Interior Integration for Catholics

In this episode, we discuss how models help us more fully understand Catholic personal formation by showing distinctions and relationships among human formation, spiritual formation, intellectual formation, and pastoral formation. Next, we examine my new model that views formation through a mathematical lens. I explain each dimension of formation, likening them to a branch of mathematics, and draw...

In this episode, philosopher Matthew Walz, Ph. D. the Director of Intellectual Formation at Holy Trinity Seminary, explains the integration of the four pillars of formation laid out in Pope St. John Paul II's Pastores Dabo Vobis. We dive into why it is so important to integrate the four types of formation and whether there is a hierarchy or sequence among them. We then discuss Dr. Walz’s models of...

My guest, Dr. Gerry, answers questions from our live audience about his new book, Litanies of the Heart: Relieving Post-Traumatic Stress and Calming Anxiety Through Healing Our Parts. We begin by receiving some wonderful feedback for Dr. Gerry about his book. Then we dive into some questions our audience has for Dr. Gerry: 1) Can 58 years of rearranging my life to recycle the feelings of shame fro...

In this episode, I address a controversial clip from episode 79 of the Restore the Glory podcast, in which host Jake Khym provides an example of how he brings Jesus into his own parts work. I explain the potential issues I see with bringing God into human formation work. Then, I dive into the seven reasons why I initially focus on the natural realm: 1) Almost no one else focuses on human formation...

My guest, Dr. Gerry Crete shares with us the inside story of his brand-new book, Litanies of the Heart: Relieving Post-Traumatic Stress and Calming Anxiety through Healing Our Parts . This book grounds IFS and parts in a Catholic understanding of the human person, showing how parts work is both Biblical and harmonizable with our Catholic faith. Because the intellectual experience doesn’t fully enc...

In this episode, my guest, licensed marriage and family therapist Dr. Gerry Crete and I discuss how best to engage with borderline dynamics within your family. People with “borderline personalities” have surprisingly intense internal experiences that are rarely handled well by the people around them. Dr. Gerry suggests avoiding both expressing too much frustration and invalidation.  Instead, he re...

In this episode we explore in detail how Internal Family Systems can help with borderline dynamics.  We review the definitions of the innermost self and parts, the six attachment and six integrity needs, and we discuss the three major reasons why clients with BPD have been bruised and wounded by mental health professionals.  I review the seven tenets of Therapist-Focused Consultation (TFC) and the...

(Please note that sound effects are used in this episode and may be triggering to parts.) In this episode, I take you inside the experience of Tina, a 32-year-old Catholic woman with “borderline personality” and introduce you to seven of her parts and how they switch inside her.  These switches involve not only emotions, but all of Tina’s internal experience, so her parts are not merely transient...

 In this episode, my guest Dr. Greg Bottaro of the CatholicPsych Institute shares with us the most important thing he wants us to remember about borderline personality dynamics, the things that Catholics and non-Catholics most often misunderstand about borderline presentations, and his takeaways about borderline "personalities."  We then open the floor to these questions from our live audience: 1)...

This episode focuses on the internal experience of borderline personality dynamics, what it feels like.  Next, I share how “borderline” is a relatively new diagnosis, and previously indicated a range of personality development, rather than a specific disorder. I then discuss the standard diagnostic criteria from the DSM-5 and the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, 2nd Ed., summarizing the symptoms i...

In this special edition, I invite you to an experiential exercise to connect in a loving way with your parts who are  in any distress or suffering with the armed conflict between Hamas and Israel and the humanitarian tragedies that conflict has brought.  I do this experiential exercise along with you, working with my Adventurer part who has been burdened with fear and anxiety, especially around th...

In this episode, I invited licensed marriage and family therapist Dr. Gerry Crete and a live audience to discuss the best ways to relate with family members with narcissistic traits while still preserving one's own limits and dignity.  Dr. Gerry addressed the following: 1) Why is it important to prepare yourself for relating with someone with dominant narcissistic parts? 2) How can we recognize ou...

In this episode, we review several definitions of gaslighting, discuss the tactics of gaslighting, explore the inner experience of both gaslighters and gaslightees, describe gaslighting in the workplace and with children, and list the four relationship dynamics of gaslighting.  Then we describe how gaslighting and being gaslighted connects to deep, unmet attachment and integrity needs.  We also ad...

Today with our live audience, we start with 15 minutes of Q&A about narcissism addressing these questions: 1) Does acknowledging our own narcissism makes us more or less vulnerable to exploitation by another person? 2) Are children of parents with borderline personalities more likely to be attracted to narcissistic partners? 3)What is “healthy narcissism”?  Then from the 15-minute mark to the...

In this groundbreaking episode, Dr. Peter explains how to conceptualize narcissistic "personalities" and narcissistic reactions through the lens of Internal Family Systems.  Looking at narcissism through the lens of subsystems and parts is an entirely new paradigm that makes it easier to accept the reality the unmet attachment and integrity needs that fuel narcissistic positions and behaviors.  Th...

In this episode, Catholic psychologist Peter Martin and I discuss narcissism with a live audience, covering the following questions: 1) What are two primary clinical approaches to treating individuals with narcissism; 2) How do we distinguish between boldness and narcissism; 3) How does one relate with a narcissistic spouse; 4) How do we work with narcissistic family members who don’t believe in G...

In this episode, we examine different definitions of narcissism, we look at the markers and diagnostic criteria for narcissism, we examine the main beliefs, emotions, assumptions, and internal experiences that fuel narcissistic defenses (especially idealization and devaluation), we focus on relational patterns that narcissists have, and we look at how narcissists subjectively experience themselves...

Dr. Gerry Crete, Marion Moreland and Dr. Peter Malinoski discuss the relationship among parts and how your manager parts make up what is perceived to be your personality.  Dr. Peter offers a 25-minute experiential exercise to help you connect with your manager parts, the ones who make up your "personality."  Then we debrief, describe our experiences of the exercise and answer questions from our li...

In this episode, Dr. Peter discusses five reasons why the conventional understanding of a single, homogeneous personality is insufficient to more fully understand your internal experience and how alternative conceptualizations of the human psyche that recognize internal multiplicity, parts, and systems are not only more helpful, but also harmonize with our Catholic Faith.   

Join Catholic IFS therapists Marion Moreland, Jody Garneau, and Dr. Peter Malinoski for an in-depth discussion of unburdening, informed by Internal Family Systems and grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person.  We explore three kinds of burdens -- personal burdens, legacy burdens, and unattached burdens (the IFS equivalent of demons), we provide examples from our own lives, we empha...

Have you ever wondered what inner work with Internal Family Systems looks like with troubling sexual issues?  Join us as podcaster and coach Drew Boa reviews an unburdening of three of his parts from a sexual issue with Dr. Peter and other Christian therapists.

Join RCC Lead Navigator Marion Moreland and Dr. Peter for a demonstration of Internal Family Systems work around anger, followed by a Q&A where we discuss with our live audience member the topics of exiled anger, forgiveness, and legacy burdens.

In this episode, Dr. Peter takes close look at an alternative way to manage, work through, and let go of anger, informed by Internal Family Systems (IFS), and especially by the work of Jay Earley.  After a brief review of the major tenets of IFS, we discuss how to work through the different ways that manager parts, firefighter parts and exiled parts hold and manage anger.  We look at the functions...

In this live experiential exercise, Dr. Peter leads listeners through an experiential exercise that explores why anger might feel important, necessary, even indispensable for parts.  We look at how anger can develop from parts feeling forced to choose between attachment needs and integrity needs being met.  Dr. Peter and the audience members shared a lively, personal debriefing and discussion of t...

(Please note that sound effects are used in this episode and may be triggering to parts.) In this experiential exercise I invite you and your parts to approach Jesus in the psychological, emotional, relational, and bodily anguish He suffered in His humanity in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Which parts of you might avoid Jesus, turn away from Him in His suffering -- and why?  Here is an opportunity to...