As a lifelong "wannabe" or (more positively) "amateur" psychologist, I have learned most about the human person from those outside of the credentialed, academic community. "Amateur" does not primarily mean untrained, unprofessional, or inferior. From the root word "amo" it means love: you do it or study it for love, not for achievement or money or recognition. In that sense, of course, a professional who truly professes also loves the work. I have learned much from mainline psychologists including Ericson, Jung, Freud, Horney, Szaz, and others. Nevertheless my mentors have largely been maverick, original, amateur thinkers, well beyond the limitations of the science of psychology. In the time order in which I encountered them:
1. Philosophical Personalism.
Classically in Martin Buber's "I-Thou" this is fascination with the human person in its ineffable, even mystical dignity, depth, freedom, destiny, encounter with the other, community, and imagining of the Divine. Maritain, Marcel, Hildebrandt, Day, Maurin, Marcel, Ellul, Stein, Ratzinger, and John Paul II. In its strongest Catholic expressions it builds upon as it completes classic Thomistic realism and objectivity in metaphysics and epistemology.
2. Ivan Illich.
A wildly distinctive, eccentric, iconoclastic, anarchistic yet profoundly Catholic, even mystical personalist, a disciple of Maritain, Illich boldly illustrated in life and writing the person as agent, in freedom and convivial relationships/communities, of his destiny. He radically critiqued a modernity gone madly mechanistic, techno-manic, bureaucratic, meritocratic, clericalist, over-schooled but under-educated. Starkly an individual, he is neither member nor founder of a school (he detested schools.) But his thought is congenial with a group of thinkers (Ellul, Freire, Day/Maurin, Maritain, Goodman, Fromm, Holt) as radically anti-bourgeois but fiercely opposed to classical economic, class-war Marxism, to cultural Freudian-Marxism (Marcuse, Riek), to political liberalism, and to neo-liberal capitalist Republicanism. He is a forceful expression of Catholic subsidiarity.
3. Philip Rieff and Triumph of the Therapeutic.
At the very beginning of the Cultural Revolution this brilliant, Jewish cultural critic grasped the form of the world-shattering change occurring: the renunciation of traditions of morality, restrain, and responsibility in favor of the therapeutic, the enhancement of the narcissistic, expansive, indulged Self. His focus was not on the profession of psychology itself, but rather on the pervasive and profound cultural shift fueled by a popularized psychology. This is a classic that lives beyond its time.
4. Fr. Charles Curran. (Not the dissident moral theologian of the same name and time.) Curran worked with Carl Rogers but developed his ideas in a Catholic direction with pronounced emphasis on the importance of listening, particularly in education including on the part of the teacher. He is a sharp contrast to (ex-priest-Maryknoller) Eugene Kennedy who was popular at the time in developing Rogerian thinking to dissent from Catholic traditions.
5. Charismatic Practices of Healing and Deliverance of Evil Spirit's. Pentecostalism, including its Catholic form, retrieved practices of faith healing and deliverance within a wholistic, classic understanding of the human person. Ruth Carter Stapleton developed a sophisticated "healing of memories" which included a psychological remembrance of earlier traumas with a trust in the person of Jesus and the concrete workings of the Holy Spirit. Neil Lozano similarly developed a practice of deliverance from evil spirits which is theologically sound, focused on Jesus and the Holy Spirit in a gentle manner, and sophisticated psychologically in the recall of hurtful memories. These are known only to small niches and entirely ignored in Catholic schools psychology.
6. Paul Vitz's Critique of Psychology as Religion. Formerly at NYU, this convert to Catholicism has written a series of books which critique psychology from within: Psychology as a Religion, The Christian Unconscious of Sigmund Freud, Faith of the Fatherless, and others. He psychoanalyzes the psychoanalysts! (BTW he directed my daughter's doctoral dissertation on the role of beauty in therapy.)
7. Theology of the Body of St. Pope John Paul II. Reflecting on the anthropology of Genesis, these insights into gender/body/sexuality transformed my own life and represent THE authoritative answer to the sexual revolution and the the most profoundly creative, yet orthodox development in Catholic theology of the 20th century.
8. Mimetic anthropology of Rene Girard. Especially as popularized by the gifted Gil Baile, this innovative body of thought opens an breathtaking window into the human person and community based upon our mimetic nature and sacrificial sacrifice.
9. Scrutinies of Kiko Arguello and the Neocatechumenate. A step within the extraordinary itinerary of faith, the scrutiny, this involves lay catechists, without any professional training, scrutinizing (in the power of the Holy Spirit, much like the charismatic stuff above and 12-step below) the person's past and present for impediments to the action of God. Having observed it myself during my participation, I attest that it is miraculous.
10. 12-Step Recovery Program. This approach to addiction is nothing short of miraculous. It's principles are deeply spiritual in the best sense. It doesn't seem to be congenial for all.
11. Reparative Therapy. Widely and mistakenly confused with "conversion therapy" (attempt to change a person's sexual inclinations), this is rather directed to "repair" wounds to one's sexuality which may contribute to disorder. I personally found this approach (in Joseph Nicolosi, Elizabeth Moberly) particularly helpful in identifying the nature, origin and path ahead for my own sexual issues which are unrelated to homosexuality.
12. Yuval Levin on Institutions. This measured Jewish, conservative moralist has highlighted the importance of institutions in a society gone madly individualistic, therapeutic and narcissistic. He sees that institutions (family, Church, school, military, politics, business) not only express our core values but also form our personalities, drawing us out of ourselves in the service of something greater. He is a perfect balance to the iconoclastic anarchy of Ivan Illich. It is not easy, but I think the two can be held together in a creative tension.
Conclusion.
These diverse, distinctive currents of thought countervail and correct the limitations of professional psychology as tending to the reductive, secular, liberal, individualistic, narcissistic.
More than that, they elaborate and enrich classic Catholic anthropology of the human person as created to image God in dignity, freedom, agency, community, chastity, integrity, simplicity and generosity.
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