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Consultation:
Catholic Psychological and
Spiritual Healing |
Fear |
Love |
Spiritual Counsels |
Books |
About CSF
Introduction |
The Benefits of Loving God With a Pure Heart |
A Story About Desire
Psychotherapy
Evidence-Based Psychotherapy Techniques |
The Work of Knowing Yourself |
Demonic Influence |
The Place for Medications
Psychological and Spiritual Healing
Techniques |
Putting It Into Practice |
Following the Spiritual Counsels |
Telephone Work |
Couples and Family Therapy |
Legal Issues
Clinical Practices
The Nature of the Treatment |
The Modality of the Treatment |
The Length of Treatment |
Cost, Length, and Frequency of Sessions |
Making a Payment |
Practice Policies |
Using Insurance |
Scheduling a Consultation |
Clinical Records |
E-mail Questions |
Free Help
Mailing Address
OST Catholics do not
recognize the psychological truth that past emotional injuries of childhood can live
unconsciously in the present and can obstruct psychological and spiritual growth; nor do
they recognize the spiritual workings of evil that feed upon resentment
over past injuries. For such persons,
prayer and fasting alone are not sufficient to
relieve their emotional distress and to overcome the obstacles to doing the very things they
know they should be doing. These persons need Catholic psychotherapeutic help to get to the
root of their psychological and spiritual desire to commit sin
and thereby to close the openings in their hearts to harmful influences which can be quite
invisible to conscious awareness.
So, do you need help from Catholic psychology? Do you desire guidance from a Catholic
psychologist who understands the nature of the unconscious and the hidden powers of evil
that are constantly working to influence us and draw us into psychological and spiritual
doom?
This website is filled with self-help
guidance, but if you need more than self-help, through personal consultation I can provide
the professional clinical help you need to explore your unconscious and remove the
psychological obstacles that prevent you from loving God with a pure heart.
If you are interested in contacting me,
first be careful to read through all the information on this web page; also review the
following information about my professional credentials and office policies that is
found on my associated website A Guide to Psychology and its Practice:
F
only we did exactly what Christ told us to do—through prayer and
fasting, [1] turn
away from the satisfactions of the world so as to renounce sin,
pray constantly, and live chaste,
modest, and humble
lives filled with loving sacrifices for the
salvation of other souls—we would be spiritually
and mentally healthy.
Nevertheless, even in her time Saint Teresa
of Avila could see the true depth of human nature: that we scorn the way of a
holy lifestyle and seek immediate, tangible comfort for our
emotional distress.
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You see, the gift our
Lord intends for us may be by far the best, but if it is not what we wanted we are
quite capable of flinging it back in His face. This is the kind of people we are;
ready cash is the only wealth we understand. |
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The Way of
Perfection (30.2) |
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Today, things are even more disordered
than in times past. Now we live in a culture of diabolical insanity. In today’s world,
most families have been stained with divorce and the dysfunction
of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. Traditional family security has been shattered.
And children, rather than basking in prayer and a sense of belonging to God, have become
lost souls wandering in a wasteland. Children are brainwashed from infancy by movies,
television, magazines, popular music, sports, and social media that are all awash with
the demonic vices of aggressiveness, competition, defiance of authority, sensuality, hatred,
anger, revenge, and lust. Hence when many individuals experience emotional distress, they
think in depths of their hearts, “God owes me. Christ’s sacrifice doesn’t mean much to me
right now. I want tangible compensation for all I have suffered!” Sexual pleasure, pornography,
masturbation, gluttony, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs are the currency of the “ready cash” the
modern world demands from God.
Consequently, in today’s culture of insanity,
the fundamental Christian principle of prayer and fasting (especially fasting from
personal pleasure) has been so ignored that most Catholics today find the meaning of the
principle to be incomprehensible. Trust in God and love for God have lost their meaning.
And, sadly, all the while this is occurring, most of us
are blind to it.
Accordingly, many individuals
today need psychotherapeutic help to overcome the unconscious resistances to
doing the very things they know consciously they should be doing.
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Hence it can be
said that Catholic psychological and spiritual healing is a bet that you make
that getting close to your unconscious will remove the psychological obstacles
that prevent you from loving God with a pure heart. |
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The Benefits of Loving God
With a Pure Heart
The psychological focus of this work is to
help you know yourself as you get close to your unconscious. Then, depending on the
effort you put into the process, you can learn to love God with a pure heart and
thereby experience many other benefits as well.
1. |
You can grow in the
Fruits of the Holy Spirit and therefore get along
in peace with family and neighbors and be an inspiration for their spiritual
growth. |
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2. |
You can live a life free from grave
sin. |
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3. |
You can have the clarity of mind to develop
your talents, work productively, and provide for your material
sustenance. |
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4. |
Your physical health can improve. |
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5. |
You can do penance for the past sins you
have committed and thus shorten the penance you will have to do in
Purgatory. |
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A Story About Desire
I don’t know whether it’s
true or not, but the story goes that a man came to an ancient philosopher
desiring to learn wisdom. The philosopher took the man out into a river and
then suddenly wrestled him down under the water.
Just at the point of drowning him, the philosopher hauled
him out again and said, “Now, what did you say you wanted?”
The poor guy was just gasping and wheezing, begging for
air.
“Well, when you want wisdom as much as you want to
breathe,” the philosopher told him, “then you shall have it.”
About
PSYCHOTHERAPY
and
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALING
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.
These symptoms are created by
emotional resentments that begin in childhood and become the core of your
unconscious
psychological defenses. Such defenses have an
original purpose of protecting
you from intense emotional pain by hiding your resentments from conscious awareness,
but as you get older these resentments can so erode your confidence
and self-esteem with feelings of victimization,
hate, self-blame, and
self-punishment that they affect not only your
mental health but also your social health and spiritual health.
In fact, individuals
caught up in their unconscious defenses don’t really
desire to serve God. Deep in their hearts they
use the name of God only as an excuse to serve their own
pride—the pride of believing that they are
“in control” of their lives.
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And why is this?
Well, you may not want to admit this to yourself, but all of us have dark and
hateful thoughts and imaginings that we keep shrouded
in secrecy and don’t want to reveal to anyone, especially not to a psychologist.
How many times have you said to yourself, “If people knew what I was really like,
they would never want anything to do with me”? Yet the more you try to hide the
truth of your life from others, the more you hide it from yourself, and the more you
fall into pride—the pride of doing everything your way. |
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Evidence-Based Psychotherapy
Techniques
All the psychotherapy techniques that I use
are evidence based, but the evidence does not come
just from scientific experimentation; much evidence comes from ages of experience and
wisdom.
Many various
psychotherapy
theories and techniques
have been developed since the early 1900s when Sigmund
Freud formulated the concept of psychoanalysis. These techniques have
one basic objective: to help us do the things we would like to do, but,
by ourselves, cannot manage to do.
Some of these techniques are
based in conscious, rational thought processes.
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Cognitive-Behavioral
techniques, for example, focus specifically on changing thoughts and behaviors.
Note that vocal prayer is the preeminent form
of Cognitive-Behavioral therapy. |
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Teaching
and reasoning are also forms of psychotherapy. Note that this has
been a preferred method of Christian psychotherapy, beginning with Christ
Himself, continuing with the Apostles, and fully exemplified by men such
as St. Thomas Aquinas (whose work is often recalled by modern Catholics in
their practice of psychotherapy) and St. Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual
Exercises. |
Still, some persons develop such
deep resistance to changing their lives for the good that psychotherapy must
reach deep into their unconscious minds, well past their conscious
thoughts.
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Guided
Imagery helps you visualize things that could or might occur so that
you can achieve them or avoid them in the future. Note that St. Ignatius
of Loyola anticipated this concept in his Spiritual
Exercises. |
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Mental
Prayer (or contemplative prayer) calls upon inspiration by the Holy
Spirit to reveal and understand unconscious mental conflicts. Note that Catholic
mystics through the ages have had much to say about this. |
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Dreams [2] can
be interpreted to help you understand emotional
elements of your life that you have not yet recognized consciously. Note that the
Book of Daniel provides a practical example of this, while the Book of Sirach (34:5)
warns us that dreams are not meant to be taken as predictions of actual future
events. |
The Work of Knowing Yourself
Some persons will say that they
want nothing to do with “touchy-feeley psychology” and will insist
that their lives are quite fine without it. Those who say this, however,
have usually experienced family dysfunctions such as alcoholism, or emotional,
physical, or sexual abuse. In an environment of lying, broken promises, arguing,
and violence, they grew to fear emotions as something
dangerous, and so they fear knowing the emotional truth about themselves; that is, they
refuse to know themselves.
Nevertheless, in order to live
a true Christian lifestyle, all persons, male and female, need to know themselves
well enough to be able to manage their internal emotional reactions to external
events, so as to remain always in a place of Christian purity of heart. Two common
“emotional traps” illustrate this.
1. |
Let’s say that someone says
something critical to you. Your immediate reaction, based upon learned behavior
from childhood, will be to defend yourself. That can provoke more criticism,
and more arguing, until you get so exasperated that you start saying hateful
and vengeful things—and right there you have abandoned purity of heart
and fallen into sin. This all occurs because interpersonal conflicts result
from failed emotional communication. |
2. |
Let’s say that someone corrects
something that you did. You could just say, “Thank you. I hadn’t thought of that
before.” But instead, because your mother or father constantly criticized you
as a child, you sink into silent despondency, thinking, “I can’t do anything
right. I’m just a worthless piece of garbage.” |
3. |
Let’s say you’re on
your way home from work and suddenly you feel a temptation to stop at a bar
and drink—to use drugs—to shoplift—to stop at a strip
club—to get a “massage” from a prostitute—to
masturbate. So right there you have abandoned
purity of heart and fallen into sin. This all occurs because behind every
temptation is an emotional reaction to some event earlier in the day that has
shaken your self-confidence. |
Emotional awareness, therefore,
is a psychological tool that provides protection from sin.
Interpersonal conflicts result from failed emotional awareness. Temptations
do not just appear out of nowhere; behind every temptation is an emotional
reaction to some event that has shaken your self-confidence. It is impossible
to stay in the place of Christian purity of heart if you fail to know yourself well
enough to understand your emotional reactions to the events around you.
Thus Catholic psychological and
spiritual healing helps you to know yourself so that you can learn to respond to
every moment of the present with an understanding of the emotions involved—and this
understanding gives you the ability to respond
honestly
and appropriately to the situation.
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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 emotions,
you can recognize how you responded
defensively
to similar emotions as a child. Then you can choose an appropriate,
non-defensive, mature, and psychologically
honest
response to your current emotions.
But if you
haven’t done your psychological work, instead of naming your emotions
you will just feel a vague yucky inadequacy and
then get
angry or
go off and drown the yuck with food or drugs or some other dysfunctional
behavior. The sad thing is that when you drown the yuck, right along with
it you drown the possibility of forgiveness—and that opens a hellgate to
demonic influence. |
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Demonic
Influence
Demons are everywhere, trying to subvert
God’s will in regard to everything. Primarily, demons affect our behavior by trying to
affect our thoughts, so as to discourage us and lead us into doubt, despair, and sin,
and our task is to resist such temptations. In some cases
demons can affect circumstances, but only with God’s permission; in these cases, our
task is to surrender to God’s will.
Some persons, however, falsely believe that
psychological disorders can be the result of demonic influence.
The truth is actually the other way around. Psychological disorders result from
emotional resentments that have been stuffed away into the unconscious, and then,
if the resentments are especially strong, the anger and lust underlying them
will attract demons the way blood in the water attracts sharks. Remember a
fundamental point here: demons cannot get into us unless we invite them in,
and one clear invitation is through the door of anger and
lust. Consequently, if demonic oppression is
suspected, prayers of deliverance—and formal exorcism, if required—will be necessary.
Note well, though, that the demons will keep coming back as long as there is anger and
lust for them to feed on. To stay free of the demons, the unconscious resentments
underlying the psychological disorder must be resolved through Catholic psychological
and spiritual treatment.
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Sometimes persons seek
medical treatment because they are “hearing voices.” Quite commonly, the “voices”
will be diagnosed as auditory hallucinations
and anti-psychotic medications will be prescribed. But if the medications do not
stop the voices, then it’s likely that the voices are not hallucinations but are
real spiritual experiences of a demonic nature. In such a case, an exorcist should
be consulted to cast away the demons, and a Catholic psychologist should be
consulted to help heal the underlying unconscious issues, especially lust and anger,
that the demons are feeding upon. |
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The Place for
Medications
Psychotherapy is hard work.
It will often seem counter-intuitive because it does not examine
only what is on the surface of your life. To be able to cure the pain and
confusion of your life, you really have to examine and change what motivates
you to act in ways that cause pain and confusion,
and, for the most part, this motivation is unconscious
and under the surface of your life. Therefore, your true motivation cannot be
examined directly. It must be examined indirectly by digging through all the dirt
and filth hidden under the surface. It’s no wonder, then, that most people
fear psychotherapy—and fear psychologists.
Consequently,
psychiatric medication has a special appeal to it, an appeal that is seen
more and more today in advertising. Rather than go through all the hard work
of constantly monitoring your emotions, thoughts, and actions, why not feel
better without having to do anything at all? Why change your lifestyle? Just
take some pills a couple times a day and go about your life as
usual.
Now, the truth
is, psychiatric medications are generally mandatory for the treatment of
disorders such as schizophrenia and mania. For
other disorders such as depression,
PTSD, anxiety, or
obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychiatric medications
can, in some cases, be a helpful adjunct to psychotherapy. That is, medications
can suppress debilitating anxiety or alleviate your depressed mood such that
you can then feel comfortable enough to do the hard work of
psychotherapy.[3]
It’s important, then, to keep in mind
that psychiatric medications are not curative.
The medications merely suppress unwanted symptoms for as long as you take the medications.
If you stop the medications, the symptoms will flourish again in full strength. But,
if psychotherapy is used in conjunction with psychiatric medications, the psychotherapy
holds the possibility of a genuine cure by resolving the deep unconscious issues that lie
behind the symptoms—and then the medications can be discontinued.
Psychological and Spiritual
Healing
Psychological and spiritual healing in the
Catholic mystic tradition seeks to guide someone in ways that bring him or her closer to
living a holy lifestyle.
In this healing process you learn
to surrender yourself to total trust in God so that, no matter what afflicts 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, you may find it difficult
to make a total surrender to God, and so you will discover that education and
reasoning do little to overcome that difficulty. 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
I have been well trained in psychotherapy
and psychoanalysis, and so in the work of psychological and spiritual
healing I use these techniques for understanding the
unconscious. Because
unconscious conflicts can often result in spiritual
stagnation, the psychoanalytic work of understanding unconscious
motivation can be a large part of the healing work. But
in psychological and spiritual healing the resolution of such conflicts is directed
toward ever greater trust in God, not just toward the specific relief of psychiatric
symptoms.
Nevertheless, as trust in God grows, psychiatric symptoms will abate.
Putting It
Into Practice
Therefore, in the form of
psychoanalytic healing I practice, and as I describe on this website, you can be
guided—through the sacraments, vocal and mental
prayer, fasting, study,
and the insight resulting from the psychotherapeutic relationship—into
understanding the roots of your unconscious conflicts. Then you can 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
occurred—it is important to feel the pain and then be able to identify
and “name” the emotions associated with your pain.
This all occurs through a collaborative
process of interpreting your
unconscious
associations to your intellectual memories, using techniques such as
free association and
dream interpretation.
Click
here to learn about the common problems and conflicts
that can occur during the therapeutic process.
Eventually, you can recover a
full awareness of your emotional life that in childhood you learned to suppress
as a psychological defense.
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The goal of all
this work is not to blame your parents for the hurt they caused you
but to get past your hidden resentments
and anger at your parents for the hurt they
caused you. To do this work, it is necessary to bring to conscious awareness
the many emotional injuries that you experienced in childhood. Only then can
you take
full responsibility for your life and
ultimately forgive your parents and
honor them for whatever good they did do. Be
grateful for what your parents did well, yet be realistic about their
failures. If you don’t do this work, then your anger at your parents will
get stuffed down into the unconscious where it will cripple your life with
insecurity and failure. So remember, as long as you have
unconscious anger at your parents, trying to
honor them is just a lie. |
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Following the
Spiritual Counsels
Please read my
Spiritual Counsels to learn about the spiritual values
underlying my work.
You might 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.
Nevertheless, as you read the Counsels,
note the things to which you might object, and this will give you a clue as to the
unconscious sins working under the surface of your conscious
beliefs about yourself. Do you believe that you cannot live without television and movies?
Then you are using entertainment and all of its illusions to fill your emotional emptiness
rather than seeking the fullness of God’s truth. Do you believe that you cannot live
without social media? Then you are using the pride of human fellowship for consolation rather
than seeking a deep prayerful relationship with God. Do you believe that you cannot live
without sexual activity? Then you are using lust to satisfy your anger at God. And
so on. Once you see what is really there under the surface of self-deception, ask
yourself if you are really willing to risk everything, and give up anything, for
the sake of saving your soul. But at least be honest. Many persons, even those who
call themselves devout, really aren’t willing to do anything it takes to work
out their salvation with fear and trembling.
Telephone
Psychological and Spiritual Healing
For all practical purposes,
psychological and spiritual healing uses the same techniques as psychotherapy and has some
of the same goals as psychotherapy (in that a healthy relationship with God will produce
psychological health), but because I can assume that someone of faith is not deliberately
attempting to hide anything from me, psychological and spiritual healing is well suited to
be conducted over the telephone. In fact, the partial anonymity of telephone work can be
quite similar to the anonymity of
Confession.
Couples and Family
Therapy
I do not provide treatment for minor children.
Furthermore, when children have psychological problems, it has been my experience that the
parents, not just the children, need treatment.
I do not provide couples and family therapy
because such modalities require specialized training and experience. Nevertheless, for
clients already established in individual treatment, I have occasionally conducted joint
sessions with a spouse or a parent, but my role in such sessions is simply to be a facilitator
of healthy communication.
Legal Issues
I am an independent practitioner, and my work
focuses on confidential personal healing. I do not accept cases involving legal testimony
or progress reports to third parties.
CLINICAL PRACTICES
The Nature of the Treatment
My healing work is ordered to psychological and
spiritual growth rather than to the simple relief of psychiatric symptoms.
The Modality of the Treatment
I conduct all clinical sessions by telephone; for
clients (within or outside the US) who prefer an encrypted connection, I use Signal
audio. I do not use video conferencing.
The Length of Treatment
The length of treatment depends on the
nature, the severity, and the extent of the emotional wounds that
have afflicted you—and those criteria in turn affect the strength of your resistance to
change, which in turn affects the length of the treatment.
The Time to End the
Treatment
Said simply, the treatment can be ended
when you are no longer committing any mortal sins. You commit sins because of unhealed
psychological conflicts, and when those conflicts are brought to awareness and healed,
then you will not have the unconscious need to commit sin. Nevertheless, someone who
has overcome the desire to commit sin might still want to continue treatment for continued
psychological and spiritual insight and growth.
Cost, Length,
and Frequency of Sessions
My fee is $175 per hour. Sessions are $250
per hour if they start at or after 6:00 PM my time.
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If, because of rising
costs, I have to raise my fee, I will not raise the fee of current clients; but
any client who leaves treatment for more than a month and then decides to return
to treatment will be charged the new fee. |
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Sessions are usually an hour, but they can
be any length, calculated at $175 per hour. (I use 5-minute intervals with the fee rounded
to the next highest $5; the minimum fee is $45.)
Sessions can be several times per week,
once per week, bi-weekly, monthly, or only as needed, according to your personal
preference. The most common frequency of treatment is once per week. (In general, a low
frequency of treatment will result in a low intensity of treatment engagement and
therefore a low amount of behavioral change.)
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Note well that,
regardless of the frequency of the treatment, for behavioral change to occur you must
dedicate time between sessions to study daily the topics on this website and
to pray constantly for humility to accept your brokenness,
for wisdom to accept God’s guidance in all things, for
courage to face your emotional pain, for
determination to resist worry and doubt, for
strength to persevere through darkness, and for
understanding to accept the guidance necessary to make
meaningful changes in your beliefs about yourself
and in your physically and spiritually unhealthy behaviors. |
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Making a
Payment for Services Rendered
Secure payments can be made through the mail
by check or money order, or through PayPal or Square (both of which accept all
credit/debit cards—click one of the links below). International payments can also be made
through Wise; I can provide the details as needed.
For payments less than $90, please use Square
To pay for a consultation,
send a secure sayment through
PayPal services
Select an amount and a payment method below:
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Go to Square
to make a secure payment
of any amount
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Please note that sending
a payment without contacting me to schedule a session
does not guarantee the booking of a session.
Practice Policies
Please note the following:
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Sessions must be scheduled in
advance. |
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You will be billed for sessions canceled
without 24 hours advance notice. |
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You will be billed for missed
sessions. |
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If you are late, you will be billed for
the entire session. |
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My schedule does not allow for
crisis therapy. |
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Text messages and e-mails should be
short, concise, and concerning immediate practical matters. Other matters are best
discussed in a treatment session. |
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I do not schedule sessions on Sundays,
and I generally do not return phone calls, text messages, or e-mails on
Sundays. |
Using Insurance
I do not accept Medicare or any managed-care
plans. If you carry other insurance, please understand that my professional services are
rendered and charged to you, not to the insurance company. This means that you must pay
me for each session in full. Then, if you request, for a $25 fee I will provide you with
a statement which you can submit to your insurance company for a reimbursement (paid
to you) for the session fees you have paid to me. This statement will include your clinical
diagnosis, the procedure code, the number of sessions for the time period you request, and
the amount you have paid me for each of those sessions. It will be your responsibility to
contact your insurance company to determine if it will reimburse you under these terms, and,
if so, what percentage of the billed amount it will cover.
Note, however, that your use of insurance
will breach the
confidentiality
of your treatment because any employee of the insurance company can demand the details of
your treatment. Furthermore, insurance companies require a psychiatric
diagnosis,
which I believe is clinically useless but, once given to your insurance provider, will
become an indelible part of your world-wide electronic medical record.
Scheduling a
Consultation
To schedule a consultation, whether as a new
client or as an old client returning after an absence, first be honest about the value of
your soul and send a donation in gratitude
for what you have already learned from my website. Keep in mind that a lack of gratitude is
a major block to healing.
Then contact me by
e-mail or by telephone (see
below), and we can arrange a day and time for the
first session. For the session itself, I will provide a telephone number for you
to call; you will initiate the call to me at the scheduled time. For clients who prefer
to use use Signal audio, I will provide contact information when needed.
Clinical Records
Federal and state laws specify that
psychotherapists should keep clinical records. Nevertheless, because I practice
psychological and spiritual healing in the Catholic mystic tradition, rather than
psychotherapy per se, my treatment practices do not have to adhere to the same
record-keeping requirements that govern the pseudo-medical nature of psychotherapy.
Therefore, considering the risk of government harassment, bullying, and general intrusion
into the privacy of individuals, especially politically conservative individuals of faith,
I protect the privacy and safety of my clients by not keeping clinical notes (other than
a record of sessions and payments as well as sparse non-disclosable private notes about
the general themes of sessions); nor do I use electronic record-keeping and dissemination;
moreover, I delete text messages (preferably sent through the encrypted network of Signal)
and e-mails once I have read them.
Consequently, because my clinical work is
collaborative, and because I tell my clients what I am thinking as we proceed, I encourage
my clients to keep their own notes of their sessions and to review those notes between
sessions.
E-mail
Questions
If you are not currently in treatment with
me and want advice about your faith practices, relationship issues, work problems, your
psychotherapy with another professional (Catholic or otherwise), or other personal matters,
send your question to me by e-mail and also make a
payment to this website for an e-mail response. I will answer
your question within about five days of receiving the payment. (A payment by check
is considered to be “received” when the check clears my bank.)
Free
Help
I made my websites so that anyone
in the world can learn from my writings free of
charge.
Notes.
1. When prayer is combined with fasting for healing,
it is important to understand both prayer and fasting in a very specific sense.
In regard to healing, prayer
must be more than “standard” formal prayers (such as the Rosary); prayer must be an
intimate communication with God as an appeal for deep personal scrutiny (both
psychological insight into past emotional injuries and psychological insight into the
ways current thoughts and behaviors are affected by those past emotional injuries) and
an appeal for the desire and courage to alter dysfunctional life patterns through
a dedicated surrender to, and trust in, God’s will.
In regard to healing, fasting
should be considered to be an act of distancing oneself from anything that is not necessary
for nurturing a state of life governed by total love for God. Hence we can fast from worldly
activities (e.g., entertainment and sports) that bring material pleasure to life but that
actually distract us—and often lead us away—from an awareness of God’s holy presence in our
lives. In this regard, the most benefit will result from perpetual fasting. (Note that
perpetual avoidance of mortal sin could also be considered a form of fasting, but this sort
of fasting must be considered mandatory for every Christian.)
We can also fast from food and drink that our bodies do not really need
for optimal functioning. In this regard it is important to understand that fasting does not
amount to a ruthless act of merely denying ourselves pleasure from good food; instead, fasting
has two aspects. First, it can refer to cutting back on—and even eliminating, if possible—
unhealthy foods (e.g., junk foods, sugary foods, processed foods). Second, it can refer to
a selective reduction of the usual amount of food for a limited time, so as to effect a
purging of physiological toxins from the body and also to stimulate a greater awareness of
a spiritual hunger for the presence of the holy in our lives.
2. Note that a traditional Catholic
guide such as the Baltimore Catechism claims that dreams are irrational and
meaningless and should be ignored. But note carefully that this Catechism was
written at a time when the psychology of the unconscious was not scientifically
understood. It just goes to show that scientific knowledge—in contrast to
Catholic dogma—is always limited to the current culture. If you want to believe
the Baltimore Catechism about dreams you may as well believe that the world is flat
or that the sun revolves around the earth.
3. Be careful not to be deceived by
“medical marijuana.” Marijuana (cannabis) is an evil substance, and any use of it, for
any reason, opens a hellgate to demonic influence. As politically correct as “medical
marijuana” may seem, it’s all a demonic deception.
Mailing Address
Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D.
1592 Union Street # 83
San Francisco, CA 94123
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