PARADOXICAL

It took me sometime to gather my thoughts on the topic for the day because it's one of those topics that proved to be highly contentious between me and some friends. Here's the provocative quote:

"Psychology may help somewhat, but it cannot bring about inner transformation."

The two contending camps at the time had opposing views, not really polar or diametric in opposition but nonetheless enough to trigger a volley of potshots via emails. In other words, a veritable word war. One side said psychology is not necessary in the path to transformation and spiritual growth; it is even dangerous, as in keeps the person stuck in navelgazing, in selfish dwelling on one's issues in life. Spiritually, alone, is what's necessary, the proponents insisted. The other side said no, no way, psychology is important, very important; we are not saying it is all we need, but that it is an important component of and complement to spirituality.

There's no question where I sided. I went for Team B: psychology + spirituality are not mutually exclusive, they can be made into friendly bedfellows. I followed this synthesis throughout my journey to wholeness because I thought it's far more sensible. Praying everything away, I thought, can be used wrongly as a shortcut to growth; religion can be used as an opiate, to escape reality. Who else knew this well than me who used religion to prop up my good-boy image, to satisfy my family's, relatives', and society's expectation of me as the first-born son, mild-mannered kid, and consistent honor student and topnotcher in school?

But I also knew the pitfalls of too much psychology. The other side was right in that psychology can be used to enforce one's selfish view of the world, to be blunt about it.

With these contradicting views, I came to a synthesis on my own: Psychology can only be helpful if it is used inside Christianity/spirituality. Outside of it, it can be easily abused to stay stuck in one's issues for unnecessarily long years and never move from there. This way, the past can always be used as an alibi. I think psychology is the invention of God himself; after all, to quote an author, He is the best psychologist.

I'm glad Fr. DuBay mentioned this difficulty in the faith walk. To tell the truth, however, psychology, at least the technical knowledge of it, isn't really necessary if one's spirituality is grounded and honest and intent in the first place, for true spirituality has a top-notch psychology built in it.

In plain words, if we are really honest with God, and patient with His gentle, silent ways, we are subjecting ourselves to the best psychological help around, because, among other things, we would be humble enough to seek His help through others. We will all be like the psalmist, whose heart and soul is totally bare before the Lord, no denials, no defenses, no brilliant rationalizations and convoluted alibis, no spiritual blocks, a spiritual state that is very hard to achieve without mentors and models, but unfortunately, only the state necessary if we are to "freely give (our sins) to and freely receive" from the Lord, to quote Henri Nouwen.

Those who mistakenly believe that psychology is unnecessary probably were just unable to articulate their position adequately, but they could also be trying to tread the easier path, trying to escape the painfully hard work ahead.

They would have been right, though, had they insisted that true spirituality means not just psychological soundness or wholeness, but far more than that, thanks to God's grace, God's initiative.