IIC 174: Richard Schwartz and IFS Meet St. Thomas Aquinas

We explore the surprising compatibility of Internal Family Systems with a Thomistic understanding of the human person. The modern pioneer of parts work, Richard Schwartz, originator of IFS harmonizes with the medieval angelic doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas. Join Thomistic philosopher Dr. Anthony Flood, Catholic psychologist Dr. Eric Gudan and me, Dr. Peter, as we discuss how the goodness of IFS can be modified and grounded in the excellence of a Thomistic anthropology.   For the full video experience with all our visuals, gestures, and graphics, and for conversation and sharing in the comments section, check us out on our YouTube channel here:  www.youtube.com/@InteriorIntegration4Catholics

[00:00:00] Dr. Peter: Relating to self, relating to others. From Richard Schwartz, “The way that we relate to our parts translates directly to how we relate to people when they resemble our parts.” That’s from his book, No Bad Parts. He also says, “IFS is a loving way of relating internally to your parts and externally to the people in your life. So in that sense, IFS is a life practice as well. It’s something you can do on a daily, moment to moment basis at any time by yourself or with others.” And he says, “How we relate in the inner world will be how we relate in the outer. If we can appreciate and have compassion for our parts, even for the ones we’ve considered to be enemies, we can do the same for people who resemble them. On the other hand, if we hate or disdain our parts, we’ll do the same with anyone who reminds us of them.”

[00:01:09] Dr. Peter: Now, Anthony Flood, in his book, The Metaphysical Foundations of Love says, “If a person loves himself rightly, he will love others rightly. On the other hand, if he relates to himself through a disordered love, he can neither relate to others rightly nor enter into a deep union with them.” Anthony Flood says, “Each person relates to others in a manner shaped and informed by how he relates to himself. Thus proper self-love forms a key condition for both developing a true friendship and nurturing and sustaining that friendship over time.” Do you see the parallels here? St. Thomas Aquinas, Richard Schwartz, are essentially saying the same thing, that the way that we treat ourselves, the way that we love ourselves, the way that we relate with ourselves is going to be the way that we relate to others. It’s an amazing parallel.

[00:02:15] Dr. Peter: Schwartz says, “Through a Christian lens, through IFS, people wind up doing in the inner world what Jesus did in the outer. They go to inner exiles and enemies with love, heal them, bring them home, just as Jesus did with the lepers, the poor, and the outcasts.” So in this podcast episode, we’re gonna be discussing flourishing. We’re going to get into the practical applications of self-love. How do we do that? How might Aquinas understand the innermost self and how can we reconcile IFS with a Thomistic understanding of the human person? How might St. Thomas have understood parts? We’re gonna continue to have this emphasis on self-love. We’re gonna bring in faculties, powers, and appetites, oh my. We’re gonna talk about blending and how that’s similar to being dominated by a passion, and we’re gonna talk about peace, love, and little donuts. 

[00:03:20] Dr. Peter: And in all of it, we’re seeking truth wherever it may be found, and whoever may have found it. St. Augustine did this. St. Thomas Aquinas did this. And Adrienne Posey said, “There is magic in the old and magic in the new. The trick is to successfully combine the two.” So we are bringing the best of the old and the best of the new on self-love together in this podcast episode. So let’s do this together. 

[00:03:58] Dr. Peter: So I am really, really excited about this dialogue that we’re going to invite between Richard Schwartz, the developer of Internal Family Systems and also St. Thomas Aquinas. And again, to have you here with me, my dear friend of many, many years, Eric Gudan, colleague, and also in the same geographical location. It’s so exciting to have you back and to be doing a third podcast episode with us, Eric Gudan of Integritas Psychological Services. So good to have you back. 

[00:04:35] Dr. Eric Gudan: Thank you Peter. Really appreciate the opportunity. It’s good to see you. 

[00:04:38] Dr. Peter: So good to have you. And then I am going to give you the moniker of my favorite philosopher, Tony Flood, my favorite philosopher, Dr. Anthony Flood. I am so appreciative that you’re generous with your time and with your presence with us today. Thank you for being here. 

[00:04:57] Dr. Anthony Flood: Always my pleasure. Thank you. 

[00:05:01] Dr. Peter: And so let’s just get into this right now. I wanted to basically do a little bit of a definition of terms because Confucius said that, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names.” And so I think we just need to know like what we are actually talking about. Like, I want to get into what do we mean when we are talking about, for example, the innermost self, right? So from Richard Schwartz, this is a sort of compilation of what he believes the innermost self to be. It’s the core of the person, it’s the center of the person. This is who we sense ourselves to be in our best moments when our self is free and unblended with any of our parts. The innermost self governs our whole being as an active, compassionate leader. And in IFS, the self is considered to be the seat of consciousness.

[00:05:51] Dr. Peter: So that’s the innermost self. But then the way he defines parts in Internal Family Systems Therapy second edition, which he wrote with Martha Sweezy is, “Parts is the word for internal sub-personalities. Parts behave like internal people of different ages, temperaments, and talents, and they respond best when related to as such.” And then my definition of parts is that parts feel like separate independently operating personalities within us, each with its own prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style and worldview. And each part also has an image of God.

[00:06:41] Dr. Peter: Some synonyms for parts that Richard Schwartz has offered us are sub-personalities, sub-selves, inner dimensions, internal characters, kind of like in Inside Out, “sides of me,” in quotes, ego states, inner voices, or aspects. And so I just wanna kind of open it up here. And also with the caveat that, you know, we really are speculating here and I am very happy to be corrected. I mean, I actually look for that, right? Because we’re really on the tip of the spear in terms of really trying to take the best of Internal Family Systems and other parts and systems approaches and ground them in a Catholic anthropology.

[00:07:23] Dr. Peter: Obviously, we wanna look to St. Thomas Aquinas, which is why I’m so glad you’re here with us, Tony. And there’s gonna be some mistakes along the way. I have parts that really worry that I’m gonna utter something that’s wrong, right? And make this error of commission. But I actually have a greater fear of not talking about this stuff, right? Not that it’s all fear driven, but I have this great desire to like share this with you. I want folks to understand that this is on the hypothetical edge of speculation, if you will, and that, you know, I reserve the right to change my mind as we get more feedback and stuff like that. So I just want to throw that out there as well.

[00:08:00] Dr. Eric Gudan: So we’re not taking this as Peter’s profession of faith, lest he be deemed a heretic by a future council. Give him the opportunity to recant.

[00:08:10] Dr. Peter: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. And again, if you notice something in here that you recognize as being contrary to the definitive teachings of the church, let us know. But what I want you to do is to like, give us some references, you know, reference the catechism, reference, you know, Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, or Denzinger, or something like that. Don’t tell me that you heard from a priest about 13 years ago in a homily something that you think contradicted what we were saying. I’d like it to be a little higher level than that, to engage with us. And by all means, put your comments in the comment section, your questions, in the comment section of our YouTube. So yeah, so this, this whole question comes up so much about can this idea of parts, can this idea of innermost self be harmonized with a Catholic understanding of the human person and specifically with St. Thomas. So I’m gonna let you guys take that away.

[00:09:03] Dr. Anthony Flood: Okay. Well, Eric, do you want me to jump in or do you want to focus me in a certain direction?

[00:09:12] Dr. Eric Gudan: Well, a part of me wants to start with a sed contra. Well, that some people say that, I have heard it said within Catholic circles, things like the inmost self is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within. And some people are identifying the self as the Holy Spirit. I think that’s patently false.

[00:09:28] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. That is false. Certainly, people accuse me of hiding behind Aquinas when I say things are true or false. But I can certainly say Aquinas would not accept that approach.

[00:09:37] Dr. Peter: Right, right. Although there are some Christian IFS folks that have said things like that, Protestants, not Catholics. This wasn’t Dr. Gerry. But yeah, like the innermost self. Is there a sort of parallel within a Thomistic understanding of the human person? 

[00:09:56] Dr. Anthony Flood: I think so. I mean, where you see Aquinas talking about the innermost self, most frequently is in his Scripture commentaries, when the word “heart” is used. Anytime we talk about dwelling in one’s heart, I think his general definition of heart is it’s the highest operation of the spiritual powers. And by that he means intellect and will, but that also includes the affections. It’s not just choosing, it’s not just thinking. It’s also feeling. Now there’s other times, sometimes he’ll talk about the heart simply in terms of the will, sort of the purity of intention. But again, other times he talks about it in terms of just the intellect. So the most generic sense is, I would put it in terms of when you identify most with your thinking and your choosing and your feeling, that is the heart on the Thomistic understanding.

[00:10:53] Dr. Eric Gudan: So at the most authentic version of yourself, using both intellect and will, in line with emotions. That sounds like the integrated person.

[00:11:03] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yes. So he wants, I mean, he talks about contemplation and such as returning to that self. And he does theologically say, yes, that is the place where God dwells in the most sort of acute way. That’s where you will meet God. But that self is there at a purely natural level. I would never, to say that it would become identical to the Holy Spirit, he would get very nervous with that. So obviously the self is there. And then he does talk about an intimacy, a divine intimacy that the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul, he says, is actually closer and more intimate to the soul’s dwelling with the body, which for him is a big deal. Because if the soul is the form of the body, that means you’re talking about one unity, one thing. There’s not really a separation in reality. It’s a separation in, you know, that we can think of the different principles, but there is one being that exists.

[00:12:07] Dr. Anthony Flood: So when he comes in and says that the grace of charity, the grace of any sanctifying grace, which is the presence of the Holy Spirit, is closer to the soul than the soul is to the body at that point, he’s almost in metaphor, right? I mean, he’s just like, it’s so close. I don’t know how to articulate it any better. You know, I don’t wanna discount that idea that the self and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit are gonna have no relation. They certainly do, but certainly the ontologically, the self comes first.

[00:12:37] Dr. Eric Gudan: And I’ve heard Dr. Gerry talk about the kind of the heart and the conversation I had with him is the faculty by which you’re able to engage with and have relationship with God. I’m not sure if I’m paraphrasing him properly, but would that make sense?

[00:12:52] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah, I mean, Aquinas wouldn’t put the heart as a separate faculty. That would be one sort of big difference there. But insofar as the heart represents the highest operations of the intellect and will, then yeah, I think you could make that, I mean, if you had that distinction in mind for Aquinas, I think you could see a complementarity.

[00:13:12] Dr. Eric Gudan: So just that by which you’re able to engage with God and within the core of your being. And earlier you said, didn’t quite use the word recollection. Pretty close to it. Contemplation, and maybe you said recollected or like in the contemplation. Return to that. I’ve heard Peter talk about recollection as the access, accessing the innermost self. And I really like that phrase. And I noticed myself have been using that a lot, especially because recollection has been in the Christian tradition for such a time. And also it’s more kind of easier for me to kind of understand. And perhaps for Aquinas, that recollection I’m speaking about would be understood as contemplation? Or is it more than that?

[00:13:47] Dr. Anthony Flood: I think through contemplation you become recollected for Aquinas. So contemplation is gonna be a twofold act. And it doesn’t need to be even religious contemplation. It’s gonna be raising one’s mind to higher truths, to deeper aspects of reality. But in order to do that, you have to clear your mind, if you will, of various sensory desires and passions and things of that nature.

[00:14:10] Dr. Eric Gudan: Has to be a degree of focus.

[00:14:11] Dr. Anthony Flood: So that recollection, you become more, sort of, you’re dwelling with yourself, if you wanna put it in that way, in a more conscious way, through contemplation, you do become recollected. 

[00:14:24] Dr. Peter: I like that because the idea of recollection or recollecting, I’m thinking about that in terms of, in IFS terms, of recollecting our parts. Sort of gathering them in in a harmonious way so that there is a kind of the greater unity within, right? A less of a fragmentation, a greater unity, greater integration. And I’m looking at this image that Dr. Gerry Crete has in his book, Litanies of the Heart, where he has this drawing of the human person, and he actually locates the parts of the person in the heart. And so that’s kind of getting to what you were saying before about the emotional or the affective components.

[00:15:05] Dr. Peter: It’s not just, you know, the heart is not just about the intellect or the will, but it also includes the emotions, the desires, you know, like different kinds of aspects of us, which I really like because I don’t like this idea of love being merely an act of the will, as though it involves only one faculty of us, right? That doesn’t seem like it corresponds to loving the Lord our God with our whole heart, you know, and leading with that. And then the mind, and then the whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and all your strength. So heart, soul, mind, and then strength.

[00:15:39] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. And I won’t get bogged down into technicalities, but, well, maybe I will, but I don’t intend to. For Aquinas, interestingly, the will is the source of what he calls the affections. But then we also have the bodily passions. And in real life, those things are experienced together. It’s not as if, oh, I’m having a passionate experience, oh, I’m having an affective experience. They end up all being integrated. But the will, it’s a very affective faculty, with an “a” there, affective faculty, meaning Aquinas thinks that, number one, you feel affection toward the good before you even choose it. I mean, the good has that pulling effect on us. It’s bringing us to it. And in the case of a personal relationship, it’s the goodness of the other person that’s attracting us to them. And you could think of that, you know, most dramatically in the case of romantic love, particularly early on when there’s this insane, attractive force, between two people, right?

[00:16:42] Dr. Anthony Flood: You’re not choosing that attractive force that’s happening to you. And that’s the classic sense of the word passion. It’s something that happens to you. And so he actually calls that complacency, I mean, he just means pleasant, affective feeling, but one that actually pulls you toward it. But then when you choose the good and when you actually make the choice, he says, once you obtain it in those cases that you do, then you have a new affective feeling of joy or delight where you actually are resting in the good and enjoying the good. And now, in the case of the romantic love context, right? I mean, if there’s, you know, two people attracted to one another and then, they actually come together, there’s that delight in being in each other’s presence, right?

[00:17:28] Dr. Anthony Flood: So where I’m going with that is for Aquinas thinks, it’s a double affectivity. It’s not merely a little bit of affection. It’s actually one pulling us towards us and one that we’re experiencing as resting in the good. And you could apply that to his view of the spiritual life as well. It’s gonna be the goodness of God pulling us toward him in that same affective way. And then when you actually encounter God, there’s going to be the joy in that encounter. So yes, it’s a very affective, very emotional, as we would use the term, experience for Aquinas. And I think the medievals and the scholastic tradition in general sometimes gets a bad rap of like missing the emotions altogether. And I’m just like, no, no, no, no, no. If anything, there’s more emotion going on there than with us because anytime the word appetite is used, I mean, it’s meaning this felt inclination either toward or resting in. And so, it’s a very, very robustly felt experience for Aquinas.

[00:18:34] Dr. Eric Gudan: A visceral sense, kind of a being drawn towards. And I’m trying to pull this back towards understanding self. And the descriptions we have here with Schwarz and when we’re feeling most free unblended with any of the parts, just an active, compassionate leader. So that by which we can do this. What comes to mind for me, and I’m maybe I’m stretching it too much, is in your book, the Root of Friendship, I was thinking about page 68, you kind of pull together the whole building up towards this self-love. And I’m wondering if, the kind of this natural self-love is an expression of what is experienced by phenomenologically, Richard Schwartz, of the kind of the compassionate center core of our being. We’re naturally gonna try to love ourselves. And if we get out of the way of these other kind of more restrictive ways of loving ourself in a more kind of narrow way. So in the broadest sense, if you kind of strip some of that way, you can see more clearly. If you’re able to contemplate that kind of self-love that’s being in self, it’s being recollected. I wonder, Tony, if that is commensurate with your understanding.

[00:19:43] Dr. Anthony Flood: I think there’s an affinity. It somewhat connected to what I was talking about in the previous podcast. You know, the experience of self-love, why we’re having that is because we’re experiencing ourself as good, and love is naturally attracted to the good in the ways that we were just talking about. The good has that. Now why that naturally would lead to being compassionate. And I think in the Schwartzen sense, is that the adjective? Can I do that? Would be at least for Aquinas, that when you’re experience the goodness of yourself and you naturally love it, and you, in the clarity of that moment, you don’t merely love yourself. You love yourself primarily and principally because yourself is good. Well, that positions you or frees the mind to see that, well, I should love anything that’s good.

[00:20:39] Dr. Anthony Flood: And particularly, I should be naturally drawn to those goods that are most similar to myself, which are what? And it’s this case, which are who? It’s people, all other people, right? I mean, I am a human being and I see that myself, I see that I’m good and I love myself. Well, that’s gonna have a natural outward trajectory then to all forms of goodness. But particularly those that are similar to me, which again, is going to be human beings first and foremost. Now if I get too wrapped up in my interest, well, then I start to see other human beings as a competitor. And I might see them as problematic, but again, now I’ve shifted the framework away from my goodness as a being to something to do with more just selfish interest. If I stick with that framework of seeing, loving myself because I’m the sort of being that’s worthy of love, as a you know, good self. Well, then that is gonna naturally flow over to others. 

[00:21:41] Dr. Peter: So one of the things that I really like about understanding the human person in terms of parts is that we can make some distinctions. Because there could be this, I like most of me, or I love most of me, but I hate this in me, right. And you know, that could be the burden that a part bears or the role that a part has, for example, in the system. And so without there being a separateness, there’s a distinction within. And then what we’re often seeing, at least clinically or in just everyday life is that the parts that I hate in me, I also hate in other people. And you know, so I’m just curious about would you say that that resonates in some way with a Thomistic understanding of the person? And how might we understand that?

[00:22:26] Dr. Anthony Flood: Again, for Aquinas, the way that you relate to yourself becomes the model and template for how you relate to others. And that’s both good and bad, right? I mean, if you’re willing to yourself, the goods that actually enhance your life and contribute to your flourishing, well, then you’re gonna be disposed to do that towards others. But if you’re locked into patterns of behavior where you’re willing yourself merely apparent goods, or you’re having an unhealthy relationship with various things in your life, well then, yeah, that same, I don’t wanna call it. But the influencing mechanism where we see another person, we’re just gonna be disposed to treat them in that exact same way, at least in those areas. So in terms of the Thomistic motivational psychology, that, that makes perfect sense to me.

[00:23:13] Dr. Peter: Wow.

[00:23:14] Dr. Eric Gudan: And this seems to match up with the phenomenological description that we have within IFS, within the way Schwartz describes the self-energy being able to see it in a kind way and compassionate way. And from these parts which, having different motivations, different kind of slices of what they see to be good. And so there’s more room for more conflict of disagreement of what is good or what’s good for me now.

[00:23:37] Dr. Peter: Right. Yeah, leading to those polarizations inside, he would call ’em polarizations, where parts are battling it out between the good of, as we put it the last time, the third donut, and the good of physical health. Right? And so parts can wind up in conflict around that. And ideally within a well ordered person, and again, I don’t think that Schwartz would like this word, but there’s a hierarchy, right? Ideally that the innermost self is leading and guiding, right? And these parts, and again, I’m trying to think about them in terms of passions, you know, in terms of the affectivity that we were talking about, the emotional aspects of this, and even in terms of like access to faculties. Like what do parts have access to in terms of memory? You know, like I’m just really fascinated by how this all kind of works together. So I guess I’m asking a kind of multifaceted question, like to what degree do parts have access to the passions or the degree to which passions influence parts, and what degree do they have access to the faculties? 

[00:24:38] Dr. Anthony Flood: Big questions get big answers, right. So for Aquinas, and I will do my best to keep this user friendly. Aquinas talks about what he calls the cogitative power or particular reason, those are synonyms for him. And the best way to think about it is, and this is the Aristotelian tradition. You’ll find a lot of this in Aristotle as well. The easiest way to think about this, I actually think is in terms of animals, because animals have what’s called an estimative power on this account. So we don’t even need to talk about human beings with reason and will. We can just look at it in terms of animals and then use that as the guide for thinking through this for human beings. If you have a dog or a cat and you come home, let’s go with dog because cats probably wouldn’t do this. And you come home, the dog is excited to see you, right? So what’s going on there? The dog, I mean, there’s actually a fairly complex process there. The dog, upon having this sense perception of you, is able to automatically connect it to her memory. Right? She has a memory of you, and that’s how she’s able to recognize you. Right?

[00:25:52] Dr. Anthony Flood: So the estimative power is what gives us that ability to recognize things. It gives us sort of a continuity of experience over time, that we see these people and that’s the same person, right? But it’s not merely this sort of visual match. It’s not as if, oh, there’s Peter. I remember him from yesterday. It’s that, but look at all of the affective elements to that. The dog is not merely seeing you. The dog is remembering the affective part, that, oh, I associate this sense image with all sorts of good feeling states, right? So the dog’s very excited. And so the cogitative power is this intersection between memory and imagination and our passions and our real time experience.

[00:26:46] Dr. Anthony Flood: Okay, well, now let’s flip that. I mean, now let’s go a little darker. I mean, now let’s say you have a dog in a neighborhood that’s abused by somebody. Well, what happens there? I mean, when the dog sees the person who has abused it, it’s the same mechanism at play, right? The dog has the scent image, recognizes this, but now the dog whimpers and shows clear signs of having been traumatized by this person. The dog has trauma, which means now the emotions in this case are negative, but they’re inextricably tied to the experience. You can’t get the dog not to have that feeling state when seeing this person.

[00:27:27] Dr. Eric Gudan: Affectively triggered by the occasion of a sensible experience, and this echoes impressions of past affectively laden experiences.

[00:27:35] Dr. Anthony Flood: And so we, human beings, we have all of the sense powers that an animal have, and more, so sometimes I get a little bit on my soapbox. Some people criticize the medievals as having this pie in the sky view of the self. That it’s all the soul, right? It’s all immaterial and there’s no body. Now with modern science, we know how the brain works and we don’t need to talk about. I may have even heard things like, oh, you ever hear the story of Phineas Gage where he got a rod in his head that changed his personality? Oh, the medievals couldn’t handle it. It’s like, read, read. I don’t mind negative appraisals of any thinker, consequent to reading that person, but it drives me nuts when you clearly haven’t read it.

[00:28:18] Dr. Anthony Flood: So for Aquinas, and again, larger tradition. All of this is bodily. Now, of course, they didn’t have an understanding of the neurological things that go on there, but they knew it was bodily. Everything having to do with sense perception is bodily. We share it with the animals. The animals don’t have an immaterial soul on the medieval perspective. Okay? So we have all of that, and our brain is doing all of those things. We got the memory and, you know, that can be manipulated too, and so if we get a rod in our head, that’s gonna affect all of those emotional states that we have in relation to experience. But what we also have, it’s a both-and for Aquinas, we also have intellect and will. And so what does that offer us? Well, the intellect is going to give us things like concepts where we can actually understand the general nature of things. 

[00:29:06] Dr. Anthony Flood: So I can look at the dog and say, this thing has the nature of being, you know, dogness, of the essence of a dog. And that has all these sorts of essential characteristics. And I could give a full scientific analysis of that. But more importantly, at least for our context, we have an intellectual apprehension of good and evil, right? We know through intellectual apprehension the nature of the good as such, that which contributes to flourishing as such. Alright? This is why Aquinas thinks instead of using the word estimative power, let’s call it the cogitative power, because it directly links for human beings to our higher faculties. That’s why, again, it’s called particular reason, so it’s our reasoning, but in the moment. 

[00:29:50] Dr. Anthony Flood: And it coordinates and systematizes and synthesizes all of this information that we’re getting through our senses and all of the things going on inside our head, intellect insofar as it’s relevant to this experience. So there is a lot going on here. So you brought up the donuts. Let’s go with that. Right? So I see the donuts, right? And I’m just like the dog, right, seeing you. I’m getting excited. The donuts! The donuts! Right? Again, it’s not merely that I’m recognizing this object with previous objects. I am doing that, but it also inextricably recalls my desire to eat these things and the enjoyment promised by these things, right? It’s an affective experience, it’s a passionate experience. This is affective experience and that’s just inextricable with that experience.

[00:30:41] Dr. Anthony Flood: But now what separates me from the dog. And again, you put food in front of the dog. Right. I mean, that same sort of attraction of the dog. I also have this knowledge of the good as such. So my intellect is judging that, you know, eating all of these donuts, let’s say there’s a dozen donuts, instead of three, let’s go up to a dozen. Right? My intellect is judging, do not eat a dozen donuts. That is bad for you. Bad not in a particular sense of, it might cause momentary discomfort, but bad in the moral sense that this is going to actually undermine your flourishing as a whole. It’s a whole different perspective. It’s a deeper perspective. But in my experience of that, in my real time experience of the donut, both the sense knowledge and the intellectual knowledge are coming together in one experience. 

[00:31:38] Dr. Anthony Flood: All right. Now, believe it or not, I am trying to answer your question here. What does this have to do with what Schwartz is calling parts? I think this. So, you know, when you see a donut, you have a different experience than when you hear Beethoven’s ninth, or when you see this person that you went to high school with, or your child or your wife, right? You have all these different experiences with different kinds of things and different particular things. Each of those is going to have its own unique constellation of feeling states and memories associated with it, right? So I think you could almost, I mean, Aquinas probably wouldn’t be excited with the word sub personality, but I think that idea that each of those experiences almost has with it a complete narrative set of things that you could talk about.

[00:32:38] Dr. Anthony Flood: And the older we are, the more we have of these, because every time our cogitative power sees something in real time, it’s gonna connect it to the associated memories and the desires and the feeling states and everything that goes with that. And that’s why you can look at one person, you go to a high school reunion, you see one person that you have fond memories of, you see another person you have far less fond memories of. Completely different experiences, but they’re robust, fully fleshed out experiences that would take a while to actually chart out everything that’s going on there. And I think we’re full of those. I mean, we have thousands of memories. And they all have their associated effective state. So, you know, I think that on a Thomistic picture, you could articulate a lot of these things in terms of that. 

[00:33:25] Dr. Peter: So he would recognize these constellations, that it’s not just a feeling, it’s not just a memory, it’s not just a desire, it’s not just a perception, but that these are all coming together in the cogitative power and that there can be different, in a sense, competing or conflicting constellations. Right?

[00:33:43] Dr. Anthony Flood: There can be competing constellations and there can be memories that are sufficiently vague as to keep you in suspense, right? You don’t know why you’re feeling this way when you look at this person or thing. And maybe that’s where, you know, a conversation or even therapy can get you to sort of get to that point where you remember that there is a connection. So it’s not as if we have a fully transparent awareness of all of these things, because again, memory is imperfect and it’s sort of the linchpin in here in terms of how all of that fits together. But yeah, it could definitely be competing, right? I mean, all of these different experiences we’ve had, they’re not always going to mesh together.

[00:34:29] Dr. Peter: Would it be, in this idea of self-governance and actually more interested in self-love here, does it make sense from a Thomistic perspective then to love a part or to love one of these constellations that’s being held by a part, let’s say, or being sort of managed by a part or worked with a part? Does that make sense then that we can say, okay, we appreciate that this part of me or this constellation is inclined to at least a perceived good. Can we work with that? Like, ’cause that’s one of the things that Schwartz always says that I think is really one of the strengths of his position is that all parts are good. There’s an ontological goodness about this. 

[00:35:08] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. I think so. You know, you could probably tell my hesitancy, but, for Aquinas, I mean, each of those constellations, there has to be some goodness in that as an experience, because I mean, for one, okay, so he does think our nature as such is good. All the powers are fundamentally good and know that they’re wounded by sin and all those sorts of things. I mean, they’re still all fundamentally good. And that’s not just us, that’s the world as such. So nine times out of 10, when we’re talking about these constellations, we’re talking about things dominated and structured by relations with other people in the past or in the real present, right? I mean, a lot of these things have come about through our interactions with all of these people. And that they also are ontologically good. And so even if there was evil in those experiences, I think those parts that form us, they have to have some sort of goodness in the sense that they are something that is materially possible to contribute to our flourishing in a larger sense, if I wanted to put it in those terms. 

[00:36:17] Dr. Peter: And so one of the questions that comes up a lot, Tony, is, and this comes from therapists, as well, but it’s also just from people that are interested in this parts work, is this question of are parts real? Or are they merely metaphors? Are they merely an attempt to try to understand and explain what’s happening inside? And that goes back to Schwartz’s definition, right? He understands that some people really struggle with this idea that there’s a separate part of us. And so he says, and they respond best when related to as such, you know, as these sort of sub personalities, right? So he has said, you know, for example, if you don’t believe in parts, well, just act like you do and, you know, treat other people as though they have parts. Treat yourself as you have parts. But for a lot of people, including myself, like I wanna know, is there a reality here? What Monte de Latori, who’s a philosopher that is interested in IFS, has said is that they have accidental form, but they don’t have substantial form, you know? And so I’m just curious if that holds. 

[00:37:16] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. I mean, you know, based on what I just said with the cogitative power and forming those constellations of experiences. You know, I would probably think of the word parts if used in reference to Aquinas as shorthand more than metaphor. It’s not metaphor, but it’s a shorthand way of talking about all of these different powers and aspects of human nature working together to constitute the experiences we have. Well, in reality, obviously the realities to which we’re responding to through those powers. And so, yeah, it’s almost as if I’m saying use the as if. I mean, just assume as if you had these parts. It’s just, how much work it is to go through each of the elements of the cogitative power doing this in the sense power’s doing this and memory and imagination. Just shorthand to say, well, that’s a constellation. That’s a part. So I think if you’re using it shorthand I think it’s perfectly consistent with Aquinas. Now, if it’s an ontologically separate part, well, Aquinas would get very nervous with that because if it’s actually ontologically separate, well then you wouldn’t have an identity with that, in which case it would be. 

[00:38:29] Dr. Peter: What if it were ontologically distinct rather than ontologically separate? 

[00:38:33] Dr. Anthony Flood: I mean, yeah, I think I would probably use the word accidental in that case too. And again, accidental, remember for that tradition, doesn’t mean anything like mistake or anything. It just means non-substantial, that we have one substantial form. It’s the thing that is our fundamental principle of unity. It’s what makes us one thing. And then within that substance, we have all sorts of characteristics and accidents, right? Accident, you know, my height, my weight, my hair color, these things would be accidental things that are really part of me, but they’re accidental in the sense that they’re inhering in my substance and characterizing it in particular ways,

[00:39:10] Dr. Eric Gudan: Yeah, your height does not exist apart from you. And your height can change as you grow or anything, but there’s always a height. There’s like a necessary accident that we have, but inheres within your substantial essence.

[00:39:21] Dr. Anthony Flood: I have to have, and you know, in virtue of being a material being I have to have a height, right? I mean, I have to have some dimensive quality, but the particular height I have would then be accidental and therefore also very changeable, right? I mean, I was not always this height I probably won’t always be this height, right? I mean it’s a very changeable thing.

[00:39:39] Dr. Eric Gudan: But similarly, the parts or perhaps ego states just feels more philosophical for me, but a little bit more difficult to talk about, quickly and in therapy, honestly. IFS comes from, I think the ego state tradition of kind of participation in the being of the person. And as these constellations of experiences, I like the shorthand idea as a necessary accident. Persons have these constellations of being. They don’t have the being in and of themselves. They’re not separate. We can distinguish them, but their being is part of participating in the substantial unity of the person. 

[00:40:17] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah, and so therefore, I mean, I think the key part, they would certainly be real aspects of ourself. I mean, they’re certainly real parts of ourself. They’re not illusory. And in that sense, they’re not negotiable, in the sense that you couldn’t just will them out of existence and say, well, I don’t identify with them, therefore, they’re not part of me. I think they’re necessarily part of you. For Aquinas, you would have to find a way to come to peace with that and integrate it into a virtuous life of some sort. I mean, even those parts you don’t like, and I’m thinking of those in these terms. 

[00:40:53] Dr. Peter: So in a sense, I mean, to kind of put this in very simple terms. We’re not looking for a part-ectomy. You know, where you cut part off and cast it away, or cast it out as though it were, you know, a demon or something like that. But really like the conversion of a part or the, I don’t know if that would be the proper word, but like the transformation of a part. Right. Right. Yeah. And that aligns up with Schwartz’s idea of, you know, parts becoming unburdened from extreme roles, but also from, you know, their extreme unintegrated experiences, being freed from that so they can take a really healthy, adaptive, flourishing role within the person’s life.

[00:41:32] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah.

[00:41:33] Dr. Eric Gudan: Removing the obstacles so that they can more accurately experience the complicentia that could be connected to natural goods and to then become more recollected, to see things more accurately, more in touch with the inmost self, more within touch with their heart, as they are, and thus be less burdened and less polarized. Even though they may have certain goods, goods connected to memories, that they’re a lot more invested in. This seems to match up pretty closely, like in the clinical experience of doing parts work.

[00:42:05] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. And you know, and that’s a good distinction too. When you contemplate or recollect for Aquinas, you’re drawing into the heart, you’re drawing into this deepest operation of the spiritual powers. But it’s not as if that means you’re leaving the sense powers and lower operations behind. It’s that you achieve a clarity through the highest operations where you see everything in connection to that. So, it would be something still where you’re aiming for an integration of all of this, but from that point of view of contemplation, you’d be able to just merely see it better. You’d be able to see those things better, I think, if that’s makes sense.

[00:42:49] Dr. Peter: So, we’ve sort of complimented Schwartz here and I really do love many aspects of his model because of how it allows us to live this out in like very practical terms. ’cause as we talked about in the last episode, it’s hard to find like the self-help workbook, you know, within the Summa or within, you know, even some of the sermons that were more practical. But also he has said things that really raise Catholic eyebrows, like each part has a self and he equates the self with the soul, right? So it’s basically saying each part has, you know, a soul. I think he would argue that each part has an intellect. Each part has a will. Each part has like a separate set of faculties and appetites, like he would actually, I think, goes so far as to say that like each part, at least in the definition we were talking about in the last episode, is a person. Right. He sort of sees it that way with that degree of separateness. What we’re thinking about a lot at Souls and Hearts is, okay, we understand that there’s a distinction, right? But there’s not a separateness, right? We’re trying to sort of manage that. So just comments on like, how do we preserve a sense of multiplicity, you know, preserve the distinctions, without creating separate persons, I guess is what I’m saying. 

[00:44:03] Dr. Anthony Flood: All right. Well, I think we’ve already laid the groundwork for it. I think, you know, if you think, go back to, I’m just gonna keep going back to the cogitative power thing, but you know, when you think, which again, and even that’s just shorthand for your actual experience of the world because you know that’s what you are experiencing, but that’s the key power that’s doing all the integration. You know, so when I see those donuts. Now, when I see those donuts, you know, I might look at them and also have a little bit of regret when I see, because when I see them, I’m regretting all those times that I chose poorly in relation to them. Now, the point there is, what am I remembering? I’m actually remembering my acts of the will in relation to previous encounters with donuts. So Schwartz wants to say that there’s a separate intellect and will. Yeah. Aquinas, yeah, he would never go for that in any way. 

[00:44:54] Dr. Anthony Flood: But there are particular acts of the will associated with this particular experience. There are particular intellectual judgements that are associated with that experience, and the same with the sense passions. So if you wanna think of it that way, each constellation is going to have its own activity of the will and intellect that might be very distinct from other kinds of experiences. You know, to keep it simple, simple, simple. With the donuts, which I like, I’m gonna have these experiences, but with something like seafood, which I just have no taste for whatsoever, I’m not going to have any of that. I’m gonna have completely different acts of the will, completely different acts of judgment, completely different sense apprehension going on there. And so you could almost think of it again, well, as if I have a different will in relation to seafood than donuts. But it’s the same will, it’s just different activity of the will in relation to that. 

[00:45:49] Dr. Peter: Well, let me build off of that because Internal Family Systems was developed in working with folks that had eating disorders. That’s where it sort of started with Richard Schwartz. And so I wanna go back to just the donuts and the different experience of the donuts from different parts or different constellations. So the experience of the donut on the plate, the experience of the donut in the mouth, but then the experience of the donut in the stomach, right. And then, like you said, the regret and then. 

[00:46:17] Dr. Anthony Flood: I feel at this point I might be receiving therapy, but that’s okay. That’s okay. I’ll take it. You’ll want my insurance card at the end of this. It’ll be fine.

[00:46:30] Dr. Peter: But then, you know, I’m not assuming this is you, Tony, but then the experience of throwing the donuts up, like bulimia, right. So you were kind of making the distinction between the donuts, which you like, and the seafood, which you don’t. But I’m talking about the donuts, which you like, and the donuts which you don’t like. Like, the tension around a single object, if you will. So can you tell me a little bit about how that might work from a Thomistic perspective? Kind of connecting it back, because we would say in IFS that, yeah, there’s a part that really loves the donuts and it calms and soothes me and it gives me a sense of wellbeing in the moment. And then there’s a part of me that is concerned that if I gain any more weight, or even if I reach a normal weight, I’ll be fat and I’ll be unloved for the rest of my life. And so therefore I have to get rid of this, you know. 

[00:47:14] Dr. Eric Gudan: This phenomenological polarization that IFS describes, but the ontology underneath of it.

[00:47:19] Dr. Anthony Flood: I think what’s going on there, at least from a Thomistic perspective, is you’re seeing those different powers that are all feeding into the same experience. Your intellect is judging one thing with respect to the donuts, your sense faculties are judging another thing. So that’s the very simple one where, you know, I see pleasure, I want to have it. My intellect is saying, no, that’s not good for you. So that’s in tension in that one experience. But I think also, particularly when you’re looking at longer term issues, you have to take into account memory and the various feeling states and judgment states associated with those past memories because all of that has brought to bear on that one experience that, again, it could be regret. I regret all of those donuts I’ve had up to this point and that doesn’t take away my, not merely sense desire for the donut. I mean, ’cause even that’s too simplistic. I have that, but I might very well have sort of a deeper comfort that I just get from eating, you know, a sense of peace that’s not just sensory, right? That would be for Aquinas more of the activity of the will. But all of those different things are being coordinated and integrated into that one experience. And it’s a solitary experience, but it’s a solitary experience of a lot of potentially competing aspects. And that makes perfect sense on a Thomistic perspective. 

[00:48:50] Dr. Peter: Yeah, so like going back to the parts as a shorthand for the constellations, it’s not merely a metaphor. These are real experiences. But then it seems like parts have even a kind of dynamism in Schwartz where, I mean, he says that they endure over time, right? So it’s not just, it’s not just a constellation forms in the presence of a donut. And he would say there’s a finite number of them, for example. And they’re not created. He would say they’re not created by trauma. And the numbers don’t shift. It’s not about sort of fusing the parts altogether into one single homogenous personality. So, I’m curious if these constellations shift over time, if there’s healing, for example, or order coming in, but the part remains the same? Or something like that, or the part endures in existence, would that still work? 

[00:49:40] Dr. Anthony Flood: I think the constellation would endure, but it’s now taking on new memories. And those new memories are going to have an ameliorating effect on experience over time. So you know, you’re never going to get to the point I think where you have forgotten the trauma if you will, but you will have enough good memories. And by good memories here, I don’t just mean, again, I mean, memories of the intellectual judgment of the experience of the will being all of those past, you know, working through some things in therapy that engage all of those powers, you’re gonna have that. And just from a natural perspective, I think that over time the balance is gonna shift away from one that had more negative to one that had more positive. Now supernaturally, when you add the grace element of that, you go even further. But just from the natural philosophical perspective, I think that would just, that’s what you would see with natural healing. And every once in a while you see that, right? I mean, even in non big traumatic cases where, you know, you’re thinking of, you know, maybe something in high school that wasn’t pleasant or whatever, but you’ve worked through it. It doesn’t affect you 99% of the time. But every once in a while something will trigger it just right. Where you’re right back and you’re focused on the negative part of that. And even though that, you know, you have more positive than negative, that negative is still there. It’s never really fully extinguished. That’s just human nature. I mean, that’s just the nature of human experience. The only way to have gotten rid of it would be literally to wipe your memory. And that’s not going to be anything we’d wanna do, I think. 

[00:51:17] Dr. Peter: Yeah, we talk about that in terms of the integration of memory and the consolidation of memory in trauma work instead of a memory like being encapsulated within its own bubble, you know, and then sort of coming out and flooding. But you were gonna say something, Eric. 

[00:51:31] Dr. Eric Gudan: Well, we talk about the cogitative power and the parts and things that would cause it to come back to memory and activate parts. The donut doesn’t have to be physically present in order to be psychologically present in order to organize the part’s response. And we have, I think we have a lot of parts which are organized around, drawing from like attachment and internalized working models of certain persons. And those can be complex. We have very different relationships. When you’re talking about the different relationship with the donut, I was thinking about different relationships with a child. The happiness to see the child succeed, you’re gonna miss the child. And when the child moves off and separates and individuates and regret for the past parenting mistakes you made, just the different parts can be centered around each of those three experiences in seeing the child succeed in something, depending how integrated you are, organized you are.

[00:52:13] Dr. Eric Gudan: I think the way Tony’s expressed the cogitative power and the experience of the intellect and will and memory, that makes sense. We’ve explained this. What I see as the big difference in the way Schwartz describes these parts and Thomas does, is the accidental versus kind of the quasi substantial unity that Schwartz seems to give. I do remember talking to Peter how Schwartz is not a philosopher, doesn’t claim to be a philosopher kicking and screaming, drug into being some type of philosophy. He says, okay, fine. I’m a phenomenologist, then. I talk about stuff I see. And so I don’t think it hurts his feelings too badly, I don’t think, for the ontology side of things to say, it doesn’t really hold up the way you’re doing this with the person. There’s philosophical implications of the way you’re treating parts as persons. And to be like, well, this is how I experienced it. And we have to walk ’em through how that doesn’t really hold within a greater system. So I’m seeing we have substantial unity holds us together. Tony keeps talking about the memories being kind of a group of things, constellation, you can have a shorthand memories, but he doesn’t seem to be treating parts nearly as cohesively as Peter is. You were talking about parts of being cohesive and I’m noting that and I’m wondering what would be the principle of unity for a part.

[00:53:26] Dr. Anthony Flood: Is that for Peter or me?

[00:53:28] Dr. Eric Gudan: So I’m asking Tony to take Peter’s side to try to explain him better.

[00:53:32] Dr. Anthony Flood: It would not have its own ontological unity in that substantial sense. I mean, anytime you go down that way, you’re gonna splinter the person into something that Aquinas would say is just not recognizable. I mean, in the same way that my hand has a unity, right? It is a hand, right? It’s a singular thing. It has characteristics. But it’s integrated into my body and into my person as a part, right? But again, not a part that would in any way indicate a separateness. 

[00:54:08] Dr. Eric Gudan: Like the dead hand from last podcast. 

[00:54:09] Dr. Anthony Flood: But it has its own intelligibility is maybe the word we want to use. We can understand the nature of a hand, and apply it to this, well, each of these constellations, I think for the individual person, because each individual person is gonna have these different, they’re always gonna be different from one person to the next because they’re always particularized by that person’s experience. That’s going to have an intelligibility that’s usually reserved for that person alone. And I think what’s interesting here is the, you know, in the therapeutic context, or in the context of spiritual direction or maybe a very, very intimate friendship, those are usually the only contexts where you’re going to see the intelligibility of that thing being looked at from the outside by another person. And so we’re not generally used to, I mean, okay, the lay persons, somebody outside of your field. It’s just not generally thinking of these things in terms of, what might that intelligibility of this be to another person? Because that’s just not usually how we operate. But what I’m finding interesting as I’m talking about this is, you know, in terms of your profession, that would be the first and foremost way that you’re thinking about these, right? How in terms of a therapist can actually cognize these things. And I would say it’s because they do have an intelligibility based on the relations of these powers and the operations of these powers in that person.

[00:55:40] Dr. Eric Gudan: And we do have frequently similar parts. We talk about groups of parts, like we talk about firefighters, talk about exiles, we talk about managers. But we also talk about like, even from like schema therapy, they’re like commonly selected schemas, commonly selected kind of parts, that persons have their parts tend to associate around. Peter often mentions the Catholic standard bearer part that a lot of us good faithful Catholics have. But I also appreciate, Tony, the way you say that each person’s unique experience of the part, each person’s part is a little different, but we can talk about similar parts. Most people have an internal critic of some type of flavor. But I think Schwartz is emphasizing the individuality of the parts, whereas Young’s work with schema therapy is emphasizing the commonality of certain types of parts.

[00:56:25] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. And for Aquinas, the word he would use would be, it is the word he uses in all of these sorts of contexts, it’d be analogical. That anytime you have two things that aren’t identical, then, but aren’t completely dissimilar, they’re going to be analogical, and he makes the case that being itself is analogical. And it’s the point that no two beings are exactly the same, otherwise they would be the same being, right? And so he says that means by definition every being, you know, when we’re looking at ’em comparatively, they’re all analogical. At best, we can look for extremely relevant similarities, but we’re never gonna have identity. And that occurs at the experiential level too, at the subjective level. Each person’s going to have their own unique experiences. And it ties into that sort of irreplaceability of each person. You know, when a person dies, they take those experiences with them that will never be experienced by any other human being again. Other human beings might have relevantly similar. But never identical. And we see that just in normal life. We see that when we interact with people and friends and, you know, there’s two people looking at the same thing, having different experiences. Well, why? Well, for many of the things we just talked about. So, I know the donuts are just boring and rote at this point, but, you know, two people looking at the donuts can have completely different experiences of that.

[00:57:52] Dr. Eric Gudan: My kids sometimes do. Bavarian cream donuts versus long John Donuts versus cake donuts. I mean, they have very different experiences.

[00:57:57] Dr. Anthony Flood: But I mean, it’s because they’re, you know, their memory and all the affective states wrapped up with that, they’re bringing that to bear. And so, again, particularly as we age, and I don’t mean like old people like us, I mean like even, you know, the 10-year-old who’s aging, they’re gaining more and more and more experience, which is bringing with it actually more uniqueness to each time they experience something in real time because it’s filtered through or at least contains all of these different previous experiences that are relevant to that. So when you turn to therapy and things of that nature, well that’s always going to be an interesting, not impediment or maybe it is an impediment. It’s gonna be an interesting obstacle to overcome. Because it’s not merely that no two patients are going to be the same. It’s going to be the case on some real level that no one therapy is going to have the same effect in two people, right. Because you’re dealing with analogical distinction. 

[00:58:57] Dr. Peter: So I wanna jump into this question about blending, and for both of you, right, the idea that when a part. 

[00:59:05] Dr. Eric Gudan: We’re different though.

[00:59:09] Dr. Peter: Yes, I’m gonna preserve the ontological difference between the two of you, and the fact that while there’s similitude, there is not identity. So, but this idea, so Freud, or not Freud, Schwartz, an interesting slip the tongue. Well, you know, it is a Schwartz, I mean a Freudian slip. No, that actually is going on because I actually do see Freud and Schwartz as about the same level, with Freud having discovered, not discovered, but having popularized the unconscious. And I think there was such a huge impact in so many ways in the 19th century, 20th century. And then in 21st century Schwartz, with this parts and systems thinking, I think is gonna be as revolutionary eventually. I think we’re really at the front end of it right now, so I think that’s part of the reason why that parais, that’s a technical word for a slip of the tongue.

[00:59:53] Dr. Peter: But this idea that Schwartz has of blending where a part takes over the person. And really that part’s perceptions become the only perceptions that are available in the moment, that part’s beliefs the only beliefs, that part’s desires, the only desires, that part’s emotions the only emotions. And, you know, that’s been likened to by a number of people as being sort of like dominated by a passion, for example, that’s been one of the analogies that has a real Thomistic flavor to it. But I’m just curious if we could look at this phenomenon of blending, because we’ve all had that experience, but all of a sudden, all perspectives narrow down to one. We cannot see things in multifaceted ways anymore. We’re really locked into just one way, one agenda, if you will. And so I’m curious if we can discuss that from how St. Thomas would look at it.

[01:00:46] Dr. Anthony Flood: Sure. And again, let’s reiterate what we said at the outset here. I mean, we are just sitting here speculating. So when words start coming outta my mouth, does this have anything to do with Aquinas? I hope so. I hope so. When I introduce the cogitative power, I said, you know, in animals it’s the estimative power, because it just reacts to sensory pleasure and pain. They have no higher order faculties. Right. Well, the estimative power in animals would be the power that we’re working with to train and domesticate or to condition to use that word, right? When we condition an animal, condition the dog, you know, not to go to the bathroom in the house, but to go out, to house break them, or to condition them to eat over here at these times or whatever it may be, or to get the cat to the litter box and all these sorts of things.

[01:01:38] Dr. Anthony Flood: You know, we’re conditioning them through either positive, negative reinforcements, but what we’re doing is deliberately training their estimative faculty to have a given kind of experience. That when they see this or feel this, feel the urge to go to the bathroom in this case that we’ve conditioned them to, you know, go outside. Okay. Well, it’s the same with human beings, right? The cogitative power, anytime we’re conditioned, it’s going to be that same power that’s, you know, that the chief thing being conditioned from an external principal. But what makes human beings different is again, that we have intellect and will, and because of that, our will is able to have a share of control over, I think, how we experience things, right? 

[01:02:31] Dr. Anthony Flood: We can choose, I don’t wanna say that we can condition ourselves, but Aquinas is going to say, through virtue formation, we’re actually conditioning our cogitative power away from having, say, overly negative appraisals of everything, right? So, if you’re somebody who tends to just see everything in negative terms or maybe overly positive terms, if you wanna go to that direction, you can choose to sort of recondition your cogitative powers to where you broaden your perspective, right? Because you do have an element of control over the stance you take on your experiences over time, not right away. You can’t choose to get that negativity outta your head, but you can choose to say, I’m not gonna be locked into that experience. When I feel that experience, I’m gonna deliberately sort of counteract it with an act of the will.

[01:03:23] Dr. Anthony Flood: And over time Aquinas says, you’re in effect going to condition that or to retrain that to respond differently, which means that you’ll actually, in the future, be experiencing the similar sorts of things, but in different ways, because you do have some sort of control over that, where the animal would not have control over that. That’s the big thing that distinguishes animals from human beings on this point. And I think from the point of view of outside therapy or a parent helping their child, that’s part of what we’re trying to do. We’re helping in that process of training the way that, in effect the cogitative power associates memories and things to certain sorts of experiences. Does that answer the question at all?

[01:04:07] Dr. Eric Gudan: Yes, so translating, I think, so the habitus, the habit, the habitus intellectu, habit of the intellect of the states in training. So in the state of being blended, there is kind of such a salience of the cogitative power, the practical intellect situation, that that seems like that which is most present. And you can choose, you can omit passively to take any action. You can not recollect yourself, but rather just go with that. And there can be a passive executive willing of going along with that which is most salient. Although you’ve gone down this path forward, it doesn’t go so great. There could be a blending with that part who’s been pushed by this because of past experiences. I think that’s the experience of blending. And it’s very much in line with what you’re saying. I’m just kind of connect the rest of the dots.

[01:04:54] Dr. Peter: As you say that, I’m sort of imagining the donut, the third donut, lifting off the plate and sort of entering into the body in a different way. Right. That’s kinda what, it’s the will sort of being passive or maybe the innermost self not sort of intervening, right. At that point.

[01:05:09] Dr. Eric Gudan: Well, and we make these distinctions. But it is you and different aspects of you and who’s driving the bus, who has most access to the intellect and will and memories, and who’s keeps presenting that? And if nobody else, if there isn’t another countervailing force within us to our better angels of Lincoln and Gettysburg address or of more of a recollected state, of the You-Turn of trying to affirm the appearance of the good that this part is pursuing, but helping it to see there’s more than just this good that this part of me, this aspect of me, this constellation of cogitative power sees at this moment.

[01:05:49] Dr. Anthony Flood: And, you know, I kept saying the will there, but I mean also the intellect. I mean, the intellect is just as much part of that and our judgment of what’s, you know, good for us overall. I mean, that’s the intellect and will always working together. And again, you know, kind of go back to all, I think relevant to this and relevant, you know, all the way back to the Plato discussion we had, when Aquinas talks about intellect, that it’s not as if that’s you, right? I mean, I sometimes think that you are not your intellect, right? You stand behind your intellect, if you will, and you act through it, and your will and all these other things. As for Aquinas, you know, the self, you stand behind these things ontologically in the most boring way it’s gonna be cut, you would be your substantial form. And when you have a conscious experience of that, that’s what you’re having an experience of. But, an act of the will is your act of the will. An act of cognition is your act of cognition. You stand behind those things.

[01:06:44] Dr. Eric Gudan: In the most abstracted sense, but in the mediated sense, I mean like in how many different layers do you talk about? How do I take a drink? Well, it’s through my hand, through the cup and through my will to do it. Yeah. There’s various steps there, which are each real, but depends on where you put the emphasis, what you generally mean by how do you do this?

[01:07:03] Dr. Anthony Flood: And I would just say that the blending is, I mean, I think you’re right that, you know, contemplation, recollection, that’s going to be the check and balance, if you will, to one part or this one aspect of, you know, the kinds of experiences you have taking over and dominating. But if you’re withdrawing in and taking stock of things, that’s gonna give you the self-awareness, the self-examination that, number one, you see that happening. ‘ cause if you don’t see that it’s happening, you’re never gonna take corrective measures. But number two, positioning you to actually take corrective measures too.

[01:07:37] Dr. Eric Gudan: Yeah. And hearkening back as well to the Plato discussion of the five different types of men or the five different states we can be in or how habitually we are in those states and the sum total of the acts we take, which shift us towards whichever of those states we wanna be, whether or not we are in fact, allowing our sense appetites to be a tyrant over us, and then in practicality, although we’re doing what we want, we have very little freedom, or we allow a higher order to subordinate some of these lower desires, create a better harmony between the polarization of parts and be guided by our inmost self.

[01:08:11] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah.

[01:08:12] Dr. Eric Gudan: That’s the analogy I would use.

[01:08:13] Dr. Peter: So I wanna just change direction a little bit here, because Schwartz has basically given us a formula for what a human person is. He says the human person or human being is the innermost self, plus the parts, plus the body. So that’s the definition. That’s the definition of a human person. But I’m sort of thinking about it in terms of like the faculties. It would be difficult for me to locate the faculty of the will solely within the innermost self or solely within, you know, a part or solely within the body or the faculty of memory. Right. I see these parts, I see the human person as more complex, I guess is what I’m saying. And I’m curious about checking that out. Is there a way to like, and from a Thomistic perspective, gather everything that is not the body and the innermost self into the parts collectively.

[01:09:08] Dr. Anthony Flood: So I mean, for Aquinas, the self would be, I mean, the metaphysical, the substantial form of the body is the soul. Now, insofar as the substantial form takes on the body, right, that becomes one thing. It’s not as if you have the substantial form in the body. They become a unity. But it’s the substantial form that is the source of all of the other powers, even the operation of the bodily powers. It’ll use the matter, you know, use the eyes to see and all of those sorts of things. But it’s still the substantial form for Aquinas, such that when a person dies, all of those sense powers, they no longer work. He says, that’s not a coincidence. It’s because it’s the substantial form that has been acting through this. 

[01:09:52] Dr. Anthony Flood: So it would be the form that’s the source of all those powers. But again, the self is there before those powers for Aquinas. I mean, it’s just odd to say it one way or the other, but it’s just that the self is there. We tend to think, and I think somewhat legitimately, the self in terms of the conscious self, because that’s just is how we mean it, but personal identity for Aquinas comes even before that. So the baby would have personal identity before there’s any conscious experience. It’s through those powers that we begin to have the conscious experiences we do. And then they’re going to become multiple and have all the distinctions and everything, constellations as we’ve been using the term, as a result of those powers working together.

[01:10:38] Dr. Peter: Oh, okay. Okay. So this is further downstream. Parts are further downstream in terms of our overall identity. 

[01:10:45] Dr. Anthony Flood: Right. 

[01:10:46] Dr. Peter: And that would be another way of sort of understanding a hierarchy within, at least there’s a temporal progression, or not progression, but a temporal aspect to this.

[01:10:55] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. 

[01:10:56] Dr. Eric Gudan: I would take Schwartz’s definition of the person there as similar to a chemical description of the person, that the person is 66% water and 0.2% iron and whatever percent potassium. That it’s not incorrect as far as it goes, but not the entire story and perhaps not the best way to understand the whole. Which I think, Schwartz, as a systems guy would appreciate.

[01:11:22] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. And again, if you’re using that, even his term, the as if, you know, treat it as if, I think that’s fine, right? I mean, if you have this ontological conception of the person, but while interacting with people, if you treat ’em as if they’ve got these parts that even have, you know, sub personalities and bordering persons, if that gives you practical results that are beneficial, that’s good. I just think in terms of stepping back and say, okay, well what is the person? And you just don’t wanna lose the self that exists.

[01:11:51] Dr. Eric Gudan: And I would furthermore emphasize that this kind of first in experience, the phenomenological first and the ontological first not being the same thing is embedded within Thomism of that which we experience. That which first is an intellect in a sense, but that is not what is first or primary by rootedness in being. Like I think we see an analogical process within the understanding of self from an ontological or phenomenological way.

[01:12:17] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. And that’s why, you know, just the simple thing. If somebody dies, if we’re ever having conscious experience, I mean, Aquinas would say they’re still a person. I mean, they’re still a human being. But even more so, I mean, a person in our sense of the term. It’s just that we’re sort of the victors. We’re the ones who’ve lived. We’ve had conscious experience. We’re the ones who get to talk about this. So when we’re talking about personhood, we gravitate towards the thing that we’re most familiar with, which is the phenomenological, the conscious experience of ourselves, self-consciousness. So that’s where we begin. But, ontologically, that other thing came first and continues to come first. It’s still logically prior to the experiences. 

[01:12:57] Dr. Peter: So it is fair and right and good to consider these parts, consider these constellations, as the appropriate objects of love of oneself, right? This would be the natural way that we could focus in on what does it mean for me to love myself?

[01:13:19] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yes.

[01:13:20] Dr. Peter: Okay. 

[01:13:21] Dr. Anthony Flood: So, you know I began by talking about that general sense of one’s goodness. And that’s like the earliest, I think, part of our conscious experience and that’s why we love ourself and then that extends others. But you know, zooming ahead now, or even think of it in recollection, but even not recollection, right? When you love yourself, you’re loving all of those things about yourself that are good, right? Which are gonna be all of these different parts, if you will. All of these different experiences, you’re not merely identifying with them as part of yourself, You’re affirming them as somehow part of the overall goodness of your existence. Even those things that, you know, you want to transform over time.

[01:14:05] Dr. Peter: When we have that, because we’ve talked a lot about love and donuts, and we haven’t worked in a lot of peace yet. Like sort of peace, love and donuts. We need to like go back to peace and that’s when we have peace is when this is all ordered inside. And these constellations of these parts, I often will put it in terms of, are in right relationship with the innermost self. That there’s an order there that again is ordered to our telos or to being able to love God and to love our neighbor.

[01:14:37] Dr. Anthony Flood: Yeah. And again, and this, you know, Aquinas always, the word is virtue here. But I think that virtues have that integrating function, as we’ve talked about, in the previous podcast. Because each of them is kind of focused on its own little thing, but it’s also serving to integrate the person as a whole because all the moral virtues in some way connect to the will, even if they’re not seated in the will. And then you have intellectual virtues too, which we haven’t talked about, but they’re all connected in integrating the person in the ways I think you’re talking about, which will yield, you know, an integrated person would be a person at peace.

[01:15:13] Dr. Peter: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, this has been wonderful. I am super excited to be opening this discussion. I’m sure it’s going to resonate with a number of folks. I’m sure it’s gonna raise a lot of questions. Again, to put those questions, comments in the comment section of this episode on YouTube. If there’s one thing that you would like our viewers, our listeners to remember. Right? So what they might hold from all of the things that we’ve discussed. We’ve covered a lot of ground. One thing that you would like them to hold onto as something to keep with them for the rest of their lives. What would that be? So a final emphasis maybe, and then a takeaway.

[01:15:54] Dr. Anthony Flood: Well, for me it would be that there is an ontological unity to the person. But to connect it with other aspects, when you love another person deeply, you know, a deep friendship. What are you loving? And I think the quick answer would be everything, right? You love everything that goes in, all the complexity of that person. You love that. There might be parts that, you know, aggravate you here and there, but it’s all that person you love, all of that. So it’s going to be the same within as without. That we’re complex beings, both physically and psychologically, but when we see the goodness of that, that sort of commits us to a position of affirming that that’s who we are and what we love about others as well.

[01:16:42] Dr. Peter: Beautiful, beautiful. 

[01:16:43] Dr. Eric Gudan: Tony, that was really beautiful. I would like to emphasize the immediacy and totality of the human experience within each moment that we’re experiencing a lot of stuff going on and we do a lot of things and that we make distinctions in order to organize and make sense of where we are and what we’re doing next. And so parts, as if a constellation of the cogitative powers, the parts, We deal with these in order to help understand all that stuff, the pressures that we experience within ourselves as a substantial unity, as a person. 

[01:17:21] Dr. Peter: Wow. My key takeaway in all of this is, yeah, parts work, with the appropriate modifications, is consistent with a Thomistic understanding of the human person. It’s consistent with the Catholic anthropology, consistent with the Catholic metaphysics. You know, we have to be thoughtful about it obviously. But yeah, there’s no need to discard the good in IFS. It just needs to be parsed out and harmonized with a Catholic understanding of the human person. And I believe that’s what God wants for us. Like he doesn’t always choose a Catholic, for example, to discover something or to be able to popularize something that’s true. Like, you know, Watson and Crick the discovers of the double helix structure of DNA we’re prone to really anti-Catholic statements. You know, like if you look at the history there. But few of us would cast away the understanding of DNA as having a double helix structure because of the authors of that or the ones who discovered it. So, not the author, which is God.

[01:18:16] Dr. Eric Gudan: Yeah. We’d focus on the priest who did the natural selection earlier though, Mendel, is that his name? 

[01:18:23] Dr. Peter: So, well, again, thank you so much. Really just edified, enjoyed this conversation so much. Thank you for making it possible, guys, and thank you to our viewers, and to our listeners who also make this possible by your presence and by your engagement. If you like us, then give us a like, go over to our YouTube channel, Interior Integration for Catholics. Give us a thumbs up. Subscribe. Let’s hear from you, right? We want to hear from you. Join the conversation with us. Write comments or questions. Let us hear from you in the comment section for this episode on our YouTube channel at Interior Integration 4 Catholics. Also review us on Apple Podcasts. Share your experiences there. And do not forget these books by Anthony Flood, especially this one, Metaphysical Foundations of Love, and then also this one, The Root of Friendship. Love to have you read those.

[01:19:17] Dr. Peter: And we are only about two weeks out from when the Resilient Catholics Community opens for new applications. We do parts work in the RCC as part of a structured step-by-step year long program in a community of more than 300 like-minded Catholics. It’s all about thriving. It’s all about flourishing. Come be a pioneer with us. The people that are in our small groups in the RCC, they are on the tip of the spear. They are pioneers in learning about human formation. They’re leavening the world around them because they’re doing that internal human formation work. Got lots of testimonials on our landing page at soulsandhearts.com/rcc.

[01:20:01] Dr. Peter: And, as I mentioned in the last episode, you’ll take the PartsFinder Pro. That is a series of 22 measures really to help you understand, sometimes for the first time, to understand yourself, to understand yourself in terms of parts. So especially if you’ve had trouble just kind of getting to know your parts, this can really jumpstart your journey to not only knowing, but to loving your parts. When you love your parts, when they become more integrated, when they become more recollected under the leadership and guidance of your innermost self, you are so much better equipped to love your neighbor and so much better equipped to love God, and to love God wholeheartedly with all your being, with all your parts as he commands us in the first great commandment.

[01:20:52] Dr. Peter: And so consider that prayerfully. We have a 19 minute experiential exercise to help you discern whether you should apply. It’s not about necessarily joining, applying and joining are two different things, but check out that 19 minute experiential exercise to see if it’s a good idea to apply to the RCC. And as always, you are welcome to reach out to me on my cell phone any Tuesday or Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time at 317-567-9594. You can join me and also join Bridget Adams, our community care coordinator for the RCC, for an informational meeting about joining us, joining the RCC, applying to the RCC. That will be on Tuesday evening, September 30th, 2025 from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern Time. The link to register for that meeting is on our RCC landing page at soulsandhearts.com/rcc or in the YouTube description for this episode, which is episode 174. We’ll have a brief presentation and then we’ll take your questions and we’ll give you answers, and we’ll also record it and put it up on our landing page as well.

[01:22:04] Dr. Peter: Now moving on to a really exciting announcement. We are launching the Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts podcast, Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. That’s from Souls and Hearts, and it just launched last Monday, September 8th, 2025. This podcast, Scripture for your Inner Outcasts, is to my knowledge, the first podcast ever to discuss scripture through an IFS lens. It’s the first podcast ever to speak directly to your exiled parts. It’s very short, only about four minutes, but it’s powerful. Why? Because in the gospels, Jesus reaches out to the outcasts, the most marginalized and rejected members of his society. And in this very brief podcast, we take his approach inside to reach out to our inner outcasts, our exiles, the parts of us who are walking in the darkness and the gloom. So listen in, invite the good news into your depths each day as we share the light of the daily and Sunday mass readings to shine on your inner lost sheep, your inner prodigals, your inner lepers, your lame, your deaf, your blind parts, your inner tax collectors, your inner prostitutes, all those parts of you that are deemed unworthy and unacceptable by your protector parts and the protector parts of other people.

[01:23:33] Dr. Peter: Why? So that you can integrate inside, so that you can heal and grow, to flourish in accepting being loved and loving yourself in an ordered way, and then being able to love God wholeheartedly, and then all your parts and your neighbor as yourself, your neighbor in all of his or her parts. And it’s all informed by Internal Family Systems and all firmly grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person. So join us each day in seeing scripture through this new lens coming alive for those parts of you that may have experienced spiritual neglect and need healing. Pick up the Scripture for Inner Outcasts Podcast on YouTube at the link below, or search for it in YouTube or find us wherever you listen to podcasts. We are on all the major podcast platforms.

[01:24:19] Dr. Peter: And I have even one more exciting thing. Our dear Dr. Gerry, Dr. Gerry Crete has just released a new rendition of the hymn, Be Thou My Vision. This version is inspired by Internal Family Systems, grounded firmly in a Catholic understanding of the needs of the human person in our parts. It’s the same melody, but new harmony, new lyrics, all parts informed, all parts attuned. And here’s what Dr. Gerry says. He says, it was important for me to retain the beauty of the traditional Irish hymn while adding further insights into the complexity of the soul’s inner world and its relationship with a loving God. This song is a meditation on the love of the father and the deep healing of the human person. So check it out on Spotify or Apple Music or iTunes under Dr. Gerry’s band name, which is Pateras Agape. This rendition by Dr. Gerry is amazing. We also have a link to it in the YouTube description for this podcast. So with that, we’ll bring this to a close by invoking our patroness 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.