Kristen is joined by Kimberly Perez, M.S., LMHC, Catholic Licensed Mental Health Counselor and the founder of Divine Mercy Healing & Counseling Center in Fort Myers, Florida, to discuss the relationship between the Faith and mental health.
Topics include:
Embracing our inherent worthiness as children of GodThe relationship between sin and woundednessProblems with the secular approach to mental healthHow to discern whether an ailment is primarily spiritual or psychologicalHealing through prayer and the sacramentsPride and self-love as the root of sinWhy worldly pursuits inevitably make us unhappyScrupulosity Self-esteem and spiritual warfareHow narcissists and other abusers use the same tactics and lies of demonsEfficacious suffering vs. toleration of abuse--how to know the differenceDespair and perseverance Support the show

All right, good morning everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Catholic Exchange Podcast.

This is your host, Kristen Van Uden, and today I am joined by a very interesting guest, Kimberly Perez, who is a licensed mental health therapist.

She is the founder of Divine Mercy Counseling and she's here today to discuss some topics related to mental health and the Catholic perception, the Catholic way to cope with all of these mental health related issues.

I'm very grateful to be here with you this morning.

So 1 of the reasons I wanted to discuss this topic is that the field of psychology and mental health is oftentimes seen as anti-Catholic even, or at odds with Catholic teaching.

Some of the founders of the fields of psychology even back to Freud and Jung unfortunately had all of these very esoteric atheistic ideas and yet of course Catholics are in great need of a lot of these services.

So in the field today, I just was wondering if you could give us a brief overview of how Catholic mental health counseling and how this field differs from maybe the industry at large and an industry that especially it seems sometimes gears more towards even new age and other other things that Catholics just cannot touch and what exactly these services provide to Catholics that allow them to discover this field while working within the parameters of the faith?

Right, and Kristen, that's a very good question.

And I believe divine mercy is the heart of it all and that's 1 of the reasons why I Decided to name my practice the divine mercy healing and counseling center That's the heart of the gospel you know his His grace and mercy needs to be a part of the care of human souls.

And once we remove him, who is the divine physician, we're at a loss.

So of course there is much value in different theories, especially family systems, et cetera, et cetera.

And some modalities that are extremely beneficial.

But like you mentioned, some of the theorists, Jung, Freud, etc, you know, they themselves were trying to figure out their own lives as we all are.

You know, but in that brokenness, in that woundedness, there's always an invitation to something more.

And that invitation, that call is from the father.

And the father is always drawing us near to his heart.

And so after being, you know, in the quote unquote secular world of mental health, which, you know, I could definitely be a therapist and preach Jesus without preaching Jesus, you know, just in my actions and, you know, listening and being fully present.

We can still bring Jesus to the world in those ways.

You know, in our silence, in the way we show Christ.

But it came to a certain point after, you know,

years of, you know, the secular, you know, working in that environment, it's becoming so drenched and almost immersed in, you know, mindfulness, which is the aim is to empty yourself and fill yourself with yourself, essentially.

Where in Catholicism, we have so many riches such as mental prayer, you know, carmelite spirituality.

Yes, emptying of self is important, but, and this is something my spiritual director was speaking to me about, you know, I believe it was referring to St.

John of the Cross, but if you have a glass of milk and it's full to the brim and you want to pour water in there, you can't.

So you have to empty that cup of milk to allow Christ in.

And so that's where Catholic therapy comes in.

You as the Catholic therapist become a vessel, right?

Kenosis, you know, that self emptying love where there's no more me in the picture when I'm sitting with a client.

If I'm too full with my own stuff, I'm a very weak person.

I think maybe that's why I'm led to this work.

I'm very, and I also love Father Henry Nowin.

He's not a saint, but I think he was a beautiful soul.

But he also, he was a psychologist and a priest, but he also struggled and, you know, his book on the wounded healer, you know, Christ was a suffering servant.

So I think that us as Catholic therapists, you know, we're not perfect, you know, we're also walking the way of the cross.

But in that way, we, I don't know if I'm saying too much, I can go on and on.

You know, our own woundedness, because we're all on that walk of the cross, right?

Our own woundedness, once you know we're empty and we fill ourselves with Christ, then we can bring that light to others.

You know, when I get out of the way and he can be, he can, you know, and I think that goes into the Eucharist and you know, all of that, which is, you know, the sacraments.

God could have decided to, you know, he became bread, right?

And Father Henry now speaks a lot about this.

He could have decided to come in the form of, you know, a big gem or something huge or majestic, but he decided to come as a little, little, little, little piece of bread, something small, so small that he can enter inside of me, inside of my brokenness.

That's why we need to make sure our house is clean, you know, before receiving him, you know, to welcome him.

But there's so much healing, you know, the Eucharist, he enters and becomes so small that he can enter into all of those broken parts of us that no 1, no 1, no 1 will ever be able to enter,

know, and that's, there's so much healing sitting, sitting with him, you know, when we're a mess And when we're broken on the floor in total despair, sitting with him, you know, it's really, it's my goal and the reason why I decided to step away.

It was not really for me to be my boss, it was for Jesus to be my boss.

You know, I've been a boss before but I'm like, I don't want to be a boss.

Like, I want him to be like the 1 that's telling me what to do and guiding me.

And for that, you know, for especially for those that are suffering, sometimes in terror silence is difficult, you know, cultivating that, you know, those thoughts, you know, most of us out there and this is, you know, I love EMDR, which is a modality we can talk about later, but, you know, those negative cognitive core beliefs and usually for the most part most of us believe that we don't matter or that we're not good enough.

He works and feeding you lies about your identity.

You know, even in exorcisms, you know, God is still glorified there abundantly because it's a reminder of who's victorious over whatever ailment we're struggling with.

You know, God is glorified even in an exorcism because that ailment, that disturbance is kind of like a wake-up type of thing, you know, that we need to pay attention to whatever poor wound we have, which, you know, there's so many doors to that.

I, you know, I've worked with many different ailments and struggles, but my passion is working with survivors of sexual abuse, emotional, physical, even narcissistic and psychopathic abuse.

And, you know, our family systems is so important and that goes into, you know, theology, the body and our dignity.

And when we feel like we're not good enough, and when we feel like we don't matter, we gravitate Towards people that treat us like we don't matter Or like we're not good enough so that's why we need to be you know for struggling with depression if we're struggling with anxiety or You know thoughts that I don't matter combating those lies with scripture, you know?

In Psalm 139, you know, you created my innermost parts.

You know, you knit me together in my mother's womb.

But even, you know, some of us may have been through such darkness that we cannot receive that.

So what do I tell my clients, which, you know, and many of the individuals that I see struggle with this, they struggle with their identity in Christ.

They even struggle with developing a relationship with Our Lady.

Because you know, there's a lot of talk about father wounds but I don't see enough discussion about mother wounds.

You know there are many many individuals that have been very much wounded by their mothers.

And then they say, well, how can I go to our lady when my own mother, let's say the client says my mother, let's say they say with narcissistic abuse, if their mother suffered with, you know, as we've talked about cluster B, you know, these, and again, I'm going to digress?

There's a lot of individuals out there that talk about narcissism, but they may not fully have an understanding of what it is.

So yeah, it might be helpful at this point to define what

Just like we have, many of us are familiar with introversion and extroversion So let's say Sally and Susie are both introverts.

So 1 may be more introverted than the other same thing with extroversion so when we have Narcissism that's on it.

It's on a continuum So some individuals we all have a healthy level of narcissism.

You know, I need to seek food, I need to seek shelter, and that goes into the developmental stages when we're growing up.

So once when those traits are elevated in narcissism, that's when they become problematic, when your behavior is harming others and harming yourself.

So when we're speaking about unhealthy relationships, let's say, you know, stemming from parents, those narcissistic wombs, let's say a narcissistic mother, may have been very critical, may have been competing with the son or the daughter, may have minimized the son or daughter's feelings, emotions, may have had difficulty connecting with their daughter.

So then, you know, if I'm sitting with a client, they may say, oh, you know, everyone in my prayer group says, I need to go to Our Lady and pray the rosary and do this, but I'm having difficulty.

So we need to really dig deeper and look into that mother wound that they may have or if it's a difficulty with relating to Jesus, looking at that, that wound And an activity that I do with a lot of my clients that struggle with that is just starting with that.

My absolute favorite image of Christ is with, you know, Jesus and the lamb.

Yeah, there are very many different ones.

And there's 1 that I absolutely love where he's just, you know, you could see the wound and in his hands.

You know, to invite them to daily mental prayer, meditation and silence.

And I have them look at that image and just notice what's coming up for them as they see Jesus embracing the lamb.

And then of course, I asked them to invite the Holy Spirit into the process and then, you know, to place themselves in the scene.

And so that kind of can give me an assessment of where they are in their healing journey.

And 1 thing that I was meditating upon listening to you is how I think 1 of the big differences between secular mental health profession and the Catholic understanding is the very concept of sin, right?

Because it seems that in the secular world, sin has been abolished.

All we have is affirmation, and affirmation of something that's wrong is not going to help in the long run.

Of course, true charity is to bring the person to the truth and to correct these sins if the sins are becoming a problem.

So could you speak a little bit about how recognition of sin, especially original sin, and the recognition of sin as 1 of the roots of our woundedness, and how that is not, that is the first step, recognition that sin and its wages in the world bring about all of this misery, and then how to bring that to the foot of the cross, how to give that to Jesus and use the sacraments, the sacrament of confession, and the healing from sin, that is really a spiritual process in order to solve some of these problems.

Because I think another topic that we wanted to touch on was telling the difference and discerning between something that is the fruit of sin versus something that's purely a psychological, something of psychological origin.

So, you know, it's a big question, but what is the role of the recognition of sin and of reconciliation?

Yeah, and although it's a big question, it's a very important question that you've asked.

So, sin is usually rooted in love of self.

It's usually a drawing away from Christ essentially And there's a great book out there.

So really looking at our inclinations, you know, is this behavior, is this inclination me drawing towards Christ or drawing away from Christ?

You know, when we look at those 7 capital sins, 1 of the primary ones is pride, vainglory.

And then we have envy, melancholy, anger, gluttony, avarice, you know, lust, you know, there are a lot of struggles with lust out there.

Sex addiction, pornography addiction, and all of those things is in the self, everything centered around the self.

And we have wounds, unfortunately, that, you know, if I'm working with a survivor of sexual violence or sexual abuse, met some of the side effects of sexual violence is promiscuity.

So was that person at fault for being violated?

No, never ever are they at fault, never ever.

But you know, again, the abuser in their free will, God never wishes bad upon us ever.

So I may be getting off topic so you may have to kind of reel me back in.

The God transforms our woundedness but through means that he has provided to us right through our cooperation with his grace.

Yeah absolutely and in reconciliation in confession is so powerful but also a lot of you know it's a can of worms you know we open up sometimes for our first time with the priest our sin our root sin and we receive the forgiveness and some of us may feel consolation some others don't depending on you know their journey so after reconciliation it's helpful to have some accompaniment after that to cope with I would say especially shame some individuals struggle out with shame you you know when revealing their sins And then we can even go into scrupulosity when, you know, where there's this obsession of, you know, am I doing the wrong thing?

Oh, I'm not going to receive the Eucharist because I'm so bad.

That black and white way of thinking is not from God.

You know, on the outside and the exterior, it may seem, oh, this person is really holy, quote unquote, but really It's a struggle with a sin of pride.

Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whom I love so very much, there's a quote by her that says, if you are humble, nothing will touch you.

You know, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.

You know, if you're blamed, you will not be discouraged.

If they call you a saint, you won't put yourself on a pedestal.

I love the chosen scene with Mary Magdalene.

And it's so awesome because they show Mary bringing Mary Magdalene to Jesus.

And, you know, Mary just, you know, she can't even look up.

And then Jesus is just continuing to encourage her.

Any other sin, we may feel, oh, this is just too much, you know, this anxiety.

Is that when we try to do it ourselves, of course it's going to feel impossible.

And of course we're not going to succeed and it's really, I like framing it in giving up and literally giving up and giving it all to Jesus, that's the only way forward, which seems counterintuitive, right?

And again, looking at scripture, 1 of the most beautiful verses, and the simplest, I would say, is, be still and know that I am God, that I am God.

And when we struggle with control, anxiety has a lot to do with control.

You're almost being God because you believe that you can control everything in your life and that goes into the root sense.

Even just contemplating that is so healing.

And it's the great irony of humility is that in recognizing our own helplessness, that's when we truly are empowered in our identity in Christ and realizing that it's not through us, that it's through his grace, that we can actually act in accordance with what we're meant to do.

Another topic I wanted to talk about is the problem of suffering, right?

Because we all know that in our fallen states, suffering is inevitable.

Utopia is not possible here on this earth, and only in heaven will we be perfectly happy.

And so this is something that often drives people away from God, and the existentialists all hinge on this.

I've been reading a Sophia book called The Gods of Atheism, where you see the development of atheists that often starts with this inability to understand suffering.

So as Catholics, of course, we know that suffering can be efficacious.

If we unite our suffering to Christ's suffering on the cross, we can actually gain merit this way, especially for souls in purgatory, and be generous in giving of our suffering, offer it up, is really the trite, simple, but very effective and true saying that we'll often hear.

But there is also a difference between efficacious suffering and situations you need to get out of, right?

So we have the problem of Saint Rita, for example, who was suffering through an abusive marriage and often people will cite her experience as a reason to stay with an abusive person, for example.

So can you give us a little bit of a breakdown of how to know your limits with suffering, and how to willingly take on the cross that Jesus has assigned you, pick up your cross and follow him, but also know what the accepted boundaries are when, you know, setting boundaries in your own life and avoiding suffering as well.

Rita, but when that's used to further isolate a survivor of abuse can be so harmful.

And yes, our sufferings have so much merit and I love, love St.

And he can provide so much encouragement for, you know, those situations when it's, when it, when it's not relating to something unhealthy like that.

But when we look at that question, when we look at submission, And not just Saint Rita, oftentimes that passage in the book of Ephesians is very much misunderstood.

Where it says, you know, wives be submissive to your husbands, etc, etc, etc.

But it's not read in its entirety it also says for men to love their wives like God loves the church Absolutely wife is the bride Who is the bride?

We are the church So it's a mutual submission.

And again, looking at submission, what is submission?

Do we submit to sin as Catholics and Christians?

No, so if you're being abused if you're being Violated if someone's holding you up at gunpoint, raping you every evening, forcing you to have sexual relations, that is sinful.

God never, ever invites us to submit to sin, ever.

And anyone that says that is misinformed, greatly misinformed.

I have had cases where the woman is abusing the man emotionally verbally even physically but that's not right ever Jesus always called his people to rise and walk in dignity and in truth.

Benedict of the Cross, truth and love always go hand in hand.

Jesus was meek and humble, but he walked in truth.

He was confident in who he was in the eyes of his father.

And if we're in this situation, I am a daughter of the most high.

You know, when we are seen as an object of use, everything goes out the window.

Our call as Christians and Catholics is to live a life of love and work in and through that love.

That is the heart of the gospel in the heart of divine mercy.

Jesus reaches out into our brokenness, into our weakness and darkness and he loves us there.

If you are listening to this and you are in darkness and you are curled up in shame, blessed are you.

Blessed are you because God is your light.

In that darkness, he will be the only light you see.

Cause you can see the light so much clearer when it's dark.

Faustina in her diary, you know, he would tell her, my daughter, when you're suffering, know that I'm near.

Paul in the book of Philippians, where he says, for his sake I count it all as loss.

I count it all as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things.

And Jesus is always reaching out to us at every moment.

If only we would take his hand as it's offered to us.

And I love how you've spoken to people who might be in that situation.

And it is true that this concept of shame keeps people away from the very thing that could cure that shame.

And the spiritual warfare component to this, I really love how you've touched upon that, as a priest friend told me the other day, the devil hates you, so why would you think as he does?

And when we think of narcissists or other toxic people who are telling us lies about ourselves and trying to tear us down, they're really using what are literally demonic tactics.

And this is the demons role on earth is to get you to doubt your own identity and Christ's power to save you.

And so can you speak a little bit about how this is a spiritual battle that we face for our own souls too.

So you can compare those lies of the enemy as the same tactic that's used in narcissistic and psychopathic abuse.

That gaslighting, what you saw, you didn't see, What you heard, you didn't hear.

So he works to confuse you in your identity.

You're never going to amount to anything.

And that's the same tactic that these abusers use.

You know, it's so sad because we're children of God, but once we start going that way, that abuser starts becoming a child of the darkness, you know?

So they attack your identity, and again psychopathology and narcissism, especially psychopathology, hides and the enemy is great at thriving in what?

But when you expose the darkness, there's no power.

Abuse thrives in darkness, in isolation, in shame.

The tactics of the enemy thrive in isolation, shame.

Get connected to other people in the body of Christ that can remind you of who you are.

Because when you're with an abuser, the only voice you're hearing is the voice of the abuser.

It's hard to hear the voice of God, even if you're a person of faith.

If you're married to an abusive person, sometimes it's hard to sit in daily mental prayer.

You may have to, you know, maybe on your lunch break, sit in your car and have some silence with God before you go home because again, the most dangerous part in an abusive relationship is when you decide to leave or when you do leave.

So, you know, cultivating, you know, if you find yourself in this relationship, finding even 5 minutes of your day where you can cultivate a time where you can allow the voice of God to speak.

Ignatius, you know, 14 rules of discernment, which is really key in discerning between the different movements, and try and identify whether it's something that's just psychological or something that may be from the enemy.

Becoming familiar with those 14 rules of Saint Ignatius.

Yeah, yeah, let's take it there next before we briefly discuss the some practical ways to combat these attacks is how do we approach that period of discernment and what methods and what maybe even specific prayers should be used before someone may approach a therapist or approach a priest about a particular issue they may be having.

Yes, so when it comes to how to invite Christ into that healing, I love cultivating silence.

And if you have trouble cultivating silence getting a spiritual director that can help you with that and cultivating a routine of meditation, daily mental prayer, getting to know Jesus.

Because in getting to know Jesus, we get to know again who we are, whose we are, praying the rosary, I would say the entire rosary, not just the decade.

And a lot of us think, oh you know I don't have time to pray all the mysteries, but really 1 mystery will take you maybe 15 minutes, 20 the max.

So if you pray all the decades, you know, maybe an hour, an hour a day, you know, on your way to work, you can pray 1, You know, you begin with the enunciation, etc.

Maybe on your drive, on your way back home, you do the next mysteries.

Yeah, subjectively the best way you can spend your time.

Yeah, and then how can that help heal us?

So, especially some individuals that may be struggling with a father wound, you know, Mary can lead, can show them Jesus's life and then they can start immersing themselves in the life of Jesus and his humanity and how how he navigated things in his life and we can learn because you know he became man and dwelt among us in the garden of Gethsemane.

He knows you know when he was in Gethsemane he sweat blood.

He understands you know those sorrowful mysteries and you know that school of divine providence and divine will and sort of abandonment to divine providence that book made a tremendous impact on my life and it can make a huge impact on anyone that may be listening and struggling with that question of why me God?

You know I'm a good person, I go to church, I serve, why am I suffering?

Yeah and it's been really helpful for me to understand that Jesus went through not only the physical tortures, but these emotional and spiritual tortures through his passion, starting with, as you mentioned, the agony in the garden, where the primary pain that he experienced there was the betrayal of his friends, but also the loss of souls who still, after his sacrifice, would still turn away from him and refuse to accept his grace, and how the thought of those lost souls really tortured him.

We don't think about that part of the passion so often, but he was humiliated just meditating on the crowning with thorns.

That was a mockery and just so unjust because it is literally he is king of the universe and they they mocked him in that identity and so he understands all types of suffering to a deep and perfected degree beyond physical suffering obviously

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A Catholic Approach to Mental Health