IIC 172: Questions About Catholicism and Parts Work Answered

[00:00:00] Dr. Peter: Is Internal Family Systems Catholic? That is such a primary question for so many parts of so many Catholics. Is IFS Catholic? We have parts that are questioning this because often our spiritual manager parts, our Catholic standard bearer parts, they want to keep us safe, they want to protect us, and so it’s a really important question that we get to here in the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. And so over the last five episodes, we have been covering the evidence for Internal Family Systems approaches, parts and systems thinking in Scripture, that was 166; in the early Church Fathers in episode 167; in Saint Augustine in episode 168; and St. Maximus the Confessor in 169; and St. Bonaventure in 170.

[00:01:00] Dr. Peter: And so I am super excited to be able to bring back all of my guests and co-hosts from those episodes and for us to all gather here today so that we can be with you, live. We have a live audience at our virtual studio today. We are going to be directly addressing the questions you have about the catholicity of Internal Family Systems and parts and systems approaches. And so with that, let’s get right to it. ​So I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, also known as Dr. Peter. I am your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. It is so good. It is so good to have you with us, and not just in the listening audience, not just in the viewing audience, but live as we record tonight. So welcome to you and all your parts.

[00:02:05] Dr. Peter: I am a clinical psychologist, a trauma therapist, a podcaster, a writer, a co-founder, and president of souls and hearts. But most of all, and you’ve heard me say this before, most of all, I’m a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you to taste and see the height and depth and breadth, and the warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God your father. And, and also Mary your mother. And why? Because I’m so interested in your human formation. And, and for our human formation, we need our parents. We need our primary parents. We need our spiritual parents. So I am here to help you embrace your identity as a beloved little child of God, as a beloved little son or daughter of Mary, with all your heart, with all your parts.

[00:02:50] Dr. Peter: And throughout all of 2025, we are bringing in the insights from Internal Family Systems developed by Richard Schwartz and other parts and systems models. We’re harmonizing them with the truths of the Catholic faith and the reason for that? Why do we do that? It’s to help you to live out the three great loves in the two great commandments, to love God, to love your neighbor, to love yourself. That is what this is all about. And so in, in the service of that, I’m bringing to you the best of Catholic professionals in the field as my expert guests and co-hosts to share with you their insights, their understandings, their experience. And again, this is all in the service of flourishing. This is all in the service of loving wholeheartedly, loving with all our parts, loving God, sharing in his joy, sharing in his peace, all of your parts, sharing in the bliss of a deep union with God in the three persons of the Trinity forever and ever. 

[00:03:47] Dr. Peter: This is episode 172 of the Interior integration for Catholics podcast. It releases on August 18th, 2025 in audio. It’ll release on August 17th, a day early, on YouTube, and it’s titled Questions About Catholicism and Parts Work Answered. And so I wanna introduce to you those that’ll be with me on this panel. And first of all, Dr. Gerry Crete, a dear friend, colleague. We have been through a lot together. Dr. Gerry has been through his own intense personal journey. He has no stranger to trauma himself. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist. He’s the author of the book, Litanies of the Heart. Many of you have read that. It was published last year by Sophia Press, and so I am so excited to have you, Dr. Gerry with us. He’s the founder and owner of Transfiguration Counseling. He co-founded Souls and Hearts with me in 2019. It is so good to have you with us, Dr. Gerry. 

[00:04:45] Dr. Gerry: Hey, it’s my pleasure.

[00:04:48] Dr. Peter: I am astounded by your insights. It has just been wonderful to be with you and just to be able to see the reach of your studies. It’s really unusual and that a mental health professional would have as much of a background in so many things Catholic, so many things historical, so many things mystical, so many things that are obscure, I might say. So I am so glad to have you with us.

[00:05:16] Dr. Gerry: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I’m loving it though. Like, I’m a crazy reader, so I’m always, my wife thinks I’m nuts. I mean, she’s reading a mystery novel in bed, and I, she looks over and I’m reading, you know, Bernard’s Mysticism and you know, blah, blah blah. and stuff. So, but the freedom in a sense, the chance to like really explore this, to me it’s just lighting all kinds of fire within me, ’cause I’m just seeing all these connections. I’m discovering so much all the time myself. So I love to get a chance to bring this all together. 

[00:05:48] Dr. Peter: Well, I am so happy that we have a platform here in the IIC podcast that has you on as frequently as we do. So thank you again. And then Dr. Christian Amalu. So I met, I met Christian, I met you when you were a graduate student at Divine Mercy University. And as a grad student, you recognized something special about Internal Family Systems, and gripped onto it and you didn’t just grip onto it as sort of a casual interest. You made it a focus or maybe the focus of your graduate education in centering your dissertation on it. And that dissertation has been downloaded more than a thousand times. It’s a major contribution to the field. You are now gonna be getting your IFS, your formal IFS training, you’re bringing together all of this understanding of IFS from an anthropological perspective and coupling it with all the clinical aspects of it. And I had the honor of actually journeying with you on that dissertation, a marvelous work, and I am so glad to have you back with us, Dr. Christian.

[00:07:03] Dr. Christian: So wonderful to be back here, Peter. I really appreciate that, and it was wonderful having you as a third reader, having an IFS expert such as yourself and somebody who’s so interested in the anthropology, it really helped ground everything and really get that dissertation done. So really indebted to you on that. I’m still a little shocked that over a thousand downloads have happened. I just can’t wrap my mind around that. But I don’t know. I’m the kind of person that would download dissertations. I just didn’t think there were more of me on this planet. So, just glad to hear it and hoping that it will be of benefit to people and we can just continue doing this work. It doesn’t stop there. It keeps going.

[00:07:43] Dr. Peter: I just mentioned your dissertation to somebody that was inquiring about the anthropological dimensions of IFS the other day. And I mentioned your dissertation, he said, oh yeah, I downloaded it and I read it. So it’s not just getting downloaded, people are actually like reading it. And the beautiful thing is, it’s actually a really good read. Like so many dissertations are dry and dull and so forth, but this is really, really good.

[00:08:05] Dr. Christian: I try to make things palatable. I do think I know how to write fairly well, but thank you. I appreciate that. 

[00:08:13] Dr. Peter: So good to have you. And then back by popular demand, we have psychologist Dr. Peter Martin of the great state of Nebraska, and he has been with us on a number of podcast episodes, including episode 166 in this series. I’ve introduced him before. He’s familiar to you. He is, I would say, the foremost expert on the integration of three things, Internal Family Systems, attachment theory, a Catholic understanding of the human person. And he’s also a dear friend of many, many years. We have had our moments together, you know, and challenged each other and have been friends. And it is so good to have you here with us, Dr. Peter. He is an IFS therapist. He works on integrating the faith with trauma-informed approaches to recovery, and he supervises therapists at his Immaculate Heart of Mary Counseling Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. We’ve known each other for so many years, again, Peter, and it is so good to be able to spend some more time with you discussing something that we both love and we started that journey together with level one training together, you know, so many years ago. And here we are so many years later doing this podcast episode, so just brings joy to my heart.

[00:09:31] Dr. Peter Martin: It’s really great to be back and I appreciate that, Peter. Yeah, that level one training, I think I’ll probably end up telling my grandkids at some point in the future. It was quite an experience. And also it’s just really good to be back. Christian, we miss you out here in Nebraska. He just finished his postdoc and gonna make a big name for himself in Virginia. And by the way, having listened to the episodes on the various fathers especially, well, I guess the doctor Bonaventure in particular was remarkable, so I’m still kind of experiencing the afterglow of that episode, so great work. Great to be back with everybody. 

[00:10:04] Dr. Peter: Well, thank you for being here. So I think Dr. Christian, Dr. Gerry, Dr. Peter Martin, I think we should just go right to questions. Is there anything that, you know, we feel like we should address beforehand? Can we go right to questions? 

[00:10:18] Dr. Christian: I just wanna add one thing. All parts are welcome and per Gerry’s screen, all cats are welcome as well.

[00:10:26] Dr. Peter: Apparently, yes, if you are on the YouTube version of this, you can see Dr. Gerry’s cat. If you’re listening on the audio only, you’re gonna miss that. 

[00:10:35] Dr. Gerry: I’m being very Franciscan today, and most days. 

[00:10:42] Dr. Christian: Excellent. That is all. 

[00:10:46] Dr. Peter: Well, good. Well, I am so interested in just kind of sorting through and hearing from folks about, you know, what they might want to ask, what they might want to know, what they might want to explore together. 

[00:10:58] Dr. Gerry: Casey has a question.

[00:11:00] Dr. Peter: Okay, great.

[00:11:02] Dr. Gerry: And should be afraid because, I don’t know, we’re starting with the big guns. 

[00:11:07] Casey: No, it’s not that kind of question at all, though now I have so many questions about your cat. My question is actually fairly foundational and it’s a question about safety. So, I think part of what surprised me about starting to do some IFS myself and listen to this podcast is I’ve been persuaded about how important safety is, and I don’t know that anyone has ever actually said this, but it seems like the implication is if the goal is to become a little child of God, a parvulos, and if God is the primary attachment figure, then we’re saying that God is safe, ultimately safe, which seems self-evidently true, but then we have this CS Lewis quote that we love to repeat, about Aslan not being the tame lion. He’s not safe, but he’s good. And so I’ve just found myself kind of tossing these two things around in my head. To what extent can we say or not say that God is safe? And how would that impact a Catholic approach to parts work?

[00:12:16] Dr. Peter: I feel like Dr. Peter Martin has got something profound to say on this.

[00:12:22] Dr. Peter Martin: First off, love the question. You used the word attachment, so I especially love it. I think what I would say is yes, safety seems to be a foundational component to the extent that a lot of treatment and a lot of parts work requires some level of courage. And we have to feel safe enough to be courageous enough to do that kind of work. So there’s a certain physiological level of safety we have to have in order to do that work and to do it well. With the quote about Aslan, that’s a great one, as well. The thing that I would say is God, in some ways, in many ways, he’s always safe. But then he’s also going to challenge us. So the way I think of that quote is that within the window of tolerance, within that window where we have this capacity to connect more neurologically, more biologically, more physiologically, primed to be able to connect, we’re in that window. There is this range of functioning at the top before you get to survival zone, fight, flight, freeze. That’s the growth edge. And so you might say that is where we’re on that kind of brink of going into the unsafe region, but we’re still in this place where we’re soul stretching. So God loves us as we are. But he also wants us to flourish and to grow. And that does require some level of stretching and challenge that goes with it.

[00:13:51] Dr. Peter Martin: My sister-in-law, actually, to give her credit to this, she said she went to a talk. And in that presentation, the person said, faith is spelled with four letters, RISK. So there is a sense that this development of trust and working on it does require some kind of risk and God knows that. And so in that sense, he doesn’t feel safe, especially, you know, if we’re trying to go with that. One other quick thing. The five primary conditions of attachment. The first one is felt safety. So not just thinking I’m safe, but feeling safe. But there is a kind of functioning when you get into more like disorganized attachment or complex PTSD, where there’s actually a level even below that. So there are individuals who, their core challenge is not to find felt safety. That first kind of challenge is to feel not embarrassed to exist. It’s like they’re feeling shamed, shame for existence. And so you’ll see this with a number of clients and once you can get them to say, oh, maybe it is kind of good that I exist. We’re not quite at wonderful that I exist, that Pieper and others’ notion, but we’re kind of getting that direction and now I feel safe enough to connect and get that those other relationship dynamic factors met.

[00:15:05] Dr. Gerry: I would throw in a few things. Thank you, Dr. Peter Martin. That’s great. I love it. Going in a slightly different direction, I think we might be confusing sometimes safety in this world, ’cause we don’t have safety in this world, obviously a fallen world, all of that. And to what extent do we ascribe the things that happen to us that are difficult to God? I mean, you know, there’s the whole permissive will and all that business. And so there’s that. And I think we just, in the same way we may have problematic God images that cause us to like assume he is not safe and so on. I would say though, I’ve just been reading John of the Cross again, it’s ’cause I’m getting ready to, you know, leap into the Spanish mystics ’cause I’m racing through the centuries here. And from the Spiritual Canticle is a lot I’ve just been pondering. It’s, “Reveal your presence and may the vision of your beauty be my death for the sickness of love is not cured except by your very presence and image.” And so I’ve been pondering that passage, ’cause it’s very powerful, you know. What does it mean that the vision of your beauty is my death? That doesn’t sound safe. You know, we are actually called to die. And the mystics get to such a perfect state where they want to die, right, in him. And of course they’re reborn, right? It’s not the end, but it’s like that process doesn’t feel safe by most people’s standards of safety.

[00:16:33] Dr. Gerry: And at the same time, you know, I’m gonna try to connect a little bit to what Dr. Martin was saying. Like he doesn’t, in some ways, give us more than we can handle sometimes. So he is pushing us into that zone of discomfort sometimes as part of our growth, which doesn’t always feel safe. But the ultimate is losing ourselves on some level. And, you know, most of us maybe don’t need to worry about it. Like maybe we’re never gonna get to a place where we’re literally giving ourselves so completely to God. I don’t know. I’m not there yet. That doesn’t feel safe. Like, that feels really scary because I am attached to so much and I like the idea of it, but I don’t know that I want to do it. And I think he’s calling us into that danger zone. But just my off-the-cuff thoughts there. 

[00:17:25] Casey: Yeah, I mean, that’s exactly the kind of line of thought that I go to and because that’s my background and psychotherapy is not my background, then I wonder, well then, how can we even talk about this marriage if this.

[00:17:37] Dr. Gerry: Casey, Casey, can you just share your background briefly? ‘Cause it’s fascinating. I think people will really be interested to know what you just finished with doing, your dissertation and everything.

[00:17:46] Casey: Oh, well, it’s not done. I aspire to have 1% of the downloads that Dr. Christian has. Yeah, I’m getting my PhD in theology at Boston College. I work on early Franciscans. I wrote my master’s thesis on St. Bonaventure and now I’m working on a very obscure 14th century Franciscan who does this inner celestial hierarchy as a model of the human person. So when I started hearing the podcast talking about it, I was like, I gotta send a cold email. My impresser part is just like, eeeeh!

[00:18:23] Dr. Peter: Oh my goodness. Well, I was just, I was just reading your stuff today. I was just spending some time looking at, you know, thrones and dominions and powers and like how they correspond to different, you know, kinds of hierarchy within the self. These different angels. Yeah. It’s great to have you with us.

[00:18:39] Casey: I didn’t come here to talk about my work. I’m sure part of me did.

[00:18:44] Dr. Christian: Well, we wanna talk about it now, so.

[00:18:48] Dr. Peter: Better watch it, Casey, you’re gonna be a guest here in.

[00:18:51] Casey: Don’t make my dreams come true. But so, I mean, exactly the thing you just rehearsed, Dr. Gerry, that’s where my theology brain goes. Like, this is not safe at all. And in fact, it’s the task for me to become acclimated to this kind of divine standard of safety. But then when I’m face-to-face with my therapist doing IFS, like I really need to actually feel safe in the kind of conventional sense. So that’s the conflict is like, this word seems to mean two kind of, or maybe what Dr. Peter described kind of partially overlapping ways, and then it becomes a question of discernment. Like, okay, in prayer or whatever, in life, this thing that I think I need to do feels unsafe. Then do you say, you know, nope, part’s not ready for that? Or do you say like, you know, bring it on?

[00:19:48] Dr. Peter: I think you work with the parts where they are. You know, I remember being six years old and needing surgery and I did not feel safe in the hospital. But I was able to be there with my mom and my dad, you know, and so I think one of the things that comes to mind, the scripture passage of, you know, “Your ways are not my ways, your thoughts are not my thoughts.” And if our innermost self can be a secure internal attachment figure for our parts, the parts may not understand. They may be coming to God like little children that do not understand what’s happening. But if there can be that trust and that trust can be supported so that there is a sense of safety, even though there may not be understanding of what’s going on at the level of the parts, I think that’s a way to start reconciling, you know, how we can go into something that we know is gonna change us, that’s gonna affect us, like the surgery I was going into. But yet, and not be totally comfortable with it, but feel safe enough, ’cause it’s not gonna be always comfortable for parts. So I don’t know if that helps.

[00:20:57] Dr. Gerry: I had some other thoughts that were popping up. Oh, but I’m gonna save them, Christian.

[00:21:04] Dr. Christian: I don’t need to say anything. I just had a thought. There’s something in what you just said there, Peter, about being, you said six years old and going into surgery. 

[00:21:12] Dr. Peter: Yeah. 

[00:21:13] Dr. Christian: I think something that’s been really helpful working with so many different clients and having so many different beautiful systems I’ve been able to encounter. The operative question I have is, where are you starting from? Where’s the part starting from? ‘ Cause I’ve had some parts phenomenologically that it’s like, oh yeah, this part’s 12. I’m like, oh, okay. Well, a 12-year-old developmentally maybe has a different level of capacity. And I’ve had some clients where they’ve said, this part is two years old. And I can’t get him to stop crying. You don’t expect from a 2-year-old what you expect from a 12-year-old.

[00:21:52] Dr. Christian: And so I think that there is something so, so powerful and understanding that the different parts are coming from a different place. So safety’s gonna mean something different for every part. And yeah, the lion isn’t tame. The lion is wild and powerful, but he is good. I really wanna throw some weird nature things out there that I’ve seen before because you can see how different things in nature even can recognize different developmental statuses. So how much is the lion gonna be different with different parts? Is God going to have all that ferocity there with your 2-year-old part? I would think that he comes in a different way. He shows up in the way that that part needs and different parts are gonna have a different need and might feel a little bit more of that scariness. So kind of taking some of what Peter Martin was talking about with those primordial attachment needs, which ones are the most operative? And I don’t think God’s gonna push a part somewhere where it’s not developmentally appropriate for that part. He’s gonna meet them where the needs are. 

[00:22:57] Dr. Gerry: You know, bringing it back to Narnia. So thank you for redirecting that, ’cause it’s not what I was about to say, but I think this might be better. Like Lucy and Susan felt extremely safe with Aslan. And Aslan’s fierceness came out against the enemies. His anger and wrath was not directed to Lucy and Susan or Edmund and Peter. And they felt intense devotion and love for him. And it’s so beautifully portrayed, right? And so I think that we can feel safe with God ultimately. It doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to guide us through a journey that is sometimes gonna be frightening, but ultimately he is the ultimate safety in fact, and even in resting in him and discovering him in our heart of hearts, there’s this deep love, this deep sense of safety within, there’s this deep sense, ultimately, we know that no matter what trials in life we experience, we’re ultimately destined toward a perfect safety and a perfect goodness and a perfect love. So I don’t wanna just stick with the John of the Cross, we’re gonna die to our, but the overall message, the bigger message, is that. 

[00:24:04] Dr. Peter Martin: It’s been such a great question. We’re having like 15 responses, you know, I think I’ll go on number 16 here, but I like that context that was provided there, Gerry, because there’s Aslan the lion, take that as exhibit number one, and then exhibit number two is going on safari in Africa and you meet a real ferocious lion that’s hungry. Like those are two very different kinds of creature, or creatures or not creatures in this case of God. But what I would say is if you partner that kind of fearful or scary aspect of Aslan and where it’s directed, it’s toward the enemy. And then you take this other dynamic of God, which is the primary aspect of our relationship with God after the fall, is his mercy. It’s his steadfast, tender compassion. Well, that’s a kind of lion I can get acquainted with. You know, that’s the kind of lion I can grow and soul stretch with, as opposed to the one that’s in Africa, let’s say. 

[00:24:56] Dr. Gerry: And let’s not forget too, that in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is actually my favorite of the series, Eustace encounters Aslan when he was that giant dragon, right? And the dragon uses this claw and tears off the scales, which is horrible. I don’t know if it was safe, I’m sure it was hygienic. I’m sure he didn’t get an infection from that. But like it was painful but necessary. And Aslan was willing to do that out of love. We could talk Narnia, but maybe we’ll save that for another podcast. 

[00:25:29] Dr. Christian: Narnia and Parts. Yes. That’s a good one. 

[00:25:33] Dr. Peter: So just how does that land with you? I’m just curious, Casey, you know, if there’s anything else that you know you’d like to ask. 

[00:25:39] Casey: I thought that was helpful. Yeah, that gives me more to think with and actually, I mean, in the books. Yeah. Aslan does say to Lucy that he will get bigger as she gets bigger. So there is that sense even within the world of Narnia what Dr. Christian was pointing to, that he’s kind of accommodating himself to different characters at different levels. And in fact, he doesn’t come at everyone with a claw, right? But he also doesn’t not do that because it’s the thing that Eustace needs for freedom. But I often think about the scene at the beginning of Silver Chair, which is my favorite, where Jill Pole has just been blown to Narnia and she encounters Aslan for the first time. And she wants to take a drink from the stream and she says, can you just go away, please? I don’t feel that comfortable, like kneeling down and drinking water. And he’s like, no. And she’s like, okay, I’ll find another stream. There is no other stream. And so to me that kind of encapsulates like not the dilemma, but that’s kind of that edge of like, she has to have the antecedent willingness to trust him. And he’s not gonna gobble her. But it’s also true that there’s nowhere else she can go. 

[00:26:59] Dr. Gerry: And God, in the Old Testament, right? Like the various people have to have their faces veiled to see him. That’s how scary, how not safe he is. Like, you’ll die if you touch the Ark and stuff like that. And yet we have also Christ who’s human in order to show God’s love and be present with us. So God loves us so much that he knows, like on some level, God is so transcendent and so other that we can’t even truly see him, at least not in this life. And yet he goes out of his way to help us with that in an ultimate way.

[00:27:32] Dr. Peter: And I think it’s helpful to remember that we will have as many different positions toward God as we have parts that are not well integrated. And that’s one of the beautiful things about an IFS lens or a parts and systems lens that we look at these things through, is to say, yeah, it’s not either-or, it’s a both-and, and this and that. You know, as we begin to include more and more of our parts so that we can both feel very close to a particular person of the Trinity, say, our Lord Jesus Christ, but we also might have a part that’s terrified of Jesus, you know, and that all can happen at the same time. There’s a multifaceted aspect of this that I think is so much better captured from an IFS perspective than it is from a single personality. You know, sort of thinking that somehow this is all melded together. So, and again, that’s what we’ve been kind of talking about in the last five episodes is like, how are our most luminous thinkers in the history of Catholicism, of the church? How are they conceptualizing that multiplicity? How are they framing that and what can we learn from ’em? So yeah. I’m curious if there’s other questions like where, what else might be on people’s minds?

[00:28:50] Dr. Peter: I do have a question here that was written in that says, can you speak to the difference in the Formation for Formators community and the Resilient Catholics community? As a spiritual director, I’m wondering where the ideal place is to initially plug in. I love questions like this, because it does allow us to kind of highlight some of the things that we offer. I’ll try to make this not too salesy. But the Resilient Catholics community is a year long, step-by-step structured approach using small groups that meet weekly to bring the best of Internal Family Systems informed approaches grounded in the Catholic anthropology, to bring that to our parts. And so what many of us have been doing has been distilling out what are the best ways that we can offer this, where it doesn’t require therapy, doesn’t require counseling or coaching. And so that is for any Catholic adult who embraces what the church teaches definitively, is interested in parts and systems thinking, and wants to work with their parts in a way that’s fully Catholic, to bring them into a closer and deeper relationship, who wants to learn how to love themselves. And the focus is really on empowering your innermost self and your parts to love yourself. It’s not professionally facilitated or mediated. In other words, you’re not working with an IFS professional every week. You’re meeting in small groups of five to nine weekly. We call those companies, after the Lord of the Rings, the Company of the Ring. We do a lot of Lord of the Rings stuff as well in Souls and Hearts. And you have a companion that you journey with. And as part of that application process, and we take new applications every February, June, and October, you’ll take the PartsFinder Pro and that is a series of 22 measures that I’ve selected. And the report that comes from that is to help identify 10 to 15 of your parts. Usually about three to five managers, three to five firefighters, three to five exiles, and not only kind of identify like, what their roles are, but how those parts interact, how do they align, how do they polarize? What are the issues there? And so that’s all part of the Resilient Catholics community. A lot of times people find that PartsFinder Pro report a really launching point. So if you’re really new to this and unfamiliar with your parts and you don’t feel like you have a good handle on kinda what’s going on, that can serve as a jumpstart.

[00:31:33] Dr. Peter: And the Formation for Formators community, that is specifically our community for those who help others in their personal formation. So this is really human formation for formators, human formation for therapists, for coaches, for spiritual directors, for priests, anybody who accompanies others in their formation. Because I really noticed that over the years, like what holds back therapists, for example, what happens when they lose their peace, when a client gets under their skin, so to speak, it’s not that the client can steal the peace of the therapist. What the client is doing is activating what’s unresolved in the therapist, bringing up parts that the therapist hasn’t fully integrated yet. And I’m finding out that the same is true with coaching and I know less about spiritual directors, but from what I’m hearing that’s true for spiritual directors as well. Those are professionally mediated. Those are groups that meet every other week. And we have an IFS level one trained person in those groups, usually, at least level one or that’s had other parts and systems training approaches. And in our foundations experiential groups, we’re also like inviting you to practice with each other in our triads. And so there’s a little bit more of like a professional development aspect to that, but the focus still remains on you really working on your own stuff. And so that’s the Formation for Formators community. You can check these communities out, the RCC, the Resilient Catholics community at soulsandhearts.com/rcc. You can check out the Formation for Formators community at soulsandhearts.com/fff. We have new groups that are starting later this month and in September of 2025. You can check those out again at those landing pages.

[00:33:19] Dr. Peter: So I hope that kind of addresses that question. You can certainly ask more about that. I dunno if there’s anything else that anybody might wanna say about either of those communities though. No, that pretty much cover it? Okay. I know we have some of our RCC members here. I know we’ve had some folks that have been in the FFF here as well, the Formation for Formators community. So in both those communities, the primary focus is on the human formation of the individual, the personal human formation of the member. And that sometimes is a little confusing to folks, especially coming into the Formation for Formators community, because there can be this real tendency to look outward when you are a counselor or a therapist or a spiritual director or a coach or a priest, to look at what’s going on in the other person. And here we’re really inviting you to really do your own work. 

[00:34:22] Dr. Gerry: Looks like Cathy has a question.

[00:34:26] Cathy: Okay. I have a statement more so than a question. Number one, I’m a convert, so I didn’t convert till I was 50. Number two, I have a background in counseling from a very secular background, and so finding the RCC and Souls and Hearts last January was just, I don’t know, life changing. And now, I just celebrated my 71st birthday, so I feel like I’m just, now, I feel so far behind. And I feel overwhelmed and sad, and it’s like I can’t read that much. I have too many other obligations that, I enjoy, I would love to read. I didn’t get through all the Bonaventure. I was listening to it this week. And I’ve been to a conference last weekend and I’m getting ready to go to the retreat and fly for the first time in 25 years. So I have some parts that are just really all over the park place. There’s two that take over my life and I’ve just kind of accepted they’re gonna be there for the next couple days. They’re going to lead the camp. My life is kind of a mess, but I wanna thank you guys, and people that are listening that maybe haven’t joined, it’s just, I think this is just so life changing and so has brought my relationship, my prayer life and my relationship with God, just, it’s like I say, life changing. I have some serious attachment issues. And God is my foundation. And so, most of all, I just wanna thank you. I’ve listened to all the podcasts, and I appreciate it. It’s been a beautiful gift.

[00:36:03] Dr. Peter: Well, it’s been beautiful to get to know you, Cathy, over the last several months, and looking forward to seeing you at the retreat. Now that will be finished by the time this airs. The retreats will be over by the time this airs.

[00:36:13] Cathy: Oh, well, sorry, guys. 

[00:36:14] Dr. Peter: But we’re anticipating a fantastic retreat. And I would say that at 71, if you’re really starting to look inside and take yourself through that lens and kind of walk with yourself from a parts and systems perspective and IFS informed perspective, you are way ahead of most people. I really believe that. I know it feels like to parts like you’re behind, but the vast majority of people are not going to engage in this way. 

[00:36:45] Cathy: And I know that’s due to that. I have a pretty strong prayer life. I had to get on my knees in 2018, then started the ball rolling. So it, yeah, I think God has opened many, many doors.

[00:36:59] Dr. Peter: And we have hundreds of people in the RCC and we have quite a number of them in their seventies. It’s interesting. You know, we have people everywhere from the twenties all the way up to their eighties right now, yeah. You’re not alone.

[00:37:11] Cathy: Oh, I know. I’m not alone. But yeah, the whole Catholic, just the Catholic world itself, when I walked into Mass for the very first time and realized, that had been what I had been looking for my entire life. And it took me a while, ’cause I live in the Midwest, not strong Catholic communities. In fact, yeah, I was in what we call the Vatican for the Assembly of God, Springfield, Missouri area. So there was very few Catholics and very few Catholics in my hometown. So it’s not that I grew up around Catholics, I don’t have a family member that’s Catholic. So yeah, it’s been a wonderful journey. 

[00:37:55] Dr. Peter: Well, thank you for that. I’m gonna turn to this questions that came in, ’cause these questions are gonna launch a big discussion, I think. So here are the questions. Can you speak about parts having different God images and how a person comes to an integrated sense and knowledge of who God is? And let’s just start with that one. There’s a second one, but it’s a little separate, but speaking about parts having different God images and how a person comes to an integrated sense and knowledge of who God is.

[00:38:34] Dr. Gerry: You know, the first thing that comes to my mind when I heard that was that our inner multiplicity is a beautiful thing. It’s not a problem. I mean, you might read into like St. Augustine’s talking about like the fracturing of the self or fragmenting, and the sense of needing to be united and that all makes sense. But just the basic multiplicity is beautiful. And the basic multiplicity that we have allows us to perceive God in all of his different dimensions that we’ll never even capture 1% of probably. But nevertheless, the little bit that we’re able to perceive is multiple. Like there isn’t just one God image that’s perfect and we all have to get to it or something. It’s that God has so many dimensions and the fact that we are multiple means that we can grasp various things. There’s four gospels, there’s a multiplicity right there in the story of Jesus, right? Parables are complex and there’s different versions a little bit here and there of different stories because there’s just so many dimensions. And so, you know, it isn’t a bad thing that we have parts that have different God images. The question, it’s only gonna be if those images are somehow like problematic God images that need to be restored or adapted positively or whatever accurately, is all. And so integration maybe allows the whole person led by, you know, the inmost self to appreciate the beauty of all of the ways in which all the parts are perceiving God accurately and being able to like, sit with that. And that’s an amazing beauty. Like to me that’s like why, I mean, I go to a Byzantine church and I’m surrounded what I feel like is beauty and I can perceive aspects of God there. But I could go to like, just some Bible study or I could go to different kinds of Masses with slightly different, you know, music or slightly different approaches and still find God there and his beauty and just maybe in a different way. And so maybe there’s an emphasis over here on God’s transcendence and maybe over there there’s an emphasis on Christ and his humanity. And it’s a good thing that it is multiple. 

[00:40:53] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah. I like the idea of the, kind of the varying dimensions or kind of angles at which, let’s say, we’re drawn to God or things that appeal to us about him. And Fr. Groeschel, of happy memory. He said that, if I remember correctly, he said that individuals who convert to Catholicism were fully, let’s say, some of them are drawn by its goodness. That seems to be the strong appeal to them. Others are drawn by its beauty, right? And there’s plenty of that. And then others are drawn by just its profound enduring truths. And so if we take those transcendentals and we look at how those might appeal to the different categories of parts, for instance. I’m not so sure exiles are fully drawn to truth as much as the manager part would be.

[00:41:41] Dr. Peter Martin: My sense is that a manager part would be highly interested in the great truths. Maybe firefighters are interested in goodness, I don’t know. But I get the sense that exiles in particular are drawn by the beauty and the goodness, more so than the truth. So, again, I’m just shooting from the cuff here, but I think that’s an area that could be fleshed out in a Catholic understanding of IFS, ’cause I think, the Lord appeals, if you think about a person that’s really interested in strength, they might be drawn to God’s omnipotence, or someone that’s highly intellectual. They might be drawn to God’s omniscience or something like that. So there’s certain aspects that captivate and draw in like a magnet certain parts and everything. But I think it’s the conversion that we’re talking about to get an authentic encounter of God that’s not really blocked by our human distortions. It’s not really blocked in any way by our psychobiological history. I don’t know anybody that’s quite made it there just yet, but to increasingly do that, so the whole person is drawn to God and easily so. You know, Chesterton has this great line where he says, the church is like a magnet. And he says it has the power to repel and to attract. I think God’s kinda like that as well, right? But the moment that someone stops shouting God down is the moment they start speaking fondly of him and the moment they stop pushing against or fighting, let’s say, the church or God in this case, is the moment they feel a tug toward it, toward him. And so I get the sense a lot of it is just trying not to fight it, but to be open to it and turn toward him. And then that goodness and truth and beauty is gonna draw in on its own.

[00:43:29] Dr. Christian: The next paper by Dr. Peter Martin will be about the three transcendentals and the three categories of parts. Coming to you all very soon. 

[00:43:38] Dr. Peter Martin: And note to self.

[00:43:39] Dr. Christian: That, that was awesome. I really liked hearing that perspective. I think that compliments very well. Kind of going back to when Gerry said the first thing that he thought of, I kind of was sitting with that, like, okay, what actually really came to mind? Because I still have parts that like to filter, like, oh, what’s gonna be the fancy thing to say? And so I still often have to work through that. I’m like, what was really my first thought? And the first thought that came to mind is I always come back to the fact that it’s Internal Family Systems. And so the first thing that came to mind was a family event. And it never fails to just activate all of my intrigue. The fact that you could have the same event and different members of the family remember it differently or experience it massively differently. There are different things within a party that people might enjoy. Let’s say you have a 3-year-old and a 7-year-old and a teenager and the mom and dad, just everybody’s going to relate to the encounter in a different way, and it doesn’t mean that one is better than the other necessarily. But those different perspectives are reaching for something, any combination of those transcendentals that Dr. Martin brought up. And so how do we integrate those things? I think being able to acknowledge, we say family system for a reason, it is a family. So what is the unique components that are coming together from those different parts? How are they encountering a given event? Is there something indispensable that they’re bringing forth that is necessary for the whole integration of the family? And are there maybe some deficits? Are there some ways in which they’re not taking in the event in the way that they could? Is there disconnect from other members of the family that make the encounter harder? Those kinds of components that lead to, you know, how do we make a united and happy family within? How do we make it so that the event that we go to, the encounter that we have is something that’s joyful for all of the parts? That’s just some of the thoughts that came to mind for me.

[00:45:46] Dr. Peter: Well, and for me, going back to this question of how does a person come to an integrated sense and knowledge of who God is. I think about the parts connecting in an ordered way under the leadership and guidance of the innermost self, and the innermost self being a bridge to God for the parts. And I don’t think the knowing can be separated from the loving. So I think what happens is over time, and it can take time, parts tolerating taking in love. And that may not be directly from God right away, but all love, all authentic love is ultimately from God, so becoming sort of familiar with love, even if you know, the proximate person isn’t one of the three in the Trinity, you know, it’s the innermost self or it’s another person or it’s a self-led part, that is loving another part because of the connection with the innermost self. And there’s a kind of coalescing around, a recollecting around the innermost self. And then the parts that are recollected that are coming into right relationship with the innermost self can begin to have the perspective of the innermost self. And not just that, but they also bring their own unique experiences and perceptions with them, their perspectives with them. So it’s a both-and. Those parts are broadening out the whole system’s understanding of who God is. And I think that’s part of what our Lord is commanding us in the first great commandment, to love wholeheartedly. And that means with all of our parts. And if a part’s left out, if a part’s cast aside or not included, there’s something that diminishes our connection with God, our potential connection with God. So I look at this as happening both on a natural level, you know, kinda shoring up that natural foundation for the encounter with God by overcoming sort of some of the fragmentation within, parts coming together. And then as that happens, there’s, you know, a tapping into all these faculties, all these powers, all these passions. Being able to connect in with the intellect, to be able to integrate memory so that there’s a greater sense of at least knowing what the experience of other parts were. And that helps us to kind of triangulate and kind of understand a little bit more in a consistent way what our experience of God is as he actually is. So that’s what I would say about sort of that integrative process. And I’m talking about this primarily from the natural realm. At the same time, grace is operative, right? And so there’s another set of processes that are happening more in the spiritual plane, that are more impacted by grace. So I think it’s a both-and, natural and supernatural. But other questions, I’m really curious if there are folks that would like to jump in with a hand raised and love to hear your voices. I’ve got a couple that have come in, but I definitely want to create space for folks that might want to ask.

[00:49:02] Dr. Gerry: Can I just throw something out, ’cause I was just, had a thought. All this and I’ll be heady and conceptual and I apologize in advance. I know Casey might appreciate this, like the Dionysian, you know, view and a lot of the Eastern, you know, Christian view would be that there is no real adequate image of God. And we, honestly on that human level, we do need those images. We do need something to hold onto, we need something to connect. But the ultimate is actually entering into a space of darkness or that cloud of unknowing or whatnot where all of our senses are suspended and we enter into an experience of God that is actually beyond anything we could imagine. I’m not there yet, so I’m only talking from stuff I’ve read and I mean, that is kind of where we’re going, like ultimately is realizing wow, he is so, but it doesn’t have to be scary lion thing. It’s like, he is so other, but he is so powerful and that this transcendent, like words don’t even describe, you know, being loves us and wants us and is inviting us more and more into that place. To me it’s just remarkable. So I’m just throwing that out ’cause I had that thought, related to images.

[00:50:29] Dr. Peter: Beautiful. We have this question, also, when parts blend and there are unwanted behaviors, how does that work with a person’s will and Catholic morality? Now I do wanna say we are going to be getting into this question a lot more in a later episode. We’re gonna be bringing in like parts and moral questions. It’s down the road a piece. As we get into the fall and winter, we’re gonna be addressing some of these questions more specifically. But yeah. The faculty of the will, the faculty of the intellect. What’s the relationship that parts have with these faculties and how does that translate into, you know, moral questions? Because that’s one of the things that is sometimes a concern from folks is that are we all sort of like saying, yeah, the innermost self is entirely shielded from any kind of moral responsibility. It’s always driven by parts. Are parts really the ones that are sinning? You know, when there’s sin? Does the will reside within a part, you know, how do we understand the intellect and the will and the parts. So I’m gonna throw that out there to our panel.

[00:51:43] Dr. Gerry: This is one for Peter Martin.

[00:51:51] Dr. Christian: I love, Peter, how you’re being voluntold.

[00:51:54] Dr. Peter Martin: That’s great. I was gonna really just kind of stay quiet on this one, but yeah, I.

[00:51:58] Dr. Peter: The hot potato has landed in your last.

[00:52:01] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah, just a couple of kind of benchmarks. I think the first one I’d say is that in order for a thing to be able to sin, it has to be an individual substance of a rational nature, right? It has to have intellect and will, it has to have that. Now, parts in and of themselves don’t have that, right? So the human person does, and it’s the human agent that sins or does some kind of, you know, action that’s good or virtuous. But parts in some ways can condition that. So the way I would kind of think of it is, after the fall, the intellect is darkened, but not pitch black. And the will is weakened, but not totally paralyzed. Now, insofar as a part that blends somehow darkens the intellect even further or weakens the will even more, that will to some extent shape how much of a fully functioning moral agent the person is. And it can happen to some extent that if the will is weakened to some extent, like a severe extent because of parts blending and other things, then how much of the guilt is imputed as sin to the person can be very minimal, right? So if you think of someone that has a severe addiction and you know, their firefighter parts have just feels like they’re kind of taken over, so to speak, then what that person does may not. Like for instance, you’ll have a client that goes to a priest and says, well, I fell again in some kind of sexual temptation or such and such, but they’re in kind of an addictive state of mind. Then the priest might say, well, you’re still allowed to receive communion. So there seems to be some kind of sin. Maybe it’s venial, but it doesn’t seem you had sufficient knowledge and consent for this to be constituted as a mortal sin, imputed as guilt. But, I would still say that it’s the human person, right? It’s the human person who chooses or not chooses. Now, so it’s the human person that manages or firefights, right? Ultimately. Just a couple of distinctions I think, because I think we can get into saying the part made me do it. You know, it’s kinda like the devil made me do it or something in parts language. So yeah. It might be good to steer clear of such language to the extent that we’re making the part out to be a person. That’s where we run into problems. 

[00:54:27] Dr. Peter: Which Schwartz does essentially, I think he would think of parts as actual persons because he would say that, you know, parts actually have their own inmost self. They have their own self and they have their own parts. And so this is more later developments within IFS and it’s problematic on a lot of different levels. And he also believes that the human person is just the self plus the parts plus the body. And you know, Dr. Gerry, for example, has come up with a model of the human person in his excellent book, Litanies of the Heart, on pages 59 and 300. But it’s more complex than that. It’s not just those three parts because we have these other elements in within us.

[00:55:15] Dr. Gerry: You know, I was so happy Dr. Martin, that you answered it. ‘Cause I know you answered it in a very good Thomistic way. And I appreciate that actually about you. I really do. But as a good Bonaventurian over here, I would say, there’s a whole area that I’d actually like to explore and I don’t have an answer today ’cause I haven’t had a chance. ’cause these things are never, you can have thoughts and ideas and, you know, but it takes a little while to sit down with it and make sure it actually is accurate and it fits. But, Thomas, you guys talked about will and intellect, but Bonaventure in that Franciscan tradition talks about memory, as well, as a faculty of the soul. And so I think that’s a really interesting angle to also include in looking at parts because our parts are existing in our memory in various capacities. Like when we encounter different parts, you know, I talk about my five-year-old part, I talk about my middle school part. These different parts tend to exist in different times, in different developmental stages in life, right? And so on. And so they’re connected to our memories and they’re linked. And I think that that plus, like you’re saying, the darkened intellect or the weakened will is influenced by memory. And so the part, I don’t know, I’d like to explore further, like how is the part connected to memory and operating from that faculty to influence a weakened will. So not that the part does it, but that the part is interacting within that zone, if you will, and causing the person to perhaps be more, the human person, a whole human person, to be influenced to make this or that decision. 

[00:56:51] Dr. Christian: I just love that Peter Martin went the Thomistic route and Gerry of course is repping Bonaventure, very nice. And I cannot help but have to, sorry, sorry Gerry. I’m gonna take some of the Eastern position here, ’cause, you know, I feel like we can round that out with the Eastern Catholic perspective. Something that stands in my mind as far as this whole discussion about culpability and sin and the will in particular is, first of all, just starting from the fact that the Catholic tradition really does acknowledge you got one will, you got one will. That’s not something that’s really up for debate at this point. So I think just taking that and seeing how does IFS work with that? We’re all trying to answer that question right now, and I think we’ve got a decent base, but there’s a lot more work to be done. One of my favorite podcasts is called What God Is Not. It’s Mother Natalia and Fr. Michael O’Loughlin. They’re a Byzantine priest and a Byzantine nun. I remember one episode where she was talking about this idea of people often say, “To err is human.” Or, well, “I’m only human when, when we sin.” And she said, no, that’s actually not right. Because being made in the image of likeness of God, we are made for union with God. We weren’t made to sin. Sin is an aberration. And so when we actually engage in sin, she says, what we do is subhuman, it’s actually below. It’s not what humanity is designed for. So when we actually sin, we are departing our humanity. And what that’s doing is it’s dimming the likeness of God within us. And when you think about who the human person is, this is my riff off of this. I don’t believe Mother Natalia said this, but the fact that we are corporal beings and spiritual beings. We are this amalgamation. We are this integrated being. When more and more of that likeness of God is dim within us, we’re becoming more entrenched in that physical, almost animalistic nature. So as we sin, there’s more and more of our image of God dimming, and we’re becoming a little bit more animalistic almost. And we actually kind of see some of this reflected when you look at Byzantine iconography. The demons are almost always depicted as these animal mixtures. They have descended into the chaos of that animalistic, primal, chaotic zone where there is no intellect, there is no order. They’ve descended into the violent laws of nature. And so, piggybacking off of what Dr. Martin and Dr. Crete have both said, when that sin erodes the will so much so, and it makes us more entrenched in that physical material nature, that it does affect the culpability. I think at that point it also brings in that question of how do we bring that humanity back? How do we bring that likeness back and being able to actually sit with these more chaotic parts to be able to understand, okay, they have to build their likeness to God back. Just thought I’d throw that in there. 

[00:59:44] Dr. Peter Martin: Great. No, no. Great summary, Christian. I like that a lot. Yeah. It makes me think of how to be fully human is to be deified, right. That is the full humanization of who we are. And then I guess the flip side would be, was that would be animafication or something like, so if you’re sinning there, it kind of takes you the other direction. Is that actually a term? 

[01:00:05] Dr. Christian: There is a word that’s been thrown around in another fun podcast I listen to, it’s considered the opposite of theosis. They throw around the word demonosis. 

[01:00:14] Dr. Peter Martin: Ah, gotcha. 

[01:00:16] Dr. Christian: But to my knowledge, there’s not a real word. But that’s my head canon. It’s demonosis is what happens when we sin.

[01:00:21] Dr. Peter Martin: That’s, that’s great.

[01:00:25] Dr. Peter: Well, I think of this maybe a little more simply. I think about parts having desires and impulses and those desires and impulses have an impact on the will. You know, and so I want to be really careful about, you know, saying a part did this or a part did that, whether it’s meritorious or whether it’s problematic, you know. It can phenomenologically feel that way, certainly. I mean, it can be like, man, I was just totally taken over by a part, totally blended by a part. There was nothing else going. But yet we know, we do know that at some point there is this free center of choice. And this is something that Dietrich Van Hildebrand brought out in his book, A Transformation in Christ. When he talks about the will being able to, or the innermost self, I would say, being able to sanction or not sanction something that seems outside of its power to control. You know? And so even if we are feeling dominated by a part, or maybe in a more Thomistic sense, being dominated by a passion, there still is a way that the innermost self can connect with the will to sanction or disavow something. So that’s going on within us. So this is an area where we’ve got a lot of work to do. And, you know, it’s interesting that we have some of the therapists here that have done a fair amount of work in understanding questions around moral philosophy, moral theology, but that’s not necessarily the waters that therapists swim in generally. And so we’re really excited to be able to have more and more folks that have a background in philosophy and theology and spirituality, to be able to help us with these questions. And we’re gonna be continuing with some of these questions as we move along in this series this year.

[01:02:09] Dr. Peter: So maybe one final question here. It’s kind of a big one though, and it’s one that’s gonna be addressed also in a lot in episodes 173 and 174. Maybe we can treat it briefly. And that is, St. Thomas Aquinas talks about loving oneself in order to love God and others. Can we love ourselves if we have parts that we don’t love, you know, and how do we understand that?

[01:02:35] Dr. Gerry: Well, isn’t it a part that doesn’t love the other part? Like truly the inmost self unblended is like going to love the parts even when the parts are difficult in some way. Because it kind of does speak a little bit to the morality question. Like, to me the inmost self is darkened. You know, Peter talked about the intellect darkened, but I think of the nous, which does include in knowing and intellect, but also as a sense of loving. So the nous or the inmost self is darkened and so inaccessible in some kind of way. So now I got distracted and I forgot the original question.

[01:03:10] Dr. Peter: We were talking about can we love ourselves if we have parts that we don’t love?

[01:03:14] Dr. Gerry: Yeah. So when the inmost self is blended, then you’re not gonna feel that love toward, you might not, but parts can also love other parts and parts can have issues with other parts, correct? So I think that’s what we’re talking about. I’ll stop there.

[01:03:31] Dr. Peter: Okay. 

[01:03:32] Dr. Christian: I don’t think I have much more to add to that. A thought that came to mind is, I remember growing up the lesson of, you don’t always have to like somebody but you’re required to love. And love and like are not always the same thing. And I definitely have found a lot of parts that don’t like each other in multiple systems I’ve encountered. But I’ve also found the ones that do seem to hold a real lack of love. But that’s always something I feel the desire to kind of differentiate from. I think I have a very precise part that wants to make those claims and work through that. So, I would also kind of take that direction of, is it really not loving or just not liking? I think that could be a helpful differentiation at times.

[01:04:14] Dr. Peter: Do we will the highest good? But I think there’s also affective dimensions and other dimensions of loving, because I really have parts that object to reducing all of love to the action of one faculty, the will. You know, and that kinda came out in our discussion in episode 170 with St. Bonaventure, that, you know, there’s a more wholeheartedness to loving. And so I actually think that, I’m gonna actually go back to Plato on this. And you know, because Plato said if a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and he does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest. So I think it’s really important that we make an effort to recollect all of our parts and to hold that position of benevolence toward those parts, that’s the goodwill. And that we also hold a position of beneficence toward those parts. And beneficence goes beyond goodwill, but also includes the capacity to execute against that goodwill, to carry that goodwill out. And to understand that even a part that’s really misguided in its impulses and its desires and maybe pulling us toward things that are really harmful, really sinful, still has good intentions, still is trying to help us. And I think once a system can get to that point where it appreciates that we are seeking at least perceived goods and that parts are at least desiring something that’s perceived to be good, then we can actually recognize the authentic need behind that pursuit and come up with better ways for that need to be met. You know, often it’s an attachment need or an integrity need or some question around identity. And so, I think it becomes a question. I think that question right there actually identifies a hinge point in development, especially when we begin to appreciate who parts are or what parts are within us, and that they have these good, that they have these good intentions, and that we can work with them. That, you know, if they have a deep sense of having been seen, heard, known, and understood in a way that, you know, allows ’em to continue to feel safe and protected, that parts can soften, and they’re willing to relinquish their problematic agendas, you know, in the service of something greater.

[01:07:00] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah. It’s a great question. I don’t remember all of the question. Could you repeat that? Could you repeat that again? 

[01:07:05] Dr. Peter: It’s, can we love ourselves if we have parts that we don’t love? 

[01:07:09] Dr. Peter Martin: Oh, gotcha. Yeah. So what I might say, if we take the developmental approach, what I would say is anything that’s been created deserves a certain level of respect because it’s been created by the creator. And so it has a certain dignity to it. So for instance, the parts has some level of dignity to them. And Pope Saint, I think it’s Paul VI, says that justice is the minimum measure of charity. So we’re talking about love, but the question is, can I even be just to my parts? It was a great question that was posed in the comments section after the St. Bonaventure discussion. And so can we give the minimum measure of charity to our parts, which is justice? So if we’re beating up our parts, technically that’s not probably the way that’s just to something that’s been created or something that’s been developed like that. And then, can we bump it up to even love and love would be to will the good of the part and then eventually the highest good of the part. Right? You see this kind of, and then I have this sneaking suspicion. I call it the gymnasium of charity. There was a woman that used to be, she was just kind of the mother hen at Divine Mercy when I was there, divine Mercy University, and she told me a story about a, I think it’s her son who was a football player and her other son. They would just get into it a lot, and so she would stop the roughhousing and say, now boys, you’ve left the gymnasium of charity. And so then she swiftly kind of bring them back with some cajoling. And my sense is that justice is on the outside of the gymnasium of charity. It’s just right on the kind of the far reaches the walls, right? It’s the minimum measure. And the further you go into that gymnasium of charity, eventually you get to the center court, which is mercy, which is like the core of our relationship with God after the fall especially. So there’s this kind of range of loving parts from justice to mercy. And if you look at Schwartz’s model, he talks about compassion as one of the eight Cs. I feel like it’s kind of the primary C. It may not be the easiest one to get to, but in some ways it’s the one that’s the most profoundly important. Pope Francis says that mercy brings credibility to our faith. So I’d also think mercy brings credibility to the self. And if the self can provide that steadfast, tender compassion to these parts, eventually that kind of love will get through, right? Eventually. And so the question is, can I love others if I don’t love myself? I don’t know if you can do it fully. And I don’t think you can do it easily, because what’ll happen inevitably is you’ll encounter something about that other person that’s a part that’s kinda like your part that you can’t stand. And somehow that stuff is gonna come up in the relationship and it’s gonna block your capacity to be able to fully love this person, at least in this corner, in this area of that person’s experience. So I do think it will result in some kind of a deficit in love. It may not be always, but it will get there eventually. 

[01:10:25] Dr. Peter: Any final questions before we bring this to a close? Just curious if anyone else has a question before we draw to a close for tonight. Alright. Any final thoughts, Dr. Christian, that you would like to leave us from? Any takeaways for tonight? If there’s one thing you would want people to remember from our audience, what might that be? 

[01:10:49] Dr. Christian: Trying not to be too fancy. The whole idea around safety has really stuck with me and, yeah. The image of Aslan and the way he was with the different children, the different characters. I think I’ve seen that time and time again with the clients I’ve worked with, their systems, that God enters in and he responds to the parts in the ways that they need. That’s, it’s almost like.

[01:11:19] Dr. Peter: It’s almost like you’re suggesting that God is attuned to our parts. 

[01:11:24] Dr. Christian: Sure. If you want to call it that. Sure.

[01:11:30] Dr. Peter Martin: He has that capacity. Yeah. 

[01:11:32] Dr. Christian: It’s like he knows what he’s doing. 

[01:11:34] Dr. Peter: Yes. Yeah. Who knew? Who knew God could be like that, huh? Well, thank you for that, Dr. Christian. Dr. Peter Martin. I’m curious if you have a takeaway, something that you would really like our audience to remember.

[01:11:46] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah. It feels like Christian and I have kind of hovering on a similar topic, that issue of the developmental aspect of God’s love for us. He knows where we’re at. He knows our struggles, he knows our fears. He knows our challenges. He’ll comfort us when we need comforted. He’ll challenge us when we need challenged. And I like that language. I always get the term mixed up, what Flood, Anthony Flood’s language. It’s called omni subjectivity, or omni Interest subjectivity. I can’t remember the term he used. But the idea that he knows every single person in the history or the future of creation at every single slice of time. He knows their emotional content. He knows the parts that are up. He knows everything about it better than they do, right? So he’s not only omnipotent and all powerful, but he also loves this so deeply that every fraction of a second matters to him in our internal experience. And so he knows our developmental needs much better than we could fathom. And you know, to Christian’s point, I think he is, yeah, you could say he’s pretty attuned. And so, I think that in my mind, it shows the depths of his love, for us at every single step of our existence.

[01:13:01] Dr. Peter: Yeah. Thank you. Dr. Gerry, you have a takeaway?

[01:13:09] Dr. Gerry: You know, my brain is probably mush at this point in the day, but I have a song that’s coming up for me and I don’t know if it was, was it Captain and Tennille or somebody like this? It was Love Will Keep Us Together.

[01:13:21] Dr. Peter: Love Will Keep Us Together. Yeah. Yeah. My mom was a huge Captain and Tennille fan. We had that vinyl record. She would play that loud. Yeah. Oh yeah. 

[01:13:32] Dr. Christian: Dr. Gerry, you brought up the song. I was hoping you were gonna sing it.

[01:13:37] Dr. Gerry: Oh, well, no, don’t expect that. Can’t even remember much more than that one chorus line, but that was just coming up for me because I was just thinking about like, what is the biggest takeaway again, and it’s over and over again, it’s love. Right? It is. And that’s why, you know, I’m with Casey in loving the Victorians and the Franciscans and that, and their emphasis on the affective dimension and their emphasis on the experiential, like experiencing God. And I think that as we experience God, it’s not just an intellectual thing, even though that might be interesting. It’s all about experiencing his love, which is kind of boundless and, you know. And so over and over again, you know, is IFS Catholic or you know, well, to the extent that it’s pointing us in the direction of that, right, it is pointing us in the direction of love. So, and as we explore it, I think we are discovering more and more dimensions and a greater understanding of that simple word of love and what it means. So I think there’s just a lot more for like, this discussion is great. Hopefully a lot of people got a lot out of it, but to me it’s like, whoa, there’s so much to explore. It’s so exciting.

[01:14:43] Dr. Peter: Thank you for that. And my takeaway is maybe in some ways a little more practical, and that is at Souls and Hearts, we are deeply, deeply invested in this question of safety. We know that we’re way out there, you know, in terms of the tip of the spear with bringing in some of these ideas and harmonizing them with an authentic Catholic understanding of the human person. We’re spending a lot of time and energy on these questions because we want our members, we want our listeners, we want our viewers to be able to take advantage of all the good things that God has given us, wherever he has chosen to provide them. And so we are wrestling with these questions because, you know, we don’t want people to be led astray. And, you know, we want people to be able to have a home or a place where they can embrace the goodness of internal family systems and other parts and systems, models, other approaches that are resonating with their experience, you know, have this sense of value and goodness to them. And so, yeah, we’re claiming those things or reclaiming them, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so that you can have the benefit of both and that people do not find themselves in a sort of hobbesian dilemma about do I go with something that really seems compelling, you know, and helpful, but there’s no Catholic connection to it. You know? So that’s what we’re about. And I’m really proud of our staff and our guests, Dr. Gerry, Dr. Christian, Dr. Peter Martin. There are so many more I could name, who are really putting in a lot of hours and a lot of effort into that anthropological, that conceptual, that philosophical, that metaphysical work. And so it’s just an honor to be able to be associated, with that work and to be able to benefit from it. And we’re doing that because, you know, in part because, and on my day of particular judgment, I know that I’m gonna be responsible for every word I utter, everything that I offer. But I also don’t want to omit things. I don’t want to, you know, like not speak out on these things. I don’t want to not share what I’ve experienced and the good that I found in these approaches. And so, to claim them as our own. And there’s a long tradition of that that stretches all the way back to the beginning of the church. Saint Augustine in De Doctrina Christiana talks about despoiling the Egyptians and taking everything, you know, that’s good from them. St. Thomas Aquinas is all about being able to draw the best from Aristotle and so many other sources. We talked about that in episodes 173 and 174. We’ll be talking about those coming up. So to know that we’re doing this for you, in the service of what might be helpful to you. So with that, I think we should probably draw this to a close. I do want folks to remember that I have office hours every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time. You can reach me for a private conversation about 10 minutes long, maybe 15, at 317-567-9594. And put your comments in our YouTube channel, in the comment section of this episode 172. We will answer them, right, so the conversation can kind of continue. That’s a place for you to reach out for us to ask questions. You can also reach out to me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com. And I think with that, we’ll just draw this to a close by invoking our patrons and our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. St. Joseph, pray for us. St. John the Baptist, pray for us.