Dear Souls and Hearts members,

In this series, Dr Gerry Crete explores a Christian approach to working with our parts using the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. Reflecting on these five Gospel accounts from the typological or allegorical sense rather than the literal sense, Jesus is seen as a “type” of the inmost self and the apostles and other characters are viewed as parts of the self-system, representing a tableau of our own inner world. Through this interpretive lens we...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

I am so glad to bring you Dr. Gerry’s fifth weekly reflection in his series on the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, as he brings together the psychological and spiritual in ways that support both human formation and spiritual growth.

In this reflection, Dr. Gerry employs systems theory and parts work to deepen our understanding of both the experience of the Transfiguration and of our human natures in our fallen condition with glimpses of the glorious hope...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

Our Lord commands us to love our God with our whole heart, with all of our being, with all of our parts. But many of us have parts that find vocal prayers to be monotonous, dry, frustrating, or even threatening. These parts can react negatively to the Rosary, attempting to distract us or undermine our efforts to pray. And to make matters worse, other parts of us can misunderstand these negative reactions and expressions of need as demonic temptations, setting up...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

Dr. Gerry and I are very grateful for the feedback and comments we’ve received after publishing the first two reflections in this six-part series.  Dr. Gerry’s unique approach to understanding ourselves better through a ‘parts’ lens, with the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary as a guide, stems from a realization he experienced in his clinical work as recalled in the first reflection: “When I began incorporating “parts...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

After meeting Dr. Gerry in 2016 at the Catholic Psychotherapy Association meeting, a few years passed before a mutual friend, psychologist Peter Martin, encouraged us to connect. Dr. Peter Martin’s suggestion led Dr. Gerry to join our small circle of seven close friends and colleagues, as a new member of our Depth Psychology Guild. This small group gathered three or four times annually for fraternity and collegiality. In this small group setting, Dr. Gerry...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

I am so pleased to share with you the first in a series of six weekly reflections by Marriage and Family Therapist Gerry Crete, Ph.D, our own Dr. Gerry, co-founder of Souls and Hearts and a dear friend.

A bit of backstory – I first met Dr. Gerry in April 2016 at the Catholic Psychotherapy Association annual meeting in Austin, Texas, where he presented with Jennifer Madere on the intersection of faith and trauma. His description of practicing EMDR (Eye...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

Link, a Resilient Catholics Community member, recently asked, "Dr. Peter, what would you recommend I read to work on developing my understanding of Catholic anthropology?”

Inspired by Link’s question, Dr. Gerry and I are collaborating on a new project: a living, working document – an annotated bibliography of the best human formation resources grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person.

Today’s launch of “Link’s...

Students in Robert Malinoski’s high school mathematics classes earned their grades. As a young child in the 1970s, I remember my dad describing an exchange with his dissatisfied pupil:

“Mr. Malinoski, I can’t believe you gave me an F in Geometry!”

“You earned your F in this class,” my father clarified.

Dad declared, “I’ve never given any student any grade in any of my classes.” Rather, the grades recorded were an actual, accurate...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

I am pleased to offer a follow up to last week’s reflection On The Metaphysics Of The Human Person by Monty De La Torre, Ph.D. I greatly appreciate how Dr. De La Torre integrates his background in metaphysics with parts work informed by Internal Family Systems approaches to human formation, and his reflection generated so much interest and appreciation from our subscribers.

Last week, we worked together to understand who we are; this week, we will explore...

Dear Souls and Hearts Members,

I am excited and honored to provide a forum for Catholic philosopher Monty De La Torre to share with us some metaphysical foundations to better understand who we are as human persons. We need to understand who we are in order to know how to change, how to embrace a wholesome human formation that facilitates us following the two great commandments with their three loves: loving God, neighbor, and ourselves in an ordered way.

If you don’t understand the...