IIC 166: Can IFS and Parts Work Be Catholic? Listening to Scripture

[00:00:00] Dr. Peter: Okay, so here’s the question. Is it Catholic? Is it really Catholic? I mean, all this talk, all this business about parts about an innermost self. That we are not just a single personality, monolithic, homogenous, can Internal Family Systems, IFS and other ways of thinking about parts be aligned with our Catholic church. I’ve heard from so many Catholics who sense that there is something really important, really significant, really different about parts work, an entirely new way of understanding oneself, an entirely new way of considering what it means to love God, your neighbor and yourself. But — but there’s a but, right? It’s the Catholic thing. Can it all be totally in harmony with the Catholic faith? Not just mostly, totally. People want to know, because let’s be honest, let’s be real.

[00:01:04] Dr. Peter: There can be a lot in parts work and in the ways that IFS is presented that doesn’t look very Catholic. And most of the parts work approaches were not originally developed by Catholics. They weren’t originally grounded in a Catholic worldview. So, it makes sense for us to ask the question. And to ask that question, is it Catholic or can it be Catholic, not only out of a sense of safety and protection, not only to have an increased sense of confidence in our human formation work, but also we need to be able to sort out the wheat of what is good, true, and beautiful in parts work, and to discard the chaff. Why? Why? So we can more deeply love God wholeheartedly with all of our being, all of our parts, love our neighbor, love ourselves. 

[00:01:58] Dr. Peter: So back to the question, can parts work be Catholic? The answer is an emphatic yes. The Vatican II document, The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, in paragraph 62 reads, “In pastoral care, sufficient use must be made not only of theological principles, but also of the findings of the secular sciences, especially of psychology and sociology, so that the faithful may be brought to a more adequate and mature life of faith.” Specifically naming psychology, the secular sciences. We are to mine the goodness out of these fields and bring it in. Why? So that the faithful may be brought to a more adequate and mature life of faith. We opened this discussion about can Internal Family Systems, other parts work approaches, can they be Catholic? We opened that discussion in episode 73 of this podcast years ago titled Is Internal Family Systems Really Catholic? Now as part of our deep dive in, in 2025, this deep dive into IFS and Parts work, we are beginning a series of five episodes on IFS and Parts Work, turning our focus to the Catholic underpinnings, the Catholic foundation for this work, a Catholic anthropology, a Catholic understanding of the human person.

[00:03:34] Dr. Peter: And why is this important? Why is this important? I’m going to give you a historical example. I want to talk about the unconscious as a parallel case to parts and systems thinking. Parts and systems thinking is what we’re getting into with this series, with this podcast, with Souls and Hearts. But I want to compare it to the unconscious. Now, in 1960, Lancelot Law Whyte, he wrote a book called The Unconscious Before Freud, and it provided a history of how people understood the unconscious and unconscious processes prior to Freud’s writing. And Whyte says, “The general conception of the unconscious mental processes was conceivable in post-Cartesian Europe, around 1700, topical around 1800, and fashionable around 1870 to 1880. It cannot be disputed that by 1870 to 1880, the general conception of the unconscious mind was a European commonplace, and that many special applications of this general idea had been vigorously discussed for several decades.”

[00:04:41] Dr. Peter: And then Freud in 1915 goes on to write about the unconscious in his structured essay titled The Unconscious. He had been writing about the unconscious for more than a decade before that, but it wasn’t until 1952, 1952, that the Vatican ever even mentioned the unconscious in terms of mental processes. That was when his Holiness Pope Pius the 12th, gave an address on September 14th, 1952 to the International Congress on the histopathology of the nervous system. But here’s the point. 1700, according to Whyte, 1700 in post-Cartesian Europe, in intellectual circles, the unconscious was conceivable. 1800, it was topical. 1870 to 1880, it was fashionable to be talking about the unconscious. All right? It takes us until 1952, two and a half centuries after it’s conceivable, a century and a half after it’s topical, 75 years, three generations, after it’s fashionable before we’re finally addressing the unconscious in the church at the level of the Vatican. I do not want to wait 250 years, 150 years, 75 years for parts and systems thinking to get accepted, to get common, to get embraced within the Catholic Church.

[00:06:09] Dr. Peter: And today we begin that work by listening to what Scripture tells us about the human person. We are listening to the word of God with an ear for what that word of God says about all the things that go into parts work, the innermost self, parts, multiplicity, systems thinking. So, get ready to join us on this adventure into the gift of God’s word to us. Get ready to be surprised by how much God has to tell us about ourselves in the Bible.

[00:06:49] Dr. Peter: Well, I am so excited to bring to you an amazing crew for this episode and I’m going to introduce them one at a time. We have not one guest, not two, but three, three guests today on this show. And first off, I want to introduce Dr. Peter Martin. He is back by popular demand. He is a psychologist in the great state of Nebraska. He was with us in recent episodes, 158 and 160, and so I’ve introduced him before. He’s familiar to many of you in this Deep Dive in 2025 into Catholic Parts Work. He’s an IFS therapist whose work focuses on faith integrated and trauma-informed approaches to recovery. He supervises therapists at his Immaculate Heart of Mary Counseling Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. Peter Martin, so good to have you with us. 

[00:07:42] Dr. Peter Martin: Hey, Peter, it’s great to be back, especially with these extra group of esteemed guests here. 

[00:07:49] Dr. Peter: Well, wonderful. So, Dr. Gerry Crete, our dear Dr. Gerry, he has been with us in episodes 158, 159, and 163 of this Deep Dive into IFS and Parts Work from a Catholic perspective. He’s a licensed marriage and family therapist in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the founder and owner of Transfiguration Counseling across several states. He’s the former president of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association and he co-founded with me Souls and Hearts in 2019. He’s the author of the book, Litanies of the Heart, which was published last year by Sophia Press and Dr. Gerry, what can I say? So great to have you back with us.

[00:08:30] Dr. Gerry: It’s always great to be here. Look forward to this discussion. 

[00:08:35] Dr. Peter: And I’m so excited to introduce for the first time on this podcast, Dr. Christian Amalu. He is a graduate from the Institute of Psychological Sciences at Divine Mercy University in 2024. He has his doctorate in clinical psychology and his dissertation explored the intersection of the Internal Family Systems and Catholic anthropology proposing a way to reconcile and integrate the Internal Family Systems model with Catholicism. And that, that is what this series is all about. This subseries, episodes 166 to 170 of this podcast, going to be precisely on that. And I want to say something about this dissertation. I was honored to be the third reader on this dissertation, and I believe, I believe that this is the most downloaded Catholic dissertation in psychology in the history of the world. We are at nearly 1000 downloads on this, Dr. Christian. And the reason is, is people are really hungry to know how we can take the good in parts work, how we can take the good in Internal Family Systems, and how that can be reconciled, how it may need to be adjusted, how it may need to be modified, to be entirely consistent with what we know to be true by divine revelation. So check out the YouTube description for this episode, episode 166, and you can download that dissertation too. We’ll get it well over a thousand, I’m sure, by the time this is done.

[00:09:59] Dr. Peter: But Dr. Amalu is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Counseling Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. And he seeks to integrate different theoretical orientations, drawing primarily from IFS, Internal Family Systems, but also interpersonal process and psychodynamic and detachment approaches. And he enjoys working with college students, emerging adults, service members and veterans, and those seeking to integrate faith into the their therapy. He also has a special interest in working with trauma, especially complex trauma with attachment issues, relational issues, OCD and scrupulosity — episodes 86 and 87 were all about those — group therapy, marital therapy and anxiety. So it is so good to have you with us Christian. What a great thing that you can join us today.

[00:10:44] Dr. Christian Amalu: I am honored. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction, Peter. So glad to be with everyone. 

[00:10:49] Dr. Peter: I was super excited to be on that dissertation too, because I think it’s one of those dissertations that is making a real impact. So this is episode 166 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, it’s titled, Can IFS and Parts Work Be Catholic? Listening to Scripture. It releases on May 19th, 2025. And with that, and with no more further ado, I just want to get into what we’re talking about today. So I’m just going to open it up at this point and just see if one of my esteemed guests here has something that they would like to kind of lead with.

[00:11:30] Dr. Peter Martin: You know, Peter, I guess I’ll jump in. The topic of this particular discussion is can IFS be Catholic? And was kind of paradoxical. I had just published a paper called, Can Psychology Be Catholic? You know, so it seems like that’s kind of the initial, can psychology itself be Catholic? But one thing stands out to me in terms of, can IFS integrate with Catholicism. And there’s a passage from Dei Verbum, which is one of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, where it says, “Sacred tradition, sacred Scripture, and the teaching authority of the church in accord with God’s most wise design are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others.” So you need all three of those. So not just Scripture, we’re not just a religion of the book, right? We’re a religion of Christ. We’re founded by Christ, and he’s a divine person. and so we need revelation and reason. We need faith and reason to understand our true nature and our supremely high calling. And how does this look in IFS and does IFS seem to uphold that true basic dignity? Or does it maybe take it away in some ways? Does it somehow compromise this supreme calling to be with God in the future? And so all those things are kind of foundational questions, I think, this particular journey that we’re on here. And so I was really pleased to see that future episodes will include church fathers. They’ll include, you know, things like Scripture and all those important components of that tripod of what we’re about as Catholics. 

[00:13:06] Dr. Gerry: You know, I would jump in there and just say that, IFS is not Catholic.

[00:13:13] Dr. Peter: Let’s just start with that. Yeah.

[00:13:16] Dr. Gerry: Right? Well, and modern psychology really isn’t in certain respects, but I would just say IFS is not Catholic, but a parts approach can be very well integrated and in fact extremely complementary to the Catholic faith. So an adapted IFS, or a Catholic parts work approach, is actually very powerful and very informative and clinically can be life changing for people. So, I would reframe the question just slightly to say that a parts approach that is steeped in the Catholic faith is, in my view, the most integrated, powerful approach that’s available to us as clinicians.

[00:14:01] Dr. Peter: Well, and I would say that that generalizes outside of the consulting room or outside the therapy room as well. Like, yeah, take it away there, Christian, because you got something to say. I want hear it.

[00:14:12] Dr. Christian Amalu: Yeah. Sorry. I think the internet might be lagging a little bit. I think when, in considering this point, can IFS really be Catholic? I liked Gerry’s correction on that, and the first thing I thought was, okay, I guess podcast is done. Let’s all head home. But that was a primary question I had as I started to get introduced to parts work. I first thought of it and I was very much being taught in a very strictly like psychodynamic manner and really thought about the mind in a monolithic way. But there was something about parts that stood out to me. And on the one end, I thought it was either going to be a very maladaptive or problematic thing or it was going to be a really good thing. And as I dug into the material, I started to realize this is actually a very, very old idea our faith. There is so much evidence for it.

[00:15:06] Dr. Christian Amalu: And it actually starts at the very beginning of the Scriptures. So that is actually where my mind first went and looking at in the book of Genesis, when God created man. And that just kind of led me on this journey to look at the idea of parts and dimensionality within the human person and realizing how much this is actually, not only does it exist in our faith, but it seems that there is a continuity from the very beginning of creation all the way up to now. And so, I think I would agree with Gerry’s statement that there is something here that is very unique and profound, especially through a Catholic lens and that parts work is able to afford probably a more authentic Catholic lens, from at least what I’ve been able to glean from the literature and from the tradition. 

[00:15:54] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah, and I agree with everything that’s been said. My sense is, to be fair to IFS, there is no secular model that’s purely Catholic, I guess is what I would say, right? So the question would be then if we’re trying to do some type of what in the literature is called spiritually or religiously accommodative treatments, which are tailored to the client’s preferences. And so IFS, like a Catholic IFS, would be considered that, at least probably in the secular world. The question then becomes, in my mind, do we use IFS to interpret Catholicism in this integration approach or do we use Catholicism to interpret IFS, as a hermeneutic to understand IFS. And I think it’s the latter primarily. But what happens is in the applied setting, it turns into either Catholic light and IFS heavy or IFS light and Catholic heavy.

[00:16:45] Dr. Peter Martin: And so let me give you a couple examples, at least from my take. Catholic light would be saying something like IFS parts are internal persons, right? So that would be taking too much of the IFS anthropology, and trying to say that parts are persons, right. So that contradicts both Boethius’s definition of the person, individual substance of a rational nature. Another thing you’ll see that’s Catholic light and IFS heavy is, you’ll see this in Christian books actually on IFS, they’ll say the Trinitarian persons are parts of the triune God. You’ll hear that language. And I feel like that is such a downplaying of the ultimate persons, the ultimate reality, to call them parts, which are not even substantial reality. They’re accidental substances or accidental reality.

[00:17:37] Dr. Peter Martin: So you run into these kind of challenges when you borrow too much from IFS and kind of follow where it leads, unfortunately, instead of kind of going to the Catholic anthropology. Now sometimes you’ll also see the flip side, you’ll see the Catholic heavy, so to speak, and IFS light. When I say Catholic heavy, it’s to the point of where, for instance, you skip over the You-Turn and rush to give it to God. Now, I don’t think that’s Catholic, by the way. I think there’s a lot of clients that believe that’s Catholic, and that would be a spiritual bypass. Or you reject the lie, so to speak, from the wound. You’ll see this in some spiritual traditions, reject the lie that kind of has entered into that wound and you do it hastily and almost phobically give it to God, without going through the parts and applied approaches to IFS parts work. So you’ll see this kind of integration that’s a bit light in some ways on either side. And so I do agree you can do IFS and Catholic integration, but you want to have more of a, like a sophisticated understanding of both sides and the limitations of doing so.

[00:18:44] Dr. Peter: And to put these into their areas of expertise, right? So our Catholic church, definitive in faith and morals, informs us about the metaphysics of the human person, you know, which wasn’t really of interest — the philosophical underpinnings of this was not the focus really of Richard Schwartz as he was kind of going through his phenomenology of developing Internal Family Systems. And so what we’re doing is we’re drawing the best from like the clinical observations and the way that this can be adapted and grounding it firmly in a Catholic understanding of the human person. That’s really, really critical to all of us here. But just a while ago, Christian, you mentioned the Old Testament. You said that this goes all the way back. And so I’m just curious, like how far back does it go? Or you, Gerry, or you Peter, like how far back do you think we could actually take this, this idea that we have multiplicity, parts, you know, systems thinking, whatever.

[00:19:41] Dr. Christian Amalu: Well, I hope it’s not too presumptuous to just jump right in. But it’s the first chapter of Genesis. So if we look at when God created the heavens and the earth and we get to the creation of man, it’s Genesis 1:26. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness.'” And the key word there is “our.” It’s not made in my image or made just in the image of God in this non-specific way, but made in our image. And so right there, we already get kind of a clue as to there’s something more going on right here. Because there’s a few ways you could read this. One of the first ways that I thought was, okay, I am a 21st century human. What is my context for speaking in plural? And I thought about like the royal we, something like Queen Victoria might say, you know, “We are not amused.” And I’m like, this is? And it took a little bit of study and realized that the early Semitic languages don’t have that kind of concept, does not have that in the same way that we would understand.

[00:20:50] Dr. Christian Amalu: And so, looking at this, it is actually saying an “our” as in, there is more than just one person going on right here. And I thought, there has to be some grounds for this. There has to be an understanding of this. And lo and behold, we do find it in the early church fathers. You see Saint Augustine actually reflecting on this. And the way that he presents it and the way that he understands this verse is actually understanding that the human person is made in the image of the Trinity. Not just of God the Father, not of God the Son, not of God the Holy Spirit. But actually every human being is made in the image of the triune God. And if God is a communion of persons, but still one God, and the human person thereby is a single person, well then what is the communion of persons within the human person? And so that just started to lead me down the road of, okay, how much more is this supported? And we have multiple areas in the Scripture, that we’re all going to get into, that really draw this out more. But that idea that the human person isn’t just this one monolithic thing but has a dimensionality. We image the Trinity, each and every one of us.

[00:22:06] Dr. Gerry: I love what you’re saying there, Christian, because I do agree and I think, yeah, that we are made in the image of the Trinity and so we reflect that on some level. I think to connect it with what Dr. Peter Martin was saying though, we can’t quite make the correlation that, because we have parts, that therefore God the Trinity is just three parts, right? So we have to be a little careful about that analogy, but I still think it’s a valuable one because it speaks to the relationality of God and our relationality. And so we reflect the relationality of the Trinity, but our parts are not equivalent to the three persons of the Trinity or something like that. But it does reflect something of that nature, I guess. Just to clarify. Yeah. I’m sure Peter Martin appreciates me jumping in with that.

[00:22:58] Dr. Peter Martin: Yes. I wanted to applaud you. Thank you for jumping in.

[00:23:02] Dr. Gerry: But I love the way Christian put that. I just think that’s beautiful. So I really appreciate that view.

[00:23:08] Dr. Christian Amalu: And I appreciate jumping in with the clarification. That is definitely what I meant, and it’s pointing to that relationality, which again, there’s more that I know we’re going to get into.

[00:23:18] Dr. Gerry: Mm-hmm. Well, I know we could spend time in the Old Testament and definitely there. If it’s okay, one of my favorite passages from the Scriptures to get into parts, is from Romans 7. You know, it’s pretty classic. And maybe I could just read a little bit of it and we could all jump in with that. But it’s the classic one where at the beginning of it, St. Paul says, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good, but in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.” And then he goes on to say, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.” Here’s the key. “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 making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members, wretched man that I am.”

[00:24:28] Dr. Gerry: When I read that, there’s just so much there. What I hear in that is St. Paul struggling with inner conflicts when he is talking about his members doing things, in a sense, sinful or problematic in some way. And yet he refers also in this very same passage to his inmost self, right, which is aligned with the law of God. So he really, in my mind, in that passage, speaks to the complexity of the inner person and the inner self system and his own struggles, which I think is beautiful and really speaks to what we’re doing in a parts work approach like IFS, where we’re helping people to work through those inner conflicts and those polarizations. 

[00:25:18] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah, that’s a great point. He does such a wonderful job of talking about how the internal world is a battlefield after the Fall in particular. And you see these conflicts and the lack of harmony. it reminds me, this quote from Raniero Cardinal Cantalamessa. So he was the preacher to the papal household for, I want to say 44 years, which is pretty remarkable for three different popes and so forth. But he says, “If Jesus were to ask me, as he did that poor demoniac in the Gospel, ‘What is your name?’ I too would have to reply, ‘My name is Legion, for there are many of us.'” And so he hits on exactly kind of what you’re driving there with St. Paul, that there are these different aspects to the person, maybe conflicted, some harmonized, but there are many. And so IFS seems to be tapping into something of that. Now, it may not be equivalent to what St. Paul is saying, but it definitely is, I would say, overlapping in a major way. 

[00:26:23] Dr. Gerry: Yeah, to me, it argues against that version of our personality, right, that a lot of psychology might say or have said, that we’re just some kind of monolithic one personality, right? But it speaks to the complexity that most of us relate to. It just simply makes sense. And even in James, we have the passage that St. James says, “Those conflicts and disputes among you.” He’s referring to the community. “Where do they come from? Do they come from your cravings that are at war within you?” So again, he’s speaking to, there’s an external conflict that’s going on, but there’s also this internal conflict that is kind of spurring it on. So again, there’s an inner landscape. There’s this inner world with different aspects, in some kind of war. And the goal, of course, is not inner war, inner conflict, but to get harmony. And in order to get there, you have to actually do some work, some inner work to get there, possibly healing, possibly unburdening, to get to that place.

[00:27:27] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah. I think so, and especially in Genesis, the passage that Christian brought up and we were discussing. There seems to be some kind of multiplicity in the Godhead when it said us, you know? And then of course in the Christian tradition, we understand ultimate reality is triune, but not divided, not somehow at battle or conflicted or anything, but very much unified through the principle of love, you know, through that principle of goodness and love. And you were describing St. Paul’s internal, kind of description of the internal world or the micro you might say. And Scripture also talks a bit about the macro when it comes to multiplicity. I’m reminded of 1 Corinthians 12, and so just a little context on that one, if it’s okay to move to that. Yeah, 1 Corinthians 12 precursors the passage that you will hear ad nauseum at every wedding you go to, which for good reason though. I mean, there’s a good reason why 1 Corinthians 13 is there, “Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest is love.”

[00:28:29] Dr. Peter Martin: But if you go just the chapter before, in 1 Corinthians 12, it’s fascinating the way that if you would apply that, I think, to IFS, it really helps to capture what we’re trying to do in the internal world. But St. Paul, and I’ll just go through a couple of verses here. So 1 Corinthians 12:4 and following, St. Paul says, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, and all these are inspired by one and the same Spirit.” And I’ll skip over a couple places. “For just as the body.” This is the direct language of 1 Corinthians 12. “Just as the body is one and has many members and all of the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” And then if you go to the New American Bible translation, that was the RSV, they actually translate with the terms “body” and “parts”. So not just members, but “parts” of the body.

[00:29:39] Dr. Peter Martin: And for people that know IFS and its origins, Dick Schwartz was a specialist in family systems theory and he still is a co-author to my understanding of like perhaps the most used textbook in family systems training for students. But one of the things that he did is he took family systems theory internal, and he found a lot of similarities going on there. So if we take St. Paul’s notion of this mystical body of Christ, and he says, “On the contrary…” And again, just think of this, if we could have this unfallen, to some extent, body of Christ or fallen, but still Spirit led. He says, “On the contrary, the parts of the body, which seem to be weaker, are indispensable.” 

[00:30:22] Dr. Peter Martin: Think IFS, the exiles which are seen as weak and we have to get rid of them, is what the protectors say. But he says, they’re weaker, but they’re indispensable. And then he says, “Those parts of the body, which we think less honorable, we invest with the greater honor.” It’s almost like you take the exiles and you put them at the head the table in the self exiling them. And then he says, “If one member suffers, all suffer together. And if one member is honored, all rejoice.” I find that really interesting. And then at the end of 1 Corinthians 12, he says, “But I will show you still a more excellent way.” And that’s the way of love in 1 Corinthians 13, which supersedes faith and hope, which are the servants of love in this life in particular. So I fascinating because St. Paul, if we could take that template and internalize that and say the harmony that goes within, based on that, I mean, I think we probably wouldn’t have a lot of clients, I think. I think if they could do that on a regular consistent basis, I think we’d see some great outcomes. 

[00:31:33] Dr. Gerry: Yeah. I really love your exposition there on Corinthians 12. I think that’s super helpful. And I think again, it speaks to that inner complexity and that inner gifts. Like when you think about, you know, so much in Scripture, especially in the New Testament around even things like the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we see that within us is a complexity and I’ve come to really appreciate, for example, Clifton Strengths and my strengths and appreciating the strengths that are identified in my profile, for example, my top five or my top 10, and that I actually realize, wow, like those are gifts that I have, in a certain consolation, and they really do speak to the uniqueness of me as a person, but they also speak to the complexity of me as a person. And so I don’t exactly know how parts relate to our own inner internal strengths or charisms or gifts, these different things, but we all have different ones. And our parts kind of reflect those. And so, you know, it’s sort of exciting when we can get to know that about ourselves and then like the body of Christ, we can get to know that in other people.

[00:32:43] Dr. Gerry: And all of a sudden, like there’s a parallel between my internal world working well together and complementing my own self, and then the external world, our environment, our church, our parishes, our groups that we work with for this and that function, or even our workplaces. And there’s a parallel there. And I think that speaks to kind of what you were saying about obviously Dick Schwartz’s understanding of systems theory. And then we’re realizing, wow, you know, our God has created a gigantic system with complexity. And that complexity makes it beautiful. It being uniform would be boring. Being complex is actually like profound and beautiful. And when it comes together like a tapestry, right? It’s like, wow, who’s that artist?

[00:33:37] Dr. Peter Martin: That’s right. I love it. That complexity that you’re describing as well, I find that endlessly fascinating, just the complexity of individuals. And there was an old professor of mine, a Dominican priest, I think he did his dissertation on grace or something like that. So every topic that he would give in class, his students said, oh, this is great. We’re talking about grace again. Oh, look, it’s, we’re on the Trinity. Hey, we’re talking about grace. How about that? So everything sounded like grace to them. But his comment that always stood out that, that supports what you’re saying, Gerry, he said, “Diversity in creation manifests God’s glory.” Similarly, internal diversity in some ways manifests that.

[00:34:19] Dr. Peter Martin: You were talking about the strengths. I have the sneaking suspicion, and I’m wondering if Dr. Peter would agree with this, as well. I have this sneaking suspicion that, kind of similar to what attachment researchers study, just in general, would be a clustering of parts. Similarly to what you were saying, like the strengths and so forth. It might be considered a clustering of different parts for specific kinds of skills or strengths. But it’s a nuance because your strengths, Gerry, are unique to you, but they have a powerful impact on the people you encounter. But it’s diverse because of all the different parts that might be included.

[00:34:58] Dr. Gerry: Mm-hmm. No, I love that. I love that. Hey, on a slightly different note, we can come back to this stuff too, or whatever, but I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on the church’s contemplative tradition, and mystical tradition really. And what I have learned for years now in the psychological world, especially around clinical hypnosis, parts work, you know, when you look inside and you’re connecting with parts within. I’ve been super curious about this and I feel like parts work, like whether it’s IFS, ego state therapy, however far back you want to go, even the psychodynamic tradition with the idea of like looking at the unconscious mind, right? Opening that up is all about looking at the inner person. Now, when you do that without any sense of God, without any sense of spiritual world, you’re going to only go so far, in my mind and perhaps even miss a lot. But when you combine it with what we know from the contemplative tradition of our church, that goes back as far as the Old Testament, then there’s an incredible richness. And so I have been super excited about plumbing that richness.

[00:36:14] Dr. Gerry: And so I’m going to lead in with this because we were talking about Scripture, and here’s a passage that I’ve been looking at lately that I think is really interesting that maybe a lot of people already know, but it’s from 1 Kings 19, and it’s the one with Elijah. And he’s asked to go out and to find the Lord. And there’s a great wind, you know, and the rocks are breaking. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after that a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a sound of sheer silence. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, what are you doing here, Elijah? He answered, “I’ve been zealous for the Lord, the God of Hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant.” And he goes on. And so the Lord was in that silent voice. And so to have a space of quiet, which is really about looking inward, and all the saints talk about this. Like St. Bernard and others in the history of the church, talk about that you have to go inward to go upward, if you will. And so this idea of going inward to hear God’s voice, I think could take a parts work approach to a profound level if done obviously carefully and within a certain level of prayer. So I just want to open that up. And Christian, it’s good to see you again. 

[00:37:52] Dr. Peter: Yeah. So for those of you, we lost Christian for a while due to some technical difficulties. It is really good to have you back, Christian. 

[00:37:58] Dr. Christian Amalu: Thank you, thank you, it’s good to be back.

[00:37:59] Dr. Peter: So I want to go, I really want to go to Luke 10:27. You know, where Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And this is really striking to me because we are supposed to love ourselves. And so going back to what you were talking about, Dr. Gerry, about that interiority, you know, the silence, the entering within, like what does that mean that we should love ourselves? That implies a relationship with ourselves. That implies that there has to be some kind of multiplicity, some kind of distinction within, right? If we were a pure monolith, it wouldn’t make sense for us to be loving ourselves. And maybe you could finesse it a little bit and say, well, you need to love your body. But is that really what we’re talking about? And is that really what’s going on, if we are in the image and likeness of God who loves himself?

[00:39:05] Dr. Peter: So this is really where what you were saying just a few minutes ago, Dr. Gerry, about like this interiority and the silence, like this is not some, you know, nice feature. It’s not something that’s kind of peripheral to what we ought to be doing. It’s included in the two great commandments upon which the entirety of the law and the prophets hang. And so this is absolutely fundamental. And we’re not going to talk about this so much today because we’re talking more about Scripture, but St. Thomas Aquinas discusses how our capacity to love our neighbor depends on our capacity to love ourselves. This is not sort of an optional thing. Ordered self-love is essential in us carrying out the two great commandments. So the importance of this, and this is where I think, sort of think of IFS as, you know, the new silver, and then what we have in the deposit of faith as the gold, right? Like, and we’re bringing those two, the silver is complementing the gold, and helping us to be able to find ways to live out the two great commandments.

[00:40:18] Dr. Peter Martin: This is great. The discussion is getting increasingly rich as we get into this. And to your point about the two great commandments, as you were talking, what came to mind — a number of members in our family have just purchased the Ignatius Study Bible, which is really good, if people haven’t seen it. I think it’s like 2000 pages or something. I don’t know how long it is, but it’s wonderful. But in there, as they were talking about this passage of, you know, loving God and neighbor and then eventually get into the Good Samaritan, one of the things that stands out. They differentiate to be like God or to imitate God is different in emphasis in the Old Testament than the New Testament. So according to Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch and whoever wrote those footnotes, in the Old Testament, separateness was kind of a strong focus, to be holy is to be set apart. And so you’re separate from ungodly, unclean, impure. You might separate yourself from Gentiles and sinners, and that separation allows closeness with God. So you imitate God’s holiness, and you form virtuous citizens through orthopraxy, you know, through correct practice.

[00:41:29] Dr. Peter Martin: But in the Christian tradition of the three patriarchal phase, Christianity is the only one that focuses on orthodoxy, which is correct belief, or sometimes they say correct praise. And in the New Testament, it’s a universal covenant, and the focus is, sure, on God’s holiness, but really it’s to imitate God’s mercy. So to love neighbor as self, to love God. The word love is in both of those great commandments, right? But after the Fall, the number one aspect of our relationship with God is his mercy. And so we should imitate that mercy. This generates saints in the church through orthodoxy. Now we obviously want to have correct practice and not just correct faith, but it very much flows out of that faith in a whole embodied way. I think that, Peter, to your point, it’s not just to love your body, it’s to love yourself, and the self is much more than just the body, as we know. And so it’s all of us. And in IFS language, you might say, it’s all of our parts. So now the love and the mercy that we’re supposed to imitate, in the external world, let’s say, towards others, now we need to practice that internally to love our parts in a very merciful way and to let that manifest in all things.

[00:42:51] Dr. Peter: And with all the technical issues, it is again, good to have you back, Dr. Christian, and I just definitely want to create some space for you here, to be able to hear your voice. I’m just curious if there’s something that’s moving your heart about the discussion or if you want to take it in a new direction.

[00:43:07] Dr. Christian Amalu: Well, first of all, thank you for being so gracious with all of the tech issues. And to be perfectly honest, I mean, I got snippets of where people went, but I have a very limited idea of where we’ve gone in the conversation. So I don’t know what’s already been said and what hasn’t been said. So I feel like I can get creative here and I can just kind of jump at some things that stand out to me.

[00:43:28] Dr. Peter: I love it. Yeah, jump. Let’s go. Yeah, love it. 

[00:43:32] Dr. Christian Amalu: I think an image that always really stood out to me, thinking about parts work and between my own experiential work, training, and then applying it with clients, an image from the Scriptures, that seems to always really stand out to me of what IFS is doing, and to some degree other models do this in their own way, absolutely. It wouldn’t just be limited to a parts work model. But there’s something very vivid and profound about the image of the Good Shepherd and in the image of the Good Shepherd, he loves his sheep, and his sheep know him, and he leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep. And I cannot help but think about exiles in that notion. In the 99, they’re all together. They’re known to some degree, but then one has wandered off.

[00:44:19] Dr. Christian Amalu: So what does the Good Shepherd actually do? Good Shepherd doesn’t just stick with all the ninety-nine, Hey, I got enough. It’s fine. I don’t need that one. I don’t need to go outta my way. No. The Shepherd actually goes out of his way and tracks down and finds that one lost sheep. That one lost sheep is worth it. And I’ve seen this time and again now when working with a given system, whether it’s mine or sitting with someone else’s system, the exiles are so tender and so precious. And I think that really links up a lot with what Dr. Peter Martin was already saying about those parts of you not being the least important for being least, they will actually be first.

[00:45:02] Dr. Christian Amalu: And so I think there is, in the Good Shepherd a kind of a guiding principle for me of what parts work is actually like. It’s finding the lost sheep. And how much is that being Christlike? It’s taking on the mind of Christ. It is engaging in the work of being like Christ, to actually go within and seek out those exiles and bring them home. Also I think it links up with another wonderful image for me that I think parts work brings together is of course the Prodigal Son. The Father, if we were to see the Father — well, first of all, he is the image of God in the actual example. But if we take that inward and we are operating from our inmost self, when an exiled part comes home, when a prodigal part comes home, do we run to that part? Now, I’ve been in some scenarios where running to the part is not exactly the most helpful thing to do. You gotta be patient. But do we welcome the part? Do we greet it with love? Do we operate from that primary love that I know everybody was at least talking about a little bit while I was offline. I think that pulls together so much of how powerful this model can be and its scriptural basis because we’re really just taking those models and we’re going inward with it, and we’re applying that to our inner world.

[00:46:20] Dr. Peter: Well, that just connects right back to what you were saying, Dr. Peter Martin, about the mercy, right? Mercy being so central in the New Testament, in the new Covenant.

[00:46:30] Dr. Gerry: I love what you’re saying there, Christian, you know, especially the lost sheep and the role of the inmost self reflecting Christ as the shepherd who seeks the exiles. And the same in the Prodigal Son, where the inmost self is in the role in a sense of that father who’s merciful and loving. But I would also point out the older brother in that parable and say that we have other parts that don’t like it that the prodigal son or that exile is showing up and don’t like it that he’s getting preferential treatment. And we need to attend to those parts as well. Because if we don’t attend to those parts, they may actually like, interfere with whatever the process is. And so it would be so interesting to know, like, we don’t get a lot more, other than the father says to the older brother, “I have always loved you. You’ve always been there.” And so he affirms him, and we don’t know more about what happens after that. Does he get over it? Does he come to terms with his younger brother or whatever? But we can assume perhaps, and because he’s doing this work, he didn’t ignore the older brother. He actually spent a bit of time with him and invites him to the feast, even though the older brother didn’t feel like he wanted to go. So, in a way, like what’s also beautiful in the prodigal son and so many of the stories is that it’s not just between two. There’s a multiplicity present in these parables.

[00:48:01] Dr. Christian Amalu: I’m so glad that you went to that level. No, that’s absolutely beautiful and I think is so absolutely reflective of what doing that parts work actually looks like, because you very clearly brought up, okay, the older brother came in. There’s more than just a dyad going on here. And even the way the father responds to him, I think is once again, so reflective of what it’s like to be in that inmost self and interacting with another part. I think there can be a propensity to be so directed toward the exiles within us. But no, that older brother may be acting a little bit more like a typical manager part, or a part that, you know, has been more in control and more known. I love how the father responds to him. He doesn’t exactly try to put him down or scold or rebuke, necessarily. Maybe not in a harsh way, but he actually tends to him and says, “You’ve been with me always.” He actually hears him out. He speaks with him. He still addresses him as a legitimate part of the system, not a, “Hey, your brother just came back. This is a miracle. Quit your whining.” It wasn’t anything like that. He actually attended to him and he’s like, no, you’re still my son too. I see that over and over again when attending with manager parts that, that there’s so much of that dynamic, I think, of the older brother in that story that comes to bear.

[00:49:22] Dr. Peter: Well, and the generosity too. He says, you know, I’ve never so much as asked for a goat to celebrate with my friends. And the father says, “All I have is yours.” Like wow. 

[00:49:35] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah. That’s amazing. That passage is so, don’t know. If there’s one passage in Scripture that kind of typifies that internal mercy that we’re trying to work on with parts, that’s the one in many ways. I oftentimes think of, I like the two of your descriptions of this other party that was involved, not just the prodigal and the father. Because I think it’s fascinating that they kept that in that passage, that Jesus kept that in that particular example. Because that really nuances the experience. I think of the older brother, I think of him as the small “p” prodigal because in many ways he was at the father’s house, but he was not dwelling in it. Like he didn’t get it. And he was still distant from the heart of mercy, though he had been around his father, who typified the mercy. And so I like how whether you’re a prodigal that takes money and blows it on dissolute living or you’re a small “p” prodigal like the perfectionistic older brother, either way, both of them need the loving, merciful father to return to, in order for their transformation.

[00:50:41] Dr. Peter: Well, I’m curious about what you all think about this aspect of it too. And I know you’ve addressed this in your book, Gerry, too. I know each of you have thought about this, but going back to Luke 10:27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.” You know, that’s an interesting way of putting it, “with all your heart.” And I’m wondering what that brings up, you know, for you. Again, this is the great commandment, to love the Lord your God with all your heart. And then it goes on, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength, and what that might have to do with parts work.

[00:51:23] Dr. Gerry: I’ve spent a certain amount of time like nuancing these differences between heart and self and soul and all these things, and it’s tricky business. But I’ve come down to the idea that the heart includes the inmost self and the parts, all the parts of the self system, is the heart. And so we can speak of the heart in its core, the inmost self as being in God’s image, and in a sense, undamaged in a certain respect, like pure in a certain respect. But we can also speak of the heart as having the potential to be hardened, having the potential to be in disorder in some way. And so those are the parts, in some way not in harmony or not in connection with the inmost self. And then the whole self system is not in connection with God perhaps. And so, you know, we can speak of an inner purity and we can also speak of some possibility of disarray.

[00:52:20] Dr. Gerry: So when I hear this passage about loving the Lord your God with all of your heart, then it’s like all the parts in harmony turning to God with the inmost self. Like I picture a worshiping community led by a devoted priest, right? Like seeing the sacrifice of the Mass and the entire community, like just giving their hearts over to that. And so there’s this one body, this one love, this one worship, orthodoxy, this one praise, this one liturgy, that is all toward God. It’s just beautiful. It’s beautiful. And so we’re being called to that both inwardly in our own selves and as a worshiping community.

[00:53:08] Dr. Peter: And to go back to what you were saying, Christian, I’m sort of envisioning this community as not just cheap. But also like the former lepers, right? The former prostitutes, the former tax collectors, right? The outcasts, the marginalized, the lame, the blinds, you know, the ones that Jesus was modeling for us to not forget. He went after the most disenfranchised, the most rejected and abandoned sectors of society. And I think about that in terms of what you were addressing Christian, the exiles, right? The lost sheep, the one and the 99. And so those are included in that imagery that you’re bringing up, Gerry, of this internal coming together in connection, in relationship and intimacy with God.

[00:53:56] Dr. Gerry: Yeah. No, totally. Because who are the people that Christ gravitates toward? And in the classic moment in the temple, in the example given where the publican is like saying, Lord have mercy, whereas the Pharisee is saying, I’m so great, look at this schmuck. And so we’re getting the message that no, no, the guy who is, what is he, a publican, is actually the one that whose prayers God treasures. He’s part of the kingdom. He’s part of that community I was talking about. Not the self-righteous obviously. And so, you know, there’s a beauty in that. So add to the publican, yeah, the leper, the prostitute, the tax collectors, all the people that Jesus actually gravitates toward. He’s bringing them all in. It’s beautiful. All of our parts, no matter how burdened or struggling are being called to this.

[00:54:53] Dr. Peter Martin: In all those passages too, whether it’s the wonderful one with the Good Shepherd that Christian brought up, or Gerry, your example of Prodigal Son. You know, the backstory to those could be quite interesting. You know, imagine if you had an older brother that was critical of you and said you were no good. You’re always just taking the family’s money. You might as well just be gone. You can imagine that kind of stuff, because he was quick to shoot when his brother came back. He did even call him his brother. He just said kind of like that son of yours, I think is how he described it to the merciful father. So probably there was a pattern that was going on there. And even with the sheep, you wonder about this poor sheep. Was he, you know, kind of bullied, you know, was there certain, you know, older sheep that were a little harsh on him, stealing his plot of grass, you know, that kind of thing. Getting bucked or something. But there’s these kind of systemic dynamics that are at play. And so here you have the loving father that knows all of this. He knows what happened, antecedently, he knows what kind of took place. And then, his main focus is to repair a rupture. His main focus is to bring the fold back.

[00:56:05] Dr. Peter: That’s that interior integration that this podcast is all about. It’s all about like us coming together in an inner unity as St. Thomas Aquinas would describe it. And this is essential not just on the external, but on the internal. But I know, Christian, I can see that there’s been some thoughts coming up. I want to make sure that we definitely, you know, hear you out with this, especially since we’ve missed your presence.

[00:56:28] Dr. Christian Amalu: I appreciate that. I love how obvious my face is with my thoughts. I have some very expressive parts. I love so much of what Gerry and Peter were both talking about, and the going to the outcasts. So much of it is summed up when Christ said, he said, “I came not for the righteous, but I came for sinners.” And so that being at the heart of what Christ came for, what his actual mission was. And that all those examples, the publican and the pharisee, the Good Shepherd, the Prodigal Son, all of these moments are really looking at, I’m coming for the outcasts and I am coming to bring everybody together, to bring that unity. And you mentioned, Dr. Peter, that idea of the loving with all of your heart. And St. Paul talking about, let there be no division among you.

[00:57:20] Dr. Christian Amalu: I’d go a step further with that, and this might be a little bit of a teaser for the next time we talk, but St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was a disciple of John the beloved, John the evangelist, implored all of those in the Christian community, he said, “Love each other with an undivided heart.” And I think that just kind of loops everything back to, that division is the thing that keeps us from really loving with our whole being. And when Christ says to love with all your heart, I think it is the core of what we are supposed to be doing in our spiritual lives, bringing that unity back together. That there’s nothing held back from God, that there’s nothing held back in that love, that holding back of some kind makes it to some degree imperfect. And that’s just a continual work that we have that unity together, to bring that integration, which is of course what this podcast is all about.

[00:58:11] Dr. Peter: Well, I’m wondering if this is a good moment to transition into our experiential exercise. I’m kind of mindful of time. And so I am delighted that Dr. Peter Martin has got this offering for us, for an experiential exercise. You know, I want to remind folks that when we do these experiential exercises, to just take what’s useful, right? This isn’t something to be doing while you’re driving or while you’re working out, to have a time and space for this. And to just keep aware of when you’re in your window of tolerance and when you might be leaving to the upside, a fight or flight, or dropping into the freeze response. We don’t expect that’s going to happen. I don’t want to overstate that, but just to kind of take care of yourself as far as that safety stuff goes. And Peter, anything else that you might want to sort of preface this with.

[00:59:02] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah. I like those intros there. I would add, maybe, just give yourself some time to kind of rest into your seats. If you wanted to take a few breaths beforehand, you could do that. And also feel free to click pause at any point to give yourself the space to be able to deepen the experience and to spend more time kind of savoring it and getting to know what’s going on inside. One final thing: don’t feel like you have to go through all of it. If there’s something at the beginning that you really like, that’s great. Just kind of spend some moments there. If you like something in the middle or at the end, that’s fine too. Just take whatever time and pace yourself of what’s best for you and your parts.

[00:59:45] Dr. Peter Martin: Okay. I guess we’ll just go ahead and dive in. Take some time to just find a comfortable position and feel free just to readjust until you find that sweet spot that’s most comfortable and then rest into it. And if you need a few breaths to prepare your mind and body and spirit, give yourself some time to do that. And for this reflection, we’re going to focus on the Good Samaritan. And if you recall some of the key details, the Good Samaritan encounters a poor man who’d been attacked and robbed on the side of the road. And brings out his wine and his oil, and he pours it on the wounds of this poor soul. And then he places him on whatever beast that he was riding. And then he takes him to this inn and he spends the night with him taking care of his wounds. And it must have been pretty severe if he’s spending the night with him. And so he takes care of him and in the morning he speaks to the innkeeper and says, here’s some money, take care of him while I’m gone, and I’ll be back, to kind of check in again. So just notice the steadfast, tender compassion of the Good Samaritan, himself kind of an outcast in those times.

[01:01:34] Dr. Peter Martin: And as you shift to your own experience, just revisit a time when you showed a person mercy during their struggle. And there might be parts that are hesitant to do this and obviously respect their concerns and only go into this if there’s permission granted. But just remember a time when you showed a person mercy. It could be either a one time event or possibly recurring. And just spend some time focusing on what you did and how it helped. And then just notice the parts that show up. And in this case, there might be some parts that are very consoling, parts that are more self-led, that you get some consolation as you feel what’s going on. But there also might be some other parts that react to this. Maybe there’s some critics that are downplaying what you did, telling you you should have done it better, done more. Either way, just listen to what those parts are saying and stay curious about it. And then just notice if there are other parts kind of jumping in. It could be some type of another protector part, a firefighter, that just wants to maybe escape the exercise and respect that, if that’s really what the part wants. But just get a sense of what it’s concerned about. Ask it what is it about this exercise that seems uncomfortable or maybe even scary.

[01:04:01] Dr. Peter Martin: And then, as you’re focusing on the parts and their reactions, now think about who do you turn to? Shifting this. Who do you turn to, to feel safe and comfortable with? Think about, is it a spiritual person that you’re connected with? Maybe there’s a part or two that showed up that might have a connection, and where do you like to encounter them? So we’re thinking about a person and a place, an individual, and a context. Maybe you like to encounter this spiritual intercessor somewhere in a church or a chapel, if you encounter them at Mass. Maybe it’s just in the peaceful setting of your back porch swing. If you have a prayer corner. And just turn to them and communicate what it was like to offer this showing of mercy, this steadfast tender compassion, that act of love or multiple times of love you showed. Let this person know about the parts that showed up. Maybe some that were more self-led, maybe some that struggled with recalling the memory a little bit more. But see if you can more unreservedly communicate this, if the parts are okay with that, and notice the spiritual intercessor responds. Maybe it’s he’s responding or she’s responding in just the right ways.

[01:06:38] Dr. Peter Martin: And notice what about the response seems just right. Maybe it feels safe. Maybe you feel nurtured and calm and comforted, but whatever it is, just focus in on this spiritual intercessor and their response. And then as you’re focusing on them, what this does to your internal experience. Any parts that show up and all parts are welcome in this spiritual encounter. It’s okay if parts are nervous. It’s okay if they want to flee. It’s perfectly fine. Whatever the reaction is, just notice the reactions and see if you can stay curious and accompany them. And then again, now that you’ve re-encountered the parts, after you communicated to the spiritual intercessor or intercessors, you’ve noticed how the parts responded, and now communicate this again, back to the intercessors, that when you encounter them, you notice these parts show and then communicate back to the intercessor, this is what happened. And notice how the intercessor responds in just the right ways. You or the part’s attention might focus, if you can see the intercessor, maybe the facial expression or the eyes. Or maybe there’s even some kind of physical contact, hand on the shoulder, arm around you and the part, whatever it is, just focus in on that experience.

[01:09:53] Dr. Peter Martin: And then one final turn, back to you and your parts. Just notice how the parts have reacted, have responded to this experience. See if you, like the Good Samaritan, can support the part in whatever way it has responded. And if you or a part needs some figurative wine and oil poured over the wounds, maybe something came up, maybe it could use your accompaniment maybe in an extended way later on after this meditation. Let’s see if it’s okay to return to this part after we’re done with this meditation, to continue your relationship with it, to care for it, and nurture it in the way that can help it to be more fully self-led in the internal system. And then as we come to a close, go ahead and communicate all the experience that you have with the parts you encountered as we worked on and got to know the time when you showed mercy to another, the experience of the encounter and the exchange with you, the parts, and the spiritual intercessor. Just let all the parts know what happened and address any reactions. And then when you’re ready, you can slowly come back to your room and open your eyes. Okay. I think that’s the meditation, experiential.

[01:12:26] Dr. Peter: Beautiful. Curious if you’d like us to debrief from that?

[01:12:33] Dr. Peter Martin: I’d be happy to say more about kind of what you’re.

[01:12:35] Dr. Peter: Well, really interesting because I had some difficulty getting into it at first. But then it was so interesting because I have a part that I refer to as my guardian part. And this is formerly my intimidator part. This is a part that would get very large. And what became clear to me in this exercise was that that part really wanted to protect the system so that two of my managers could be the ones that we would rely on. Because there’s a long history, and we’ve talked about this outside of these meetings too, a long history of self-reliance. Like, I am going to take care of my own wounds. I’m going to heal myself. Because other people aren’t reliable, other people aren’t safe and so forth. But one of the things that happened as this unfolded, especially with the invitation to consider a spiritual intercessor, that I got in touch with my guardian angel, right? So my guardian part and my guardian angel were kind of connecting in a way. And this, it’s kind of a new way for the first time, kind of connecting around the idea of, you know, it is my role, the guardian angel saying essentially, it’s my role to take care of you. And then something really interesting came up in that between the two of them, my guardian angel and my guardian part that, you know, my guardian angel says, you know, I’ve never made demands on you. I’ve never given you a command. I’ve never given you an order. You know, because part of the issue with my guardian part is, and what makes other spiritual intercessors or spiritual confidence difficult is because there’s obligations, commands. The focus can shift so, so quickly. And so just the comfort in the idea that this guardian angel like has as its sole job to protect me, and that can help my guardian part to kind of relax and kind of take that in in a different way. Really appreciative of that. That’s really interesting. So, yeah.

[01:14:28] Dr. Peter Martin: It’s interesting. That’s fascinating. I find, you know, if you can have a part that has like one main focus, the Guardian, you know, hence the name, and then to find they can resonate a lot of times with these spiritual intercessors that have kind of a similar, you know, focus. And so that really stood out, that maybe there’s like a certain level of trust because they both get each other. They know what that role is and know that there’s a shared overlapping kind of experience there. That’s great. 

[01:15:04] Dr. Peter Martin: Christian and Gerry, feel free to chime in. One thing that I wanted to do with this particular experiential, I wanted to start with something very positive. I wanted it to be, I think Gerry talked about strengths and some other things. And also we talked about the primacy of mercy in the Christian tradition. And so I wanted to start with something that was extremely positive, the person living out the merciful Christian mandate, I guess. Living out mercy. And then seeing what parts might interact or react with that, from that, seeing how that could shape a possible openness to a spiritual intercessor. Because in some ways that’s kind of what intercessors do. Like they’re living out the Lord’s merciful kingdom. They’re kind of really trying to communicate, express that. So I was intrigued to see if that would assist in any way people’s interactions with them. 

[01:16:06] Dr. Christian Amalu: Yeah, I could see that. I think similarly with what Peter was sharing, I had a little bit of a hard time getting into the exercise. Probably about halfway through it finally started to connect. But I found myself, yeah, I mean, I was even a little hesitant to give this much self-disclosure, but earlier when I was disconnected, there was a part of me that was really angry, really angry that things weren’t working, that things were not going the way that I wanted them to, and I planned things out. And as that was happening, I was simultaneously trying to think about times where I was merciful to someone else. And so I felt this competition and I decided to take it a little bit of a different direction. I was like, okay, if this is really about a time where you showed someone mercy, I wonder what it would be like if I turned toward this part to be merciful. And so I turned toward it, tried to work with it and lo and behold, that did give me more access to memories where I was that way with others. But this angry part, I found out, was really connected to this whole notion of granting mercy because it was trying to tell me in so many different words, but then what was obvious about is like, yes, you give mercy to others, but no one’s going to give it to you. 

[01:17:29] Dr. Christian Amalu: And that struck home. I’m like, wow. So there’s this part of me that is still very much worried about that. And I was like, this feels like a wonderful time to bring in an intercessor. And as you were talking about the intercessor, one of my go-tos is almost always St. Joseph, St. Joseph is just a huge intercessor, for me and my family. And he stepped in and it really helped facilitate this moment of, it’s okay for things to not always go according to plan. And this part actually was able to soften back. It’s not all the way there yet. It’s not probably fully unburdened. I imagine he’s going to take some time on that one. But I think like what you were saying at the end, Peter, about the, how is this working to help facilitate bringing in intercessors. I think I got there in a roundabout way, but maybe not the way that the actual script intended, but I think it still got me there.

[01:18:32] Dr. Peter Martin: That’s great. 

[01:18:33] Dr. Christian Amalu: What I’m saying is I’ll take it.

[01:18:34] Dr. Peter Martin: We’ll take what we can get. That’s right.

[01:18:38] Dr. Christian Amalu: It was beautiful. I think if you were to put that out as a script somewhere, I would not be opposed. 

[01:18:44] Dr. Peter Martin: Thanks so much, I appreciate it, Christian. 

[01:18:55] Dr. Gerry: I just feel like that was very Ignatian. I don’t know if that was the intention, but it felt that way to me, to be able to be in that scene, to be in that moment, to experience that and feel that. I think it was beautiful. So yeah, that’s what I got.

[01:19:13] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah, the Good Samaritan kind of focus was to prime the experience potential for when a person did likewise. It’s just like, how have you been Good Samaritan? And now take that good Samaritan experience to whomever, but more in an experiential right brain way, so to speak. 

[01:19:34] Dr. Gerry: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you. I really appreciated it.

[01:19:40] Dr. Peter: Well, we are about to bring this to a close and so I know this might be difficult. I know this might be difficult, but in like 30 seconds, a minute, if each of you would like to just offer like a key takeaway, something about Internal Family Systems or parts work or systems thinking, and Scripture, if there’s one sort of key takeaway that you would like to leave our audience with, if you’d like to leave our viewers or listeners with. So, I’ll start. Mine’s pretty obvious and that is going back to Luke, the great commandment, 10:27, to love the Lord your God with your whole heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. And maybe this parts stuff, maybe IFS stuff, maybe this parts work doesn’t resonate with your system, you know, and okay. This isn’t the only way that one can live out the Gospel and live out the two great commandments, but to really make an effort to think about what that means and how you want to do that, what that means for you, to love with your whole heart. And what it means for you to love your neighbor as yourself, which implies you loving yourself, that you take that seriously. And whether it’s IFS and parts work and the things we’ve been talking about in this series and in this podcast, or if it’s some other way that you have, that you really grip onto that and that you not neglect that third love, loving yourself, in those two great commandments and that you not neglect loving with your whole heart, with your whole being. So that’s my little takeaway for this.

[01:21:13] Dr. Peter Martin: I like that, Peter. I’ll just kind of, where you were heading. I’ve been very fascinated with Joseph Pieper’s work on love, and I know a number of us have been reading his wonderful text on that. As you were talking Peter, what came to mind is, you know, the greatest of these is love. And in that tradition of love in the New Testament in particular, it’s very much the primacy of mercy in that love. So how can we continually present that steadfast, tender compassion to our parts, which is probably the most powerful way to build implicit trust in the self. And so if the self can communicate and if the parts can really receive that it’s wonderful that they exist, even to the point that they feel that the self is like internally, publicly proud of the parts, just praising them and they feel this kind of joy that the self has in them. That, in many ways, in my mind would be that kind of harmony you’re describing. That kind of ability to try new things courageously, to share that compassion with others. And so, just to kind of continue with the love, seems to be important in this discussion.

[01:22:28] Dr. Christian Amalu: Pulling all of these themes together, I think something that stands out to me is that this whole project of integration is a primary and ancient prerogative from God, from beginning of time, up through our Lord’s passion, his death, his resurrection. This work of internal integration seems to have a thread throughout the entirety of the tradition and is really at the heart of what we’re trying to do as Christians, as people navigating in this world. And for me, thinking about this, it’s a lot of what Dr. Peter has said, other Dr. Peter has said, what you have said, Gerry, using these illustrations from the Scriptures. How can I take those models? How can I be the good Samaritan to myself? How can I find my lost sheep? How can I look for the parts within myself? I think if I can take that and integrate that into my spiritual life and make that an intentional thing, I think that will work to my overall flourishing. And in turn, I think that that will be able to then be a gift to others, in a more full way and guide me closer to the goal of loving with an undivided heart or to love with all of my heart.

[01:23:51] Dr. Gerry: That’s beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you. I don’t have a lot more to say after all that, but again, you know, I think what parts work does is it gives us a clear access to our inner landscape. And within that inner landscape, we can work with our various parts. And as Christians, we can also access spiritual resources, obviously, and we can access our inmost self, which is, you know, the best representation of the image of God. And we can access, obviously, the graces of faith, hope, and love. But we can also access not just our inner exiles, but our older brothers, our little Pharisees that may need attention as well. And so that’s the beauty of actually what IFS did was really help to highlight that, that we need to work with protectors that are protecting in maybe ways we don’t always appreciate and how we can work with them and gain them as allies and actually change, you know, their roles and all this kind of thing. So how exciting is it to marry these approaches and find the beauty and the power really in them? So, thank you. What a great discussion. 

[01:25:10] Dr. Peter: Thank you all and yeah, a lot of gratitude to all of you, Dr. Christian, Dr. Gerry, Dr. Peter Martin, and let’s just, you know, a lot of gratitude to the audience, for you doing your internal work, and just so excited that you could join us in this experience as well. Okay, so I’ve gotta say, if you want to find out much more about Scripture and parts work, check out Dr. Gerry’s book, Dr. Gerry Crete, his book from Sophia Press, Litanies of the Heart: Relieving Post-Traumatic Stress and Calming Anxiety through Healing Our Parts. That is amazing. Check that out. There is so much about how you can understand parts work, how you can understand Internal Family Systems, adapted, modified, I would say adjusted or corrected, to be entirely consistent with what we believe to be true by divine revelation. Also, we mentioned it before, Dr. Christian Amalu’s dissertation, which is titled An Analysis of Internal Family Systems’ Therapeutic Factors from the Perspective of the Catholic Meta-Model of the Person. That is going to be available in the YouTube description for this episode. You can download that if you wish. Our next episode, episode 167, we’re going to get into the early church fathers and parts work with Dr. Gerry, with Dr. Christian. They will be back to discuss how much the early church fathers have to say about these same things, parts, multiplicity systems, all of the things that go in Catholic parts work. And that one will release on June 2nd, 2025.

[01:26:53] Dr. Peter: All right, so if this resonates with you, and again, I go back to my plea that you do your human formation work, that you do the work that you need to do to be able to love yourself and to love God wholeheartedly, not just with some of you, not just with a portion of yourself, but with all of you. And if you know of a way to do this, if you’ve got other ways, other systems, if there are other people that you are tuning into that are really helping you with this idea of loving yourself and loving your God wholeheartedly, I want to know about them. I want to know about what other opportunities are out there, so don’t hesitate to let me know about that. Email me, crisis@soulsandhearts.com, or let me know on my cell phone, (317) 567-9594. We have something that is tuned exactly to this called the Resilient Catholics Community. It’s reopening for new members in our St. Jerome cohort on June 1st, 2025. It’s in less than two weeks after this is released. The Resilient Catholics community is a community of more than 400 people all coming together to do this work, to learn how to love God wholeheartedly and to love their neighbors as themselves. But we focus on human formation. We focus on our development in the natural realm. We do the human formation arithmetic, to support the spiritual formation algebra, to support the intellectual formation geometry, to support the applied mathematics of pastoral work. I discussed all of those in episode, I believe it was 134. Yeah, A Mathematical Model of F ormation. And so that’s opening again June 1st. Check it out at soulsandhearts.com/rcc. We also have retreats for our RCC members. They’re coming up in August 7th to the 10th and August 14th to the 17th of 2025. That’s down in Bloomington, Indiana at Our Mother of the Redeemer Retreat Center. And the theme of the retreats for this year is Being at Home. Being at Home. Marion Moreland will be there, so will Bridget Adams and I will be as well. Check it all out, soulsandhearts.com/rcc.

[01:29:20] Dr. Peter: Also the Formation for Formators community. This is for those that are formators, priests, anyone who forms other people, therapists, coaches, counselors, anybody who works one-on-one with folks in their own individual formation. From August 11th to the 14th, 2025, we are hosting a retreat. This is our first one for formators specifically. The theme of that retreat is Being of Service, and it is all about the individual human formation of the formator, starting there, which so often gets skipped, it so often gets neglected. There’s so much external focus on the one that we’re accompanying and not enough focus on our own human formation. So check that out on our landing page for Formation for Formators community. That’s at soulsandhearts.com/fff. 

[01:30:15] Dr. Peter: And again, please pray for us. Our entire operation at Souls and Hearts is all fueled by prayer. Please pray for us, and again, I invite you, join the conversation. Let us know what your experience was of Dr. Peter Martin’s experiential exercise in the comment section of our YouTube episode. This is episode 166. Let us know. We’d love to hear what that was like for you, how that landed for you. And you can always reach out to me as well as viewers or listeners to this podcast on my cell phone. I have conversation hours with my people, every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time. That number, 317-567-9594. We can talk for about 10 minutes just about the different things in the podcast or in my semi-monthly reflections or other things that we offer through Souls and Hearts, how that’s landing with you. We can’t do any clinical services. I can’t diagnose you. I can’t make recommendations that are clinical in nature or anything like that, but we can certainly have a conversation about what this has been like for you. And let’s bring this to a close by invoking our patroness and our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. St. John the Baptist, pray for us.