Authentically Catholic psychotherapy based on St. Thomas Aquinas Aquinas
Summary
Conrad Barz's system of affirmation therapy, based on the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, is perhaps one of the least-known and most-needed remedies to the sufferings that many today endure. In this episode, Dr. Chris McDonald, a therapist practicing Barz s therapy, talks about what it is, how it works, and why it is so important.
Transcript
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One of the topics which receives far too little attention today is the devastating impact of the modern world on our mental and emotional well-being.
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But this impacts all of us, and often tragically.
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As Catholics, we know that God can heal all our sufferings, but we also know that He works actively in the world and in His Church.
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Many with emotional and mental sufferings don't know where to turn or where to get help when they need it, especially finding someone they can trust.
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One little-known individual who has helped thousands of people is Conrad Barz.
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Barz's system of affirmation therapy, based on the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, is perhaps one of the least-known and most-needed remedies to the sufferings that many today endure.
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I'm going to be speaking today to a man whose life work is to communicate to people the most essential truths we all need to know and be reminded of.
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That God loves us, that He made us perfect in His image, that though we are fallen through the incredible love God has for us, He calls us to live in His friendship in the most beautiful and compassionate way.
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And that is, it's possible, however much we've suffered, or however much we've ourselves departed from God's friendship, to return to Him, to find peace in our lives, and to find peace within ourselves.
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Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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We're speaking today with Christopher McDonald, who is a therapist practicing Conrad Barz's therapy.
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Thank you, John Henry. Thank you for having me on.
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Chris, if you can tell us a little bit about Conrad Barz.
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Well, Conrad Barz and his partner, Anna Terua, are both of the Netherlands.
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And in the 1940s, they were both psychoanalysts following the theories of Freud.
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And they were both disillusioned by the therapy, first and foremost, because it wasn't effective.
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But also because it wasn't consummate with the teachings of the church about human nature.
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Freud had a lot of good things to say, but at the same time, they felt it wasn't quite right.
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And so they were both disillusioned, and they came across Thomas Aquinas through a redemptorist priest
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And when they read the work, they found that it confirmed their own experience with clients.
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And so they decided to develop a system of therapy based on the writings of Aquinas,
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as well as some of the modern discoveries that are well-established in psychology.
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One of the key aspects of the therapy is the concept of affirmation.
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And affirmation is, as Barz and Terua have written about,
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is quite different from the affirmation that we hear about in pop psychology.
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It has nothing to do with positive statements that we may say to ourselves or to others,
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you know, standing in the mirror and running through these lists of positive statements.
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Another key part of the Barz and Terua model is that human beings are basically rational,
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and that though we have our emotions, and our emotions are very, very important,
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and they give us important information and they support us,
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that our free will and rationality are key to living a Christian life, a good life, and being happy.
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We hear a lot about affirmation today, in fact.
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we really have to affirm people in where they're at.
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You know, if someone presents as transgender or LGBT or whatnot,
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What affirmation is, is the idea is to make firm affirmation, to make solid a person.
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A way of looking at affirmation is it's simply love, but from a psychological perspective.
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In this therapy, you deal also with different forms of denial that people have.
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Denial in this context has nothing to do with Freudian denial,
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In this case, it's the opposite of affirmation.
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it's, as we said, it's love, but looking at it from a psychological point of view.
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We're alive, but we're not psychologically alive yet.
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And that comes through other people, mainly our parents.
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And our parents are there principally to affirm us.
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And what they're doing is they are being completely present to us,
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I am experiencing not only my goodness, but my unique goodness,
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that I am like no other, that I'm a unique expression of God.
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Now, that's something that's, you know, we can all say,
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But to actually feel that, to actually experience that.
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it's not something you can describe to somebody.
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It's just, it's experienced and understood by that person
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most people do not have that, or it's very weakened.
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There isn't this sense of my own unique goodness.
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And so it's principally for parents and other educators
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with the understanding that really is, in a way,
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that they are unique creatures of God Almighty,
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than they are children of your own as a parent.
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Well, what I was talking about was emotional affirmation.
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that, again, we come to experience our own unique goodness.
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And intellectual affirmation is instilling objective truth,
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helping the children to see the eternal truths,
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I was in psychology myself prior to this life that I'm in now,
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and really did not come across this in my studies.
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She was dedicated to the Bars True model back in the 90s.
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And she felt that I had a vocation to this kind of work.
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I was doing some teaching and involved in literature.
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And she felt, no, you're actually the kind of person we want.
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So she trained me, and then I worked in the agency,
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What do you think that Bars' therapy has for us today, especially?
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Because we're in a very unique time in history.
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There's just an unbelievable amount of distortion going on,
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a breakup of just, there's a lot of mental sickness.
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Even today is not even recognized as mental sickness.
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How do you feel that the Bars method really applies today?
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They don't know what it is, but they're frustrated.
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They feel like children in adult bodies, essentially.
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And they're, it's very difficult for them to fully realize their vocation to serve God
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because they're, they're essentially licking their wounds.
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They're just trying to survive, which of course is going to affect their church.
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But this is, this is pervasive among all strata of society, all races.
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Doesn't matter if you come from money or you don't come from money.
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If you don't have truly loving, authentically affirming parents or somebody in your life,
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you're going to, you're going to have problems.
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So you look at the breakdown of the family today,
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and you look how the family's being destructured today.
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This is having a devastating effect on the children who grow up,
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So they cannot adequately affirm their children.
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And you see the slow erosion of the family, the slow erosion of society,
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the slow erosion of, if I may say so, of the church.
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Can you sort of identify in our culture some things that really is this lack of affirmation
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You might say that we live in a culture of the unaffirmed.
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It's so pervasive that we've created a culture around being unaffirmed.
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So if you notice, everything is about not wanting to offend anybody,
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And what that really is, if I'm saying, I'm okay, you're okay,
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and I won't say anything, and I won't manifest any quote-unquote microaggressions against you,
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I don't want to make you mad at me because it'll make me feel rejected and unloved.
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So you've got this society of very fragile people,
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And so we create these false ideologies to justify and to rationalize this vulnerability that we have.
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And you can see this, for example, in the whole woke culture.
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You see this in this idea of microaggression, don't hurt my feelings.
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But at the same time, one of the key elements of being unaffirmed is frustration.
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If you look in the riots that took place in the United States over the summer,
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And I would say that the real frustration that these people are experiencing
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They're feeling unloved, and they don't know why.
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When you have that psychic birth, you have a sense of identity, that I am unique.
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But if you don't have that sense of identity, you attach to the identity of the group.
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So if it be Black Lives Matter or Antifa, just name the group.
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My identity comes from that group because I don't have my own identity.
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And of course, as we can see, that's a very dangerous thing.
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Part of the – I mean, we deal with a lot of hard situations.
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And one of the things that happens is people have a lot of deficits
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And so, you know, people might say, oh, yeah, of course I want to identify with somebody else
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because I've got all sorts of problems and issues.
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I'm not, you know, I'm not a star at this or that.
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Well, there is affirmation where there is authentic love.
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And the good news is that if you didn't get the affirmation as a child, you can still get it.
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That if you need that kind of psychological development, you can get it by being in the presence of people
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That might mean you might have to go to – they can seek professional help.
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There may be certain religious who are just very authentically loving people who can really help you and help you develop.
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You know, there was – I was – two people come to mind when I think of people who have grown up in very difficult circumstances.
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Two people – one is Ben Carson and the other one is Clarence Thomas.
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But each of them had very affirming people in his life.
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Ben Carson had his mother and Clarence Thomas had his grandfather.
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And they were affirming presences that strengthened them.
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And they were able to make it through and come out with a – an esteem and solidity and a confidence.
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And even if they were poor, even if – as these two were, they were very poor.
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But they were able to make it through and come out of the poverty because they had affirming, loving people in their lives.
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One of the probably complications, I guess you'd say, or of today's day and age is that people drown themselves not in communication with people per se, but in – well, sort of communication with people.
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You know, I think people are spending countless hours today distracted from life on their devices.
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And how would that fit in to what Barr's taught?
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In this day and age, we have all kinds of escapisms.
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Because if I'm feeling bad about myself, if I'm feeling despair, depressed, anxious, I want something that's going to try to give me some kind of relief, distract me from my feelings.
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And unfortunately, that is the formula for addictions.
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They fall easily to addictions because they're looking for that – they're looking to be affirmed.
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And those video games can give them that shot in the arm.
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And the brain says, yes, but this activity, you know, it made you high.
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And so we see distractions, addictions, all kinds of escapisms taking place in our society.
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This therapy is started by a Catholic and is a Catholic itself.
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So how might Our Lady, for instance, play into this?
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If you think of Our Lady, you think of someone – think of the Magnificat, for example.
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Someone who's completely open and receptive, who's pondering the love of God in her heart.
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And one of the key aspects of healing in this therapy is learning how to be receptive.
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And both are important, but actually it's the receptivity that's primary.
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And by opening ourselves, we allow ourselves to receive God's love, whether it be through other people or, say, through nature, for example, or through God directly.
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But when people run firm, they're often very self-protective.
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So it's trying to gently coax the client to open him or herself to receive the love of God that comes through the therapist or other people that are in the dark zone.
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It's illegal to do reparative therapy for LGBT people to try and get those who even want to leave the homosexual lifestyle to give them help.
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So how can people get this when they might be cut off?
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And you can look and find there's a section of the rubric, Find a Therapist.
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And you can look specifically for the Bars and Chirula model, those who practice that.
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And then you can call them and either schedule something in person or by distance.
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You can also go on to the Dr. Bars website, Conrad Bars.
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And there'll be some very important information on there for people.
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What would be, you know, some last thoughts that you have that you'd want to share about
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this therapy, about our need for it right now, and about its potential benefits?
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Well, I think that first and foremost, this therapy offers real hope for people.
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And that it stays within the boundaries of what the Church teaches about God and about man.
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We don't fully understand truth because God is the truth.
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And the Church, in its wisdom through the Holy Spirit, has been able to give a lot of information
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And this therapy utilizes the wisdom of the Church.
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And I've seen in my own practice the effectiveness that it has.
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And I would say, and I have to say, it's interesting, that those people who see me who are already
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practicing Christians who have a true love for God, they do heal much more quickly than those
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Thank you, Chris, so very much for being with us on this episode of The John Henry Weston
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And if people wanted to reach out to you, are they able to do so?
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Or would you prefer that, you know, they just go to the catholictherapist.com?
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God bless all of you, and we'll catch you next time.
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