Psychological Healing
in the Roman Catholic Mystic Tradition

Consultation

Catholic Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction

San Francisco

Introduction | The Difference Between Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction | Techniques | Telephone Work | Cost, Length, and Frequency of Sessions |
E-mail Questions | Following the Spiritual Counsels | Free Help

OU can coast into hell on an empty tank of gas, but an uphill climb is required to attain “justice, peace, and the joy that is given by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). So what more can be said?

Do you feel the need for help from Catholic psychology?

Are you seeking Catholic psychotherapy from a Catholic psychologist?

If you need more than the self-help provided on this website, I can provide you with professional guidance through spiritual direction or through traditional therapy. Before contacting me, please review the following professional information on A Guide to Psychology and its Practice:

Office Policies Including the cost of treatment and a description of my professional credentials, training, and experience

 
ABOUT CATHOLIC PSYCHOLOGY

 
The Difference Between Catholic Psychotherapy
and Spiritual Direction

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy (often referred to colloquially as “therapy”) has as its objective—even when informed by the Catholic faith—the resolution of psychological conflicts that produce psychiatric symptoms.

In psychotherapy you learn to identify the events of life that have wounded you and to understand the emotions surrounding those events. That is, it’s not enough just to “know” intellectually what happened—it is important to feel the pain and then be able to identify and “name” the emotions associated with your pain. This process happens through your speaking with the psychotherapist so as to interpret unconscious connections through spontaneous associations to your intellectual memories and through other techniques, such as dream interpretation. Eventually, you can recover a full awareness of your emotional life that in childhood you learned to suppress as a psychological defense.

Thus through psychotherapy you can learn to respond to every moment of the present with a complete understanding of the emotions involved—and this understanding gives you the ability to respond honestly and appropriately to the situation.

For example, if someone says something that hurts you, you can say to yourself, “OK. I’m feeling helpless and abandoned.” In the midst of these feelings, you can recognize how you responded defensively to similar feelings as a child. Then you can choose an appropriate, non-defensive, mature, and psychologically honest response to your current feelings. But if you haven’t done your psychological work, instead of naming your feelings you will just feel a vague yucky inadequacy and then go off and drown the yuck with food or drugs or some other dysfunctional behavior.

Spiritual Direction

Spiritual direction seeks to, well, direct a person in ways that bring him or her closer to living a holy lifestyle.

In spiritual direction you learn to surrender yourself to total trust in God so that, no matter what happens to you, you can bring the pain before God and ask for the strength and courage to deal, in imitation of Christ, with what needs to be done in any moment.

Because of deep psychological conflicts, however, many persons find it difficult to make a total surrender to God. In this case, psychotherapeutic techniques must be used to understand and overcome the fear that puts up an obstacle to the spiritual purgation necessary for living a holy lifestyle.

 
Techniques

When I conduct spiritual direction—even over the telephone (see below)—I use some of the same techniques for working with the unconscious that I use in psychotherapy. Unconscious conflicts can often result in spiritual stagnation, so working to understand unconscious motivation can be a large part of spiritual direction. But in spiritual direction the resolution of such conflicts is directed toward ever greater trust in God, not toward the specific relief of psychiatric symptoms.

 
Telephone Work

I cannot conduct psychotherapy over the telephone for two reasons. First, because my professional license has been granted by the state of California, I cannot provide clinical psychological services to anyone outside the state of California. Secondly, and even if a person were located in California, psychotherapy really has to be conducted face-to-face to be most effective. Without this face-to-face contact, it isn’t possible, for example, to make a clinical assessment of a person’s mental status, nor is it possible to assess the body language of deception. Although some psychotherapists will provide telephone psychotherapy, it can be problematic, and I simply elect not to do it.

Because spiritual direction does not require the face-to-face intensity of psychotherapy, and because I can assume that a person of faith is not deliberately lying to me, spiritual direction can be conducted over the telephone. In fact, the partial anonymity of telephone work can be quite similar to the anonymity of Confession.

 
Cost, Length, and Frequency of Sessions

I make my living providing psychotherapy and spiritual direction, so I have to charge for my time according to the going rate for a professional of my credentials in San Francisco: $150 per hour.

When I conduct spiritual direction over the telephone, sessions can range from 30 minutes ($75) to 90 minutes ($225).

Payment for telephone work can be made by PayPal, by credit card (Master Card, Visa, Discover, or American Express) or by personal check.

Sessions can be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or only as needed, according to your personal preference.

To schedule a consultation, contact me by e-mail (no need to send a donation to ensure a response) and we can arrange a day and time for you to call.

 
E-mail Questions

If you need advice about your faith practices, relationship issues, work problems, your psychotherapy with another professional (Catholic or otherwise), or other personal matters, send your question by e-mail and I will send an answer upon receipt of a minimum offering of $35 to this website. (An offering by check is considered to be “received” when the check clears my bank.)

 
Following the Spiritual Counsels

Many persons ask me, “Do I have to follow all the spiritual counsels in order to consult with you?” Well, no, you don’t have to do anything. If you follow all the counsels your healing will be less complicated, it will take less time, and it will cost you less than if you don’t follow all the counsels. But it’s all your choice.

 
Free Help

I made my websites so that anyone in the world can learn from my writings free of charge.

 
Address

Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D.
55 New Montgomery Street, Suite 420
San Francisco, CA 94105-3429
 
415-979-8005

 
Map to my Office

Notes:
	Entrance to my building			Moscone Convention Center Parking (City Garage)
	Bank of America with clock on the corner			5th and Mission Parking (City Garage)
	The Palace Hotel and taxi stand			Montgomery Street BART station access locations
	Hearst Parking (Private Garage)			Bus stop on 30/45 lines from CalTrain depot
	Sutter-Stockton Parking (City Garage)			Cable car line