the sexual values in order to protect the value of the person” (LR, p. 165, emphasis added). In this sense, shame is very closely related to, and a building block of, the virtue of modesty. This has nothing to do with a prudish view of the body or sex as inherently bad or evil. Rather, as Pope St. John Paul II repeatedly affirmed, sexual shame can actually help reawaken in us an appreciation for how good and even sacred our sexuality is. He wrote that through shame, man and woman “become conscious of the spousal meaning of the body” and are moved “to protect it” (TOB 31.1). In protecting the spousal meaning of the body, we implicitly say to ourselves and others, “Behold, it is very good” (Gen 1:31).

Note: This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

Continue Reading: The Problem of Shamelessness

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, April 2023 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

The Problem of Shamelessness

June 19, 2023/in Introduction to Theology of the Body /by Dr. Andrew Sodergren

In recent articles, we have explored the emergence of shame in our first parents and all subsequent human beings after original sin. We saw how the emergence of concupiscence results in the experience of reciprocal shame by man and woman, which moves us to conceal the sexual features of our bodies from one another. Because concupiscence has been born in man’s heart, we are aware that when we look on each other’s bodies, we do not easily and immediately see the person in his or her fullness. Our eyes have, in a sense, been darkened by sin such that our vision may only take in the exterior features of the body, which we judge and evaluate as to the potential pleasure or usefulness it may bring.

This awareness of our concupiscence gives rise to shame, which moves us to conceal the sexual features of the body so that we do not become objects of others’ disordered desires. This experience of shame has nothing to do with seeing sexuality as bad or dirty. Rather, shame understood in this way reminds us of our dignity and the sacredness of human sexuality by protecting us from being used as mere objects. This form of shame is a healthy building block for the virtue of modesty.

Understanding the important role of shame in the lives of fallen human beings also sheds light on the problems of shamelessness so evident today. One form of shamelessness involves the normalization of lust (i.e., disordered sexual desire). When lustful actions and attitudes are given approval or even celebrated, an attitude of shamelessness is being expressed and promoted: the human body is seen only as a sexual object for use without any regard for the person. Another form of shamelessness is when the human body is portrayed in such a way that its sexual appeal is accentuated above and beyond the value of the person. This can be in forms of dress, behavior, and in artistic representations. The most common example of this today is pornography.

In TOB, Pope St. John Paul II contrasts pornographic representations of the human body with other artistic uses of the nude human form (see TOB 60-63). The difference between porn and an appropriate artistic rendering of a naked human being originates in the intention of the artist. In the latter case, the intention is to depict the human person revealed through his body in a dignified way whereas in the former, the intention is merely to present an anonymous human body as an object of lustful desire. Indeed, pornography obscures the reality of the person and overaccentuates the sexual features of the body. In this way, it turns the human body — and therefore the human person — into a mere object (i.e., an impersonal thing) to be used for selfish pleasure and even a commodity to be bought and sold.

The Catechism condemns pornography in no uncertain terms saying that it “offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act.” It goes on to say that pornography

“does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public) since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense” (no. 2354).

Indeed, the Church’s opposition to pornography is so absolute, that the Catechism exhorts governments to make it illegal: “Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials” (no. 2354). Given all that Pope St. John Paul II has taught us about the dignity of the human person and the spousal meaning of the body, this should come as no surprise. Next month, I will further diagnose the problems of pornography with the help of modern psychology.

Note: This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, May 2023 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

A Psychological Interpretation of Genesis 2:24
by Dr. Emily Dowdell

November 30, 2022/in Blog /by Dr. Emily Dowdell

“Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

In Pope St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, he begins with Genesis. What better way to tell the story of what it means to be human then to start at the beginning. In the Creation account, it is revealed that man was not meant to be alone, and God created a suitable helper for him. The relationship between the man and the woman was designed to be one of mutuality and complementarity. There were significant differences, yet they existed in harmony and complemented one another.

One of the goals of Christian marriage is to rediscover that original unity between Adam and Eve, through sacrifice, self-gift, and a shared movement toward holiness. Yet often, couples find themselves feeling isolated and alone, experiencing solitude and even despair within their relationships. The idea of marital unity can seem so far off, like a distant dream, when the day-to-day interactions are grating. In Love & Responsibility, Pope St. John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) wrote:

True love, a love that is internally complete, is one in which we choose the person for the sake of the person, — that in which a man chooses a woman or a woman chooses a man not just as a sexual partner but as the person on whom to bestow the gift of his or her own life. It is put to the test most severely when the sensual and emotional reactions themselves grow weaker, and sexual values as such lose their effect. Nothing then remains except the value of the person, and the inner truth about the love of those concerned comes to light. If their love is a true gift of self, so that they belong, each to the other, it will not only survive but grow stronger and sink deeper roots. Whereas if it was never more than a sort of synchronization of sensual and emotional experiences, it will lose its raison d’etre and the person involved will suddenly find themselves in a vacuum.

Ideally, when a man and woman enter a marital relationship, they are doing so freely and are able to make a full gift of themselves. Sometimes, however, this is not the case. As Pope St. John Paul II wrote in Theology of the Body, in order to give yourself, you must first have some sense of self-ownership.

Some psychologists like to focus on “the unconscious” in their work and believe that the goal of individual therapy is to bring the things that are outside the person’s awareness into view. These are the therapists that like to ask, “so, tell me about your mother…” There is a sense that if we can become more aware of our true intentions, motivations, and desires, we can make more informed decisions and increase ownership of our choices. To uncover the truth about ourselves, we go back to the beginning, to our origin stories.

When we carry unresolved pain from our past in our unconscious, we can react to our current relationships and life events from a place of fear and self-protection without even realizing it. There is a defense system in place to keep negative past experiences from recurring. It is a very natural process. As a kid, you touched the stove and found out that it burns, and you will never touch it again… In our interactions with our parents as children, we were constantly using them as a sounding board, taking in and adapting to their feedback, and learning how to be. Our parents were not perfect people and sometimes their reactions were not the most reliable. In such cases, we developed beliefs and reactions that may have helped us navigate childhood, but do not generalize well into adulthood. The journey of self-mastery involves untangling the past from the present, recognizing when we’re reacting based on our history instead of the here-and-now. In order to be fully present to the person in front of me, I need to see the reactions that are coming from my own unmet needs or history and make a conscious choice to reorient myself to the person before me. It is a brave and difficult thing to explore some of the dark corners of your story, but once illuminated the fear no longer reigns.

So what does all this have to do with Genesis 2:24? My working theory is that most marital conflict is rooted in an inability to see past an original wound and truly orient to the other person. Maybe I’m reacting to something my spouse said and interpreting it through a lens colored by my past experience. That coloration, while true to my experience, may affect my ability to see my spouse’s intentions clearly or interpret them accurately. I’ll give you a personal example. My dad was not around very much when I was young. That generated an assumption in my mind that men are naturally selfish. For a longtime, I had no idea that I even had that assumption, never mind that I was using it to interpret the behavior of all the men in my life. You can imagine how that filter might affect my interpretation, in moments when my husband would choose to do something for himself, instead of for our family. Thankfully, I’ve learned to identify when that thought-train is leaving the station and choose to reorient myself to my spouse – who by the way is incredibly devoted to family – and see that in the moments he’s choosing something for himself, it’s to replenish and rest, to make himself more available to us in the future. What a different reality! So, I like to think that to leave the father and mother and cleave to the spouse, can speak to that process of untangling the past from the present, ultimately restoring the freedom needed to fully commit to loving the person before me in the present moment.

Bringing John Paul II into Couples’ Communication
by Dr. Emily Dowdell

October 26, 2022/in Blog /by Dr. Emily Dowdell

One of the reasons I am excited to be a part of the RWPS team is our commitment to making the philosophy of Pope St. John Paul II and his Theology of the Body more accessible. One area in which we do this is in marital therapy.

Couples experiencing marital distress are almost always struggling with a breakdown in communication. One or both parties feel misunderstood, and they often find themselves in a power struggle. When couples get locked into these cycles of interaction, they lose sight of their shared humanity, and the love they have for one another. Each person digs their heels into their own individual experiences and demands authority. Many times, the desire for power or authority comes from a deeper desire to be known, heard, and understood at the heart of which is a longing for closeness and a fear of rejection or abandonment. When working with couples who run into these struggles, I often provide this analogy:

Imagine you and your significant other are standing at the top of a long driveway at dusk. You can’t quite make out what’s happening at the bottom. You see two figures walking past the lamppost and share your observations with each other. One of you sees a couple on a nice evening stroll, the other fears someone is being stalked and in danger.  The two of you argue about who is right, adamant about your observations and opinions. You stay at the top of the driveway and try to convince one another that you really know what’s going on down there. Yet, neither of you have enough information. If we strip away the power struggle, we might have a more balanced interaction. Instead of arguing about who is right, you might be curious about each other’s perceptions. When you seek to understand the other person’s perspective, you might learn that the one who feels fear was once assaulted from behind. The one who saw an evening stroll finds going for walks in the evening romantic. After learning about each other and why you see the world as you do, you might decide to get a little closer to find out what is really going on at the bottom of the driveway.  As you get closer, you could discover that you were both wrong, and it was your neighbor and his son walking their dog.

In this event, there is an opportunity for the spouses to learn more about one another and their shared reality. One of the beautiful things about the philosophy of Pope St. John Paul II is that he made space for subjective experience without denying objective truth. Some philosophies that aim to honor individual experience can go to an extreme and abandon the notion of an objective reality— we see this in the common phrase “follow your truth” and other mottos based in moral relativism. On the other hand, other philosophies are more rigid about following the rules and impose an objective framework that fails to take into account each person’s subjective experience.  Pope St. John Paul II found a way to recognize the both—and. He affirmed the unique experiences that form our individual thoughts, beliefs, and opinions and asserted that we are interacting with an objective, shared reality. We have a moral obligation to pursue truth and to refrain from treating others as an object, yet we also must respect and honor each other’s subjectivity.

When we orient ourselves to the pursuit of objective truth — about ourselves and others — in a way that respects our subjective viewpoints, we can experience more harmonious relationships and experience more interior freedom and peace. As in the example above, instead of becoming entrenched in protecting one’s ego, defending oneself and one’s view as “correct” and alienating one’s significant other in the process, we can take a curious stance with oneself, one’s spouse, and the shared reality. In doing so, one might come to realize that, while one’s assumptions about reality were inaccurate, they were coming from a lived experience, thus not invalid. Becoming entrenched in one’s own view becomes problematic when one lacks insight into one’s perspective, presumes to have all the answers, cites assumptions as facts, and refuses to dialogue with oneself, others, and the world.  

If I am approaching a conversation with my husband looking for a certain response — perhaps I am looking for support, validation, or encouragement — and he does not respond in the way I expected, this can indeed be quite disappointing. I might spiral into thoughts about what this means about our marriage or become angry because I feel entitled to the response I wanted.  If instead, I have the awareness to recognize my need, see that I was treating my husband as a source of need-fulfillment, and instead seek to treat him as a person, this changes the dynamic. I can recognize my need, acknowledge my disappointment, and be curious about both of our reactions. I wish I was always able to “put my bags down” in conversations and focus on the good of the other, but sometimes it’s really hard.

If you or your spouse is struggling to communicate, becoming overwhelmed with strong emotions in conversation, and is unable to be curious — it may be a sign of woundedness and a source of difficulty in your life. There is likely a lot of pain and suffering there, which deeply needs compassion. We are here to help. By learning to understand yourself and your spouse more deeply, as well as healing underlying wounds that trip us up in our relationships, the RWPS team will walk with you as you seek the healing and growth in your capacity for love. It is also important to remain compassionate with yourself and your spouse through these struggles. We all struggle in our vocations and need the healing power of God’s grace and the support of others to live our vocations fully and faithfully. In our struggles, we find the prayer of St. Francis a helpful reminder of our calling to seek the good of the other: “O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.”

Dr. Emily Dowdell, the Latest Therapist to Join the RWPS Team

September 26, 2022/in News /by Dr. Andrew Sodergren

We are excited to announce the addition of Dr. Emily Dowdell to the RWPS team. She brings with her an exceptional training background, solid Catholic formation, and unique clinical experience. Dr. Emily will be seeing patients at our main office on the West Side of Cincinnati. She recently sat down with us to share a bit about herself.

Q: Can you tell us about yourself?

I’m Dr. Emily Dowdell. I’m originally from Rhode Island, born and raised Catholic. I am currently married with three boys under four years old. I earned a bachelor’s degree in multimedia communications with minors in film studies and theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville. After college, I returned to Rhode Island where I worked as a barista, rock climbing instructor, dog walker, trivia hostess, and freelance graphic designer while building my own wedding photography business. Just as my photography business took off and I had booked twenty-three weddings for the year, the Lord had other plans… He introduced me to the Institute for the Psychological Sciences at Divine Mercy University in Virginia.

During my doctoral training in psychology, I worked in a variety of settings. My first experience was providing social skills training to youth and adults with severe autism in a community integration program. I then went on to work with adolescent girls, providing groups and individual treatment in a residential addiction program through Phoenix House. I spent a year focusing on diagnostics and assessments at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington, a private psychiatric hospital in D.C.

For my internship and postdoctoral years, I was a fellow at Riverview Psychiatric Center the primary state hospital for the state of Maine. While there I had the opportunity to work with both civil and forensically committed individuals with more extreme psychiatric conditions. I facilitated groups, provided individual therapy, and offered psychological testing.

I went on to work with the CatholicPsych Institute in their Rhode Island office providing individual therapy and mentorship. There I became the Director of Assessments, offering psychological testing for diocesan and religious discerners.

Q: What inspired you to become a psychologist?

I was fortunate to participate in Franciscan University’s study abroad program in Austria. While staying in an old Carthusian Monastery, I had the opportunity to study philosophy and travel to many spiritual pilgrimage sites. I learned about Pope Saint John Paul II’s philosophy of the human person that inspired Theology of the Body and read Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Learning about the dignity of the human person as created in the image of God was huge for my own self-understanding in early adulthood. When I heard about the Institute for the Psychological Sciences at DMU and how their program is designed to integrate the science of psychology with a Catholic view of the human person, I was very intrigued. Finally, I had found an opportunity to learn how to help others learn about and cooperate with their innate dignity.

Q: What does it mean to you to integrate the practice of psychology and the Catholic faith?

My faith informs everything I do and how I see the world. It’s important to acknowledge that every approach to psychology has philosophical roots and an understanding of what it means to be human at its core. The Catholic vision of the human person offers a more holistic foundation, incorporating the person’s mind, body, and spirit. I want to see and work with the whole person, so it gives me a more balanced perspective when one aspect of the person’s life is out of sync. When working with clients who are or have experienced significant pain and suffering, my faith provides meaning. It anchors the work and gives me the hope I need to continue moving forward. My faith provides me greater clarity, orients me, and gives me a framework to better understand my clients. I ultimately entrust the Lord with the care of my clients and pray that they are receiving what they need at this time to move forward, toward becoming who God made them to be.

Q: What types of patients and difficulties do you treat?

Over the course of my training and experience I have provided individual, group, family, and marital therapy. I am most in my element working with individuals (adolescent through older adulthood) as they navigate a variety of challenges including: depression, anxiety, grief and loss, adjustment related issues, post/peripartum disorders, relational issues, vocational and identity concerns, trauma-related disorders, substance use and other addiction, and personality disorders.

Q: How would you describe your approach to therapy?

I approach therapy primarily from a relational perspective, meaning I focus on building a relationship with my clients. In terms of practice and conceptualization, I integrate different theories and tools from psychodynamic schools of thought (Nancy McWilliams, Lorna Benjamin, Peter Fonagy, Edward Teyber) and evidence-based treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Mindfulness. Regardless of the specifics, therapy always comes back to the individual. As we build our relationship, we will establish goals, and I will select the most relevant approach that suits the person and his or her individual needs.

Q: What do you like to do for fun?

For fun, I like to spend time with my three kids and husband. We enjoy spending time outdoors together and going on little adventures. I also enjoy knitting.

To learn more or to make an appointment with Dr. Emily, please call 513-407-8878.

Happy Birthday Papa
by Dr. Andrew Sodergren

May 19, 2020/in Blog /by Dr. Andrew Sodergren

This May 18^th is the 100^th anniversary of the birth of our beloved Pope St. John Paul II. Typically, only people who have had a truly historic impact have their birthdays celebrated long after they are deceased. John Paul II was one such historic person. I would like to reflect briefly on some of the long-lasting impact he has had and will continue to have on the Church as well as some of the impact he has had on me personally.

For many younger people today, it is difficult to truly appreciate the immensity of John Paul II’s impact on the Church. To put his pontificate in context, we have to recall the significance of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Ecumenical councils are rare and only called when the Church needs to face major challenges in its mission. Vatican II, as it is often named, was in many ways an attempt to bring the First Vatican Council to completion as it was cut short by the Franco-Prussian war. The scope of Vatican II was immense: nothing less than reexamining the relationship of the Church with the modern world. As a newly ordained auxiliary bishop and later Archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła participated in all four sessions of the Council. His stature and reputation as an outspoken, courageous young bishop of immense intellect grew to the point where he was appointed to the committee that drafted what became perhaps the Council’s defining document, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes).

Inspired by this experience, Archbishop Wojtyła became the only participating bishop to write an entire book summarizing the teaching of the Council and giving guidelines for its implementation (Sources of Renewal). Not long after, Pope Paul VI named him a Cardinal of the Church, perhaps as a way of thanking him for his contributions at the Council and for serving as a key theological advisor in preparing the encyclical letter Humanae vitae (1968), which dealt with thorny questions concerning marriage, sexuality, and birth control and reaffirmed the traditional Catholic teaching that sexuality is meant to unite a man and woman in marriage and must always be open to life.

It is difficult today to imagine the shock that the Church and even the world experienced when Cardinal Wojtyła was elected to the papacy in October 1978 and took the name John Paul II. He was the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years, and he hailed from – at that time – a communist country (Poland). This alone would make his an historic pontificate, but it was only the beginning. Whereas his predecessor, John Paul I, reigned for merely a month, John Paul II reigned for over 26 years, making his the third longest pontificate in the history of the Church. He accepted his mission from Christ to serve as the Church’s principal interpreter and implementer of the Second Vatican Council as well as to lead the Church into the Third Millennium. He did so with courage and faithfulness.

There is hardly an aspect of the Church’s life that was not impacted in significant ways by the teaching and leadership of this saintly Pope. Under his guidance, the Church produced a new Code of Canon Law governing all major aspects of ecclesial life. Later came the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the first universal catechism since the Council of Trent. It will remain for generations “a sure norm for teaching the faith.”[1] Among his many gifts to the Church include is 14 encyclical letters, 14 apostolic exhortations, and thousands of speeches, audiences, and other documents. His writings covered everything from the Persons of the Trinity; evangelization; the dignity of the human person; social issues such as the dignity of work, distribution of resources, and human rights; priests, bishops, consecrated religious, and the laity; marriage and family; the Eucharist; Mary; the rosary; sin, mercy, and reconciliation; fundamental principles for morality; and much more. Incredibly, he canonized 482 new saints and beatified 1338 new blesseds. He gave us the Luminous Mysteries of the rosary and instituted Divine Mercy Sunday. Liturgically, he oversaw the reform of the reform, so to speak, which culminated in the publication of the third edition of the Roman Missal, which we use today. Then, there is his pivotal role in the fall of Communism in Poland and across Eastern Europe. The list goes on.

Of course, we at Ruah Woods are especially indebted to him for his Theology of the Body, which he gave to the Church at his Wednesday general audiences in the early years of the pontificate as well as the founding of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and the Pontifical Council for the Family.[2] These gifts were meant to help the Church proclaim the nature and dignity of the human person, love, marriage, and sexuality in these confusing, uncertain times.

For me, personally, I regard myself as a “JP2 Catholic.” I was actually born during the interregnum, i.e., the time between the death of John Paul I and the election of John Paul II. I had little awareness or appreciation of John Paul II until, as a college student, I began to learn more about him and his teachings. My wife and I were blessed to be taught by a priest who earned his doctorate at the John Paul II Institute as we were preparing for marriage. We read John Paul II’s documents on marriage and family at that time and were taught aspects of Theology of the Body in class with other young people. We fell in love with the Church’s vision for marriage and family as expressed through the Pope’s writings. For me, it became my principal inspiration for becoming a Catholic psychologist.

In graduate school, I immersed myself in studying John Paul II’s teaching. As an aspiring Catholic psychologist, I wanted to understand the human person as he did. I studied all of his encyclicals and many of his other papal documents, books, and pre-papal writings. I took graduate seminars on his thought, including Theology of the Body. The more I read of his teaching, the more I wanted to know, and the more I fell in love with this man. He became for me a spiritual and theological mentor. Even more, as I read his thought, I felt a closeness to him. He became a father-figure for me who was teaching me how to see the world, how to live, and how to be a Catholic man in the Third Millennium.

Even today, I regularly read and re-read his writings for my own personal and professional enrichment.[3] I pray to him daily, seeking his intercession to be the man, son, husband, father, and psychologist I am called to be. He is my teacher, my guide, my father, and my friend. For the last 10 years or so, I have been blessed to serve as an adjunct professor at the Washington, DC branch of the John Paul II Institute. When I go to Washington to teach, I always make a visit to the St. John Paul II National Shrine to visit the museum of his life and venerate his relic. Those visits move me to tears of gratitude. Truly, I would not be who I am today – perhaps not even Catholic – without the life, witness, and teaching of Pope St. John Paul II. With deep affection, happy birthday, Papa!

[1] John Paul II, apostolic constitution Fidei depositum.

[2] The Pope officially founded these two new entities on May 13, 1981, the same day he was shot by his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca. May 13, of course, is the feast of Our Lady of Fatima who had given the three children of Fatima a vision of a pope being gunned down decades earlier. John Paul II believed that he was saved by Mary’s hand.

[3] Currently, I am working my way through his general audiences from the years after Theology of the Body during which he gave a systematic catechesis on all the articles of the Creed.

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