Is it wise to see a Secular Psychologist?

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YehoiakhinEx232

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I’m going to try and seek psychological help for my personal problems, and I have some concerns. My parents do have a Psychologist that saw me years ago, back when I was a teenager, but I have serious concerns about talking to someone about my various issues who does not share my Faith, I see lots of risks. Should I risk seeing a Secular Psychologist? Does there exist any online Catholic Help programs I can see?
 
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If your issues are tied to the faith or moral issues like sex/abortion, it’s better to see a Catholic one.

Secular psychologists for other problems are fine.
 
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There’s nothing wrong with attacking a problem from multiple directions. See a secular psychologist AND try to regularly see a priest if your issues involve morality/spirituality. It’s not either/or.
 
YehoiakhinEx232 said:
Should I risk seeing a Secular Psychologist?
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Shop around. The secular psychologist may be more useful than the Christian one. Depends on their skill level and depth of empathy. See both types if you can afford it.
 
Ven. Fulton J Sheen said that if a counselor does not have wisdom (ie. seven-fold gift of the Holy Spirit) they will not be able to help. You would want someone who understands the principles of the causes involved from the First mind. In this way, you will not be frustrated by folly, and gain the good knowledge of conclusions to your issues.

Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier wrote a book The Origins of Contemporary Psychology in which he explains the atheist principles used in this pseudoscience. The book is available for free on Google Play. Read it for yourself, and find a learned Catholic who is capable of helping you.

If you choose to see someone: Does the Psychologist have the ability to demonstrate their understanding toward the knowledge of the conclusions you desire? Glory has the quality of making things clear. Who is being served? And does it serve you? Glory is given to those who serve God. Glory is given in heaven, but does the doctor struggle on earth for it, that is what is apparent in this life. And does she or he recognize that Glory and God are one in the same?
 
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Psychology started as a science and as such is useful when trying to understand and solve problems in your life. However, modern psychology is incorporating many of its theories from diplomatic views and promoting political agendas, new lines of thought and unproven “solutions” because of democratic consensus and other follies without true research. For example, a psychologists may correlate all problems in your attitude to how you were treated as a child, another will be focused on treating the visible parts of your problems, and another may tell you to live as you want without caring what others think, as if there were no definite morality barriers.

Even though a psychologist may help you solve some problems, it’ll be hard for to link them to catholic virtues, get help through grace, meditate through prayer, love by receiving the sacraments, etc. I wish that priests specialized in some subjects had a database and accepted questions, but the groundwork for many of the problems is the same: vices are fought with virtues, a community helps you when you’re weak, prayer and learning transforms you and guidance by the Holy Spirit makes you understand specific things that are helpful to your specific situation.

It would be good for you to ask the same priest/spiritual directo so he begins to know you more and be more helpful. I don’t know exactly where to get a spiritual director online, but you can ask a priest online many things you want here: http://www.xt3.com/askapriest/index.php
 
YehoiakhinEx232 said:
The problem is, I searched for a spiritual director in my dioceses several months ago, and I was told that no one in my diocese was “qualified” to be one.
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Doesn’t necessarily have to be a formal thing, in my opinion. Just have a relationship with a priest that you can sit down with every so often for coffee and bounce ideas off of. A friendship, basically. (Obviously, don’t do what some people do and start texting him at 3 am asking if this or that was a mortal sin…)

But there’s nothing wrong with chatting with a priest after Mass and going, “Hey, Father, you free to grab coffee or lunch one of these days?”
 
I wonder what you mean by secular psychologist. Do you mean someone that is not billed as a Catholic psychologist, or do you mean all psychologists? Many psychologists are capable of counseling by their Christian values without making a big announcement about it. At the same time, just because someone says they are Catholic does not necessarily make them a proficient counselor either. What is more important is that the individual “clicks” ith the psychologist across many levels. That can only be learned by trial and error.
 
That’s all well and good if there is one near you. Just for fun I checked the site and the nearest one to my home is an hour and a half away. That would be difficult to do once a week for most people.
 
I have hope that this dilemma will be addressed on a larger scale. It seems to be meat market. And the people are not educated enough to expose it at this time.
 
hymin said:
I have hope that this dilemma will be addressed on a larger scale. It seems to be meat market. And the people are not educated enough to expose it at this time.
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Can you please explain what this means more clearly? What is a meat market? What people are not educated enough?
 
The mental health system needs a correction. Only by the truth, can one become free. Only by the good, can one become free. A counselor who applies a treatment without proper orientation to the truth of man in his intellect and goodness of man in what he chooses is misguided. Further, the treatment serves the doctor by the order of mammon. Because you cannot serve two masters. The ignorance serves the system. If people knew virtue, and how to apply it to the terms of treatment, then the prisoners are set free. Patients go to these doctors and they do not know the conclusion of their treatment because it is not set in reality. They say that they cannot be ‘cured’. But they do not know that a life of penance would correct moral failures, which exhibit neurosis.
 
That’s quite a generalization. Penance will not cure every ill.
 
Gerhard2 said:
Even though a psychologist may help you solve some problems, it’ll be hard for to link them to catholic virtues, get help through grace, meditate through prayer, love by receiving the sacraments, etc
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A good one will incorporate your values into any contact you make with them. They are not there to impose values, rather to use your experiences to guide you through a diagnosable situation. Suggesting that you become an atheist would of course not help you through anything and would be unethical. If finding solace in faith is what you need, you need to go back to a spiritual director or Priest.
 
One cannot lump all things that people see psychologists for under one umbrella and say penance will fix it. You seem to have a rather negative attitude towards psychology that I don’t share. People can be genuine in their penance and that does not solve their issues.

If this is not what you intended to say, I apologize, but that’s what it sounded like to me.
 
I am not presenting a vision of their doctrine. Nor are there specifics to present concrete ideas.

It is good to love your neighbor as yourself. To see yourself in the other. Try and see yourself in me. And be positive about it!
 
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