Mourning, Melancholia and the Clergy

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One of the things I come to understand over the years is that depression is simply part of the background noise for many clergy. And this holds true whether the individual in question is Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant or Evangelical Christian, male or female. This isn't to say that the cleric in question is incapacitated. Far from it in fact. Many of the clergy I know who are depressed are rather high functioning and often considered to be successful and even exemplary examples of pastoral ministry in their tradition.

But depressed they are nevertheless.

Freud somewhere argued that depression is a result of the loss of one's love object. In Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the love object is that person or project in which I invested my libidinous energies. While the term libido now has sexual connotations, this was not the case for Freud. Rather libido, was more a generic term for psychic energy (though granted, this energy can, and often is, in Freud's view sexual in character).

When that love object is lost, whether literally or figuratively, I experience depression, or (to use Freud's term) melancholia. Robert Clark, a Reader in English at the University of East Anglia​, in his brief essay on Freud's essay on depression, “Mourning and Melancholia”> (1917), writes that Freud thinks of depression or

melancholia as a “profoundly painful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, inhibition of all activity, and a lowering of the self-regarding feelings to a degree that finds utterance in self-reproaches and self-revilings, and culminates in a delusional expectation of punishment.” (Penguin Freud Library, Vol. 11, p. 248).

And again, as I said a moment ago, while melancholia results from “the death of a loved person, but it might also occur when something has been lost as an object of love, or even when 'one cannot see clearly what has been lost. (254).”

Mourning, on the other hand, has a slightly different content. Again, as Clark writes, “In mourning 'it is the world that has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself' (254).” Clinically, “Freud noted that melancholics were inclined to accuse themselves of many failings in an entirely unjustified way, and noted that the accusations were such as should have been more correctly directed against someone whom the patient loves or has loved.”

Freud's description of depression then is of loss and anger turned inward against the ego or the “I” that should, more reasonably, be directed outward at those who have abandoned or failed me (and again, this might be literally or symbolically). While there is much that I would reject in Freud, it seems to me that his insight into depression is profound. It is all the more profound as I think about my own, and other's, experiences in ministry.

Loss is inseparable from ministry because it is inseparable from human life in general and the Christian life in particular. It is hard, for example, to read the sayings of the desert fathers and not come away with the realization that mourning is essential to the Christian life. For example, Abba Poeman says that “He who wishes to purify his faults purifies them with tears. . . . ; for weeping is the way the Scriptures and our fathers give us, when they say, 'Weep!' Truly, there is no other way than this.” And Isaac the Syrian goes so far as to say “The man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregation of men.”

But if mourning is essential to the spiritual life, melancholia/depression has no place and reflects mourning that has gone terribly wrong. Again, as Freud reminds us, in mourning, I come to sense the poverty of the world—m ourning (to transpose Freud into an anthropology more consonant with the fathers) is the realization that though this world is a great and beautiful gift, it is nevertheless “transitory.” It is only to the degree that I realize this that, as St Gregory the Great somewhere says, I am able “to stretch out the mind in humility to God and [my] neighbor.” Mourning is what helps “preserve patience against offered insults and, with patience guarded, to repel the pain of malice from the heart.” Mourning is to foundation of my love of the poor and makes it possible for me to “give [my] property to the poor, not to covet that of others, to esteem the friend in God, on God's account to love even those who are hostile.” It is through mourning that I am able to be and lead others to become evermore that “new creature whom the Master of the nations seeks with watchful eye amid the other disciples, saying: 'If, then, any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away. Behold all things are made new' (2 Cor. 5:17).”

While mourning and melancholia are similar, they are not the same. Worse, if we are not careful we can easily confuse mourning and melancholia. It is unwise to expect clergy, or for clergy to expect from ourselves, a life of selfless service if we are not also clear that such service is different in tone and content from depression. I think rather too easily we all of us—whether clergy or not—allow ourselves to confuse mourning and melancholia; too easily when we ought to counsel detachment we are instead fostering depression.

Too simply be angry with myself, to see my own failings and shortcomings in isolation from any larger content that realizes my own (and other's) weakness is a way of life that is psychologically and spiritually unsustainable.

I am very much taken by St Gregory the Great's notion that the mournful person is able to stretch out, in humility, his mind to God and neighbor. To understand humility as if it were some species of melancholia is, I think, to misunderstand humility. Yes because of my manifold sins and transgressions, I fall short of the glory of God (see Rms 3.12). But do I realize that even if I were not sinful, I would—; as a creature—fall short of the Divine Glory?

Real mourning—as opposed to its counterfeit, melancholia—gives birth to real humility. And what is this real humility? I think St Gregory Nyssa offers a good a description as any I've read:

This is true perfection: not to avoid a wicked life because like slaves we severely fear punishment, not to do good because we hope for rewards, as if cashing in on the virtuous life by some business-like arrangement. On the contrary, disregarding all those things for which we hope and which have been reserved by promise, we regard falling from God's friendship as the only thing dreadful and we consider becoming God's friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire. This, as I have said, is the perfection of life.

To befriend God and neighbor is, it seems to me, the fruit of humility and a heart that mourns for its own sins and the sins of the world.

Many clergy struggle valiantly to be friends with God and neighbor But their struggles are often undermined by their own, and others, confusion of melancholia and depression. Thinking about this I wonder if it might not be helpful for clergy, but also for all of us who love Christ, if we made a bit more room in our communities for saying goodbye and seeing all the little (and great) losses of life as blessings and not curses?

Nicholas Ray in his essay (“ Trauer und Melancholie”) on Freud's theory of depresstiont, writes that for Freud, mourning is “not – or at least is not only – a process of remembrance; it is a labour of severance, of slowly cutting ties with what has gone. The painful re-traversal of memories and expectations connected to the lost object is undertaken by the psyche with a separative aim in view.”

Watching the different disagreements and divisions that seem to be inflicting the Orthodox Church in the States, as well as the suffering of my fellow clergy, I wonder, if in fact we have not in someway undercut the hard work of mourning that Freud and the fathers describe? And, if we have, I wonder, what is the way back?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Informality. Formality and Spiritual Formation: More Thoughts from CAPS

Friday afternoon at CAPS I sat in a plenary session by Saul Cruz entitled “Hope and Healing through Care and Counsel to the Suffering in the World.” Together with his wife Pilar, Saul is co-director of Armonia Ministries. Together this husband and wife team ministry heir to the poor communities in both urban and rural areas in Mexico. Saul is by profession a psychologist and family therapist, and has also been a university lecturer.

Unfortunately because I had to take care of details for a funeral in my parish back in Canton, I was in and out of the presentation. One thing I did hear was the presenters argument that (I'm quoting from my notes):

Transformation require NOT that I solve your problem, but rather help you accept RESPONSIBILITY for your own life. In this process, I promise to walk along side you—but I cannot replace you in your own life. For example, if a mother brings me her children, I can't raise her children for her—I can't become their mother—but I can offer to help her accept and bear her responsibility for her own children.

The fruit if this approach (again, quoting my notes on the speaker's presentation) is that “not only is the other person transformed, but I am transformed with them.”

Thinking about the informal approach popular among Evangelical Christians, I wonder, if something similar might be necessary with Orthodox missionary activity especially here in the US. My reason for asking this is that so few Americans have much background that lends itself to the Gospel in its fullness.

Unlike the New Testament and early patristic era, we seem to lack (or maybe more accurately, devalue) the great cultural touchstones of the ancient world, moral law and philosophy, that someone like St Justin Martyr saw as the two great preparations for Jewish and Greek acceptance of the Gospel. Large segments of those we would reach out to have little, if any, appreciation for philosophical reasoning (and indeed, this would include not a few Orthodox Christians among both the laity and the clergy). As for the moral law, if they think of it at all, many Americans see morality and natural law as oppressive and opposed to freedom, self-expression and self-determination (and again, this is so not simply generally, but also among many Orthodox Christian laity and clergy).

The value of a more informal approach in the current pastoral circumstances can be seen in two ways. First, there is the positive value of friendship in the spiritual life. To take only one example from the patristic era, there is the friendship of St Basil and St John Chrysostom. Each was able to support and encourage the other as he sought to do the will of God for his own life.

Spiritual friendship has deep roots not only in the tradition of the Orthodox East, but also the Catholic West. There is for example in the spiritual tradition of the ancient Celtic Church the notion of the “soul friend” or in Gaelic the anam cara. On his blog “ Soul Friend,” Chuck Huckaby writes that in “a culture steeped in the idolatry of individualism we call postmodernism, nascent attempts at creating community and godly order all too often tilt to the opposite extreme of cultic authoritarianism. In contrast, the "Soul Friend" seeks to build community and establish order based on the model of sacrificial servanthood, patient instruction and gentle admonition.”

Moving beyond the arena of Celtic Christianity, there is also the role of spiritual friendship in the monastic tradition—again both East and West. I mentioned above the example of Chrysostom and Basil, there is also the example of the 6 ^th century elders and saints Barsaniphus and John.

Moving to western monastic life, we have the example of the father of monastic life in the West St Benedict. Add to this, the example of Francis of Assisi and his companions as well as the life and ministry ofBernard of Clairvauxthe great monastic reformer and the work of one of his “spiritual sons,” the great English saint and author Ailred of Rievaulx who wrote, among other things, a treatise entitled “ Spiritual Friendship.”

Huckably's point about “cultic authoritarianism” speaks to my rationale for a more informal approach to Orthodox outreach and evangelism. Looking back on my own personal and pastoral experience, I realize more and more the importance of robust tradition of both moral law and philosophical reasoning in the development of a health sense of self. Again both in my own early life and in my pastoral experience, the general cultural absence of these twin preparations for the Gospel leaves the developing self deeply wounded.

Switching if I may to a more clinical approach, the wounding of the self, or more accurately the sense of self, is part of who in the psychoanalytic tradition we understand the development of a personality disorder, or a character disorders. According to the American Psychiatric Association, personality disorders are characterized by "an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual who exhibits it".

Within the pastoral sphere, I often see people with avoidant personality disorder or (again to borrow from the APA): a "pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:

1. Avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection

2. Is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked

3. Shows restraint initiating intimate relationships because of the fear of being ashamed, ridiculed, or rejected due to severe low self-worth.

4. Is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations

5. Is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy

6. Views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others

7. Is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing.”

Those who suffer from an avoidant style of relating to self and others often will look to the formality and structure of the Orthodox Church to serve in place of their own underdeveloped and wounded sense of self. In other words, rather than developing a healthy and robust sense of self, with all that implies about accepting one's strengths and limitations as well as being responsible for one's decisions, a significant minority of people look to religion.

In the case of the converts I've know this means that the look to the Church, and especially the liturgical /ascetical tradition of the Church, to offer externally the structure to their lives that should emerge from their own sense of self.

Because the Church, and especially her liturgical and ascetical praxis, serve as person's ego (which again has been wounded), if the the formality of the Church's tradition is not balanced with a more informal approach, we risk confirming and deepening the very deficient sense of self that has caused the person so much suffering in life. Or, to put it more directly, the weight of the Church's tradition crushes already fragile sense of self.

This is why, I think, we often see such polemical defenses of their new tradition from many converts (and not just Orthodox Christians converts): The tradition has come to serve as the self and in those struggling with a personality disorder (unlike a more typical psychopathology such as depression) the fault for their own unhappiness is always external. And how could it be otherwise, since there is no healthy, internal sense of self that can bear the responsibility for their pain.

Again this I think is the great wisdom of the Evangelical Christian approach to ministry, outreach and evangelism in general and Saul Cruz's own work in particular. Informality is I think a good beginning. It is not sufficiently certainly, we need to introduce and incorporate the person in to Great Tradition and this not only intellectually but also sacramentally. Why? Not only because of the wisdom of tradition and the objective importance of the sacraments for the life of faith, but for sound anthropological reasons. We need the Great Tradition, and especially its liturgical and ascetical witness, to develop the sound and wholesome view of self that many of us lack.

If people cannot bear a formal beginning—even if l the desire it like an addict does his drug—this does not mean we can forgo the formality of the Church. We cannot come to wholeness of being without the liturgical and ascetical tradition of the Church. If their cultural absence has made them seem foreign and deadly to us and so necessitates a more, indirect approach to the life of grace, this does not mean that the moral, philosophical, liturgical and ascetical elements of Tradition of the Church are optional. To think they are is to confuse sound, Christ-centered, spiritual formation with pedagogy.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Erikson and Orthodox Pastoral Care

(This is a re-write of an earlier post that had a number of errors.  I'm using a new netbook with a smaller key board and screen, so my already minimal editing skills are being rather stretched.)

I'm sitting in the airport (my flights been delayed 1 hour and 20 minutes) on my way home from to the CAPS International Conference in Orlando, FL. Yes, I know, I've got a tough life—actually what I have is an incredibly supportive wife who encourages me in my undeniable eccentric priestly ministry.
In addition to being able to speak with colleagues, I did a poster presentation this year. My presentation—based based on a paper I presented at a conference last year—is a comparison of the. work of Erik Erikson and St Maximos the Confessor. Specifically, I'm looking at how they both look at the experience of failure.
While I say more on the content of my presentation later, as with most my academic work in psychology, the paper my presentation is based is more theoretical than applicative in orientation. My goal is to try and deepen how we in psychology understand the human person. So, my concern is not with St Maximos as such, but with (in the present case) the developmental theory of articulated by the psychologist Erik Erikson.
For those who know me, my interest in doing this is no particular mystery—this is simply a matter of transposing my own spiritual journey from the personal to the theoretical. In other words, my own spiritual life, my own faith as an Orthodox Christian, and my own admittedly eccentric ministry as a priest for that matter, grew out of my interest in psychology. For me, reflecting on Erikson (in the present case) is what inspired me to draw closer to Christ and His Church. Sort of like what the fathers call “natural contemplation,” or a reflection on creation that points the soul beyond creation to the Creator.
So why am I interested in Erikson's work?
One of the most interesting things about Erikson's development theory is that it is teleological. Human growth and development is not a matter of the blind working out of our genetic inheritance in response to environmental stimulus. To be sure as a disciple of Freud, the body (and thus later genetic research) has a role to play in Erikson's theory, but (unlike Freud) Erikson does not limit human development to simply the deterministic working out of bodily needs.
For Erikson human development not only has an identifiable goal it proceeds along following identifiable benchmarks. And not only that, there in Erikson's view of the matter there are also the possibility for missteps. These missteps are possible throughout life and while not necessarily fatal to our consonant development, neither are they inconsequential. At any point along the way, I can at any step off the path of wholesome development that would ordinarily lead from birth to death.
This potential for failure begins in infancy when the new born and is my constant companion throughout my life. It is this possibility of failure that I find most interesting in Erikson's work. Like other, more humanistic psychologists, Erikson has a generally optimistic view of potential. Unlike these other thinkers, however, he is clear about the possibility of failure—and this failure is one that increasingly is a consequence of the misuse of my own freedom.
The summit of human development is ego integrity. At this stage I come (or not) to embrace the totality of my life with all its successes and failures. Part of this embrace is the appreciative acceptance of my own contingency, that my life is the product not only on my genetic inheritance and free decisions, but also of factors over which I have no control (like the culture in which I am born and raised) and which could in fact have been different.
But I can also come to a point in which I refuse to be thankful for my life; I can deny or resent my failures just as I can overvalue or minimize my successes. Whatever the concrete form my lack of acceptance takes, it is grounded in a refusal of my own contingency as the condition of possibility for my own life. It is here, in my exercise (or not) of what Erikson calls the virtue of wisdom, that I have the opportunity to find not only myself, but also to reach out in beyond the limits of my own life and embrace others in compassion.
While Erikson's work fall short of the Church's understanding of theosis (deification) as the goal of human life, his work nevertheless articulates much of the human dimension of this process. In doing so, I think, Erikson's work has a valuable contribution to make to Orthodox pastoral care.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory

What Went Wrong?

As I have thought about the current economic world situation as well as some of the struggles facing the Orthodox Church in the United States, I have begun to wonder if there are not certain parallels.  Specifically, a shared lack of awareness of, or maybe indifference to, the human vocation to be wise stewards of the gifts we have been given by a loving and merciful God.

One thing that has helped me understand somewhat the struggles I see in the Church are the findings of a relatively new branch of the social sciences, the economic study of religion.  Applying economic theory, scholars in this discipline work to understand the different choices made in the area religion.

Now one of the different groups I am associated with is Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), based in Bozeman, MT and chaired by the author of the essay I have posted here today, John Baden. 

In some John's earlier scholarship, he looked at how different religious political groups manage the stewardship of shared goods (the "tragedy of the commons").  I thought I word re-post some of Dr Baden's columns here to stimulate some conversation especially on the life of the Church.

As always, your comments, thoughts, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

This column was prompted by the question: "Doesn¹t today's economic distress demolish the case for capitalism and free markets?"

Some, who inquired gleefully, anticipated my discomfort; others were genuinely curious and concerned. All were confused about the complex causes of our economic chaos.

I hope this helps clarify their thinking, but first a disclaimer: I'm not a general economist who knows macroeconomics, money and banking, and international trade. Rather, I'm a retired professor and farmer who has studied and written academic articles and books on political economy for 40 years. I focus on the ways in which institutions, that is culture, ethical norms, and law, influence wealth, opportunities, and strategic behavior.

Let's dismiss the claim that the greed of Wall Street and investment bankers caused our distress. Greed is ubiquitous, perhaps for evolutionary reasons. Jewish theologians have wrestled with this character flaw for three thousand years. Yet, Israeli politics remain plagued with pathological greed.

Blaming greed is like condemning gravity; both endure. Responsible people recognize and utilize these forces rather than deny them. It's most constructive to design institutions that contain and direct greed into productive channels, just as engineers put gravity to use in building arches. Obviously, our institutions are flawed, greed has run amuck, and innocent as well as complicit folks are hurt.

Let's first consider the basic function of capitalism. Its success lies in efficiently allocating capital toward profit, the difference between costs and returns. When the system works, market prices provide the information and the incentives to invest where legal returns are greatest.

But this is perhaps not capitalism's greatest asset. In addition to being an engine of prosperity, only free markets spontaneously and peacefully organize the daily, voluntary interactions of millions of primarily self-interested individuals.

Socialism works poorly because it is unable to efficiently coordinate and allocate resources. Hence, it never generates wealth for the masses but socialist elites enjoy privilege and plenty. Their greed rigs the game to their advantage. Likewise, America's investment bankers have rented and bribed politicians to rig the game to socialize risks and privatize profits. Fannie and Freddie's failures and rich rewards to former managers, $100 million to one, are prime examples.

Our current problems flow largely from Wall Street bankers' financial innovations. They discovered ways to profit by misallocating capital, and in the process they decoupled risk from their returns. Under legislation for which they lobbied, they were rewarded for pumping evermore capital into overvalued housing. Viewing their houses as ATMs, people bought consumer goods far beyond their means. (Expect massive credit card default next.)

Investment bankers arranged highly arcane financial instruments covering their loans with understated risks. Loans were bundled, sold internationally, and insured by American International Group (just bailed out with nearly $125 billion from the federal government) among others. This process endured as poor risk management was fostered by profits from capital misallocation.

Further, Wall Street adults who should have been in charge and responsible, didn't understand the complex, mathematical models directing investment decisions. Senior management ignored the admonition to loan money only to those likely to pay it back.

While some bankers knew better, the net result of bad loans is the erosion of capital. Assuming recovery, we need institutional reforms that inhibit capital misallocation. For example, removing legal requirements to make loans when risks are not reflected in interest rates. This generates loss while stressing people, especially the poor.

When politicians allocate capital, we can't expect efficiency, but corruption by special interests is certain. Investment banks benefited from this political arrangement. With the Bush Administration encouraging sub-prime lending (the "Ownership Society"), these home loans grew from 2 percent in 2002 to 30 percent in 2006. In October of 2004, President Bush said, "We're creating...an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property."

Sub-prime loans were bundled into Collateralized Debt Obligations and rated AAA. With this high rating, investment-banking firms neglected due diligence and sold the bundles worldwide. Defaults and massive write-offs naturally followed, banks collapsed, and we suffer.

That's what went wrong.

John Baden is Chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), based in Bozeman, MT.

Athens and Jerusalem, part 2

I have received several emails regarding my interviews with the host of "Our Life in Christ," on Ancient Faith Radio ((you can download the interviews here
and here). Below is an edited version of the second email I wrote to one listener, T.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Dear T.,

Your comments about understanding the limits of science (in your case __________, in mine psychology) are right on target. Much of the resistance I think to psychology comes out of not simply a lack of awareness of what psychology does and doesn't offer, but a more fundamental lack of a sound philosophy of science. I hasten to add at this point, a deficient philosophy of science is not limited to non-scientists—very rarely do psychologists seem to understand the limits of our own discipline. Psychotherapy, to take but one example, does not deal in certainties, but probabilities that are always, and necessarily, subject to revision and even rejection. In this sense, my therapeutic work is rather limited in what it can accomplish.

But for all its limits, I think psychology offers us a useful anthropological vision. This is less so in particular and more in a general or foundational sense. When evaluating any psychological theory or practice I return again to the provisional nature of all science. To me at least this suggests that psychology offers us a dynamic view of the human person. So not only are our findings are always subject to revision, any psychological theory that neglects to take account of the dynamic character of human life is in need of correction.

Taken within its own limits as a science, psychology is a rather humble endeavor. We are not concerned with articulating a unified theory of life, the universe and everything. Or even for that matter of what it means to be human. Psychology is the science of human dynamism and as such a great partner to Christian anthropology's view of the inherent and transcendent openness of the human. It is interesting that when one reads personality theorists, they are generally rather dismissive of static thinking or rigid patterns of behavior. While this is often hinted at by the social and political liberalism of the psychologist, this is accidental to the science of psychology as such. In fact I would suggest that the liberalism of psychology—at least in an American context—reflects not simply the character of psychologists, but a certain tendency in some quarters of American society to a moralizing anthropological vision that is "allergic" to a dynamic and transcendent view of the person.

You observed, correctly I think, that many clergy adopt uncritically pop psychology. In recent weeks, for example, I have pointed out to clergy that the Myers-Briggs Personality Test is NOT a valid (in the sense of validated) psychological test. From the point of view of science, the Myers-Briggs tells us nothing about personality. Indeed personality theory is an area of great debate in psychology precisely because it does not lend itself to empirical verification. This does not mean we have to dismiss the Myers-Briggs or personality theory, but it does mean that we need to be clear that in using it we are in the realm not of quantitative but qualitative science.

Clergy, however, will often pick up pop psychology without every applying the same standards that they would apply to any other philosophical or theological vision. Or, and here my cynicism is clear for all to see, I suspect that they do evaluate pop psychology with the same rigor they apply to their philosophical and theological reflections—which is to say they aren't very rigorous at all. Observing over the years the use of psychology by clergy I have come to think that—for all the seriousness with which they may speak—there is often a rather painful lack of intellectual rigor in how most clergy approach their own theological and philosophical patrimony. Yes, certainly, they are very good about quoting Scripture or the Fathers. But for all their quotations and systems building, the intellectual rigor is simply not there. If it were, then I suspect they would not be so easily swayed by pop psychology.

In other words, psychology is in my view something of a test case. How rigorous and thoughtful are we about the content of the Christian tradition and its implications for the pastoral life of the Church? Too easily, and here I will conclude and invite your comments, we confuse anger with conviction, bullying with real authority and rigid and narrow thinking with fidelity to the living witness of the Holy Spirit not only in the past but in the present.

Again, thank you for your comments.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

My Interview on "Our Life In Christ" (Ancient Faith Radio)

Above: Our Life in Christ, program hosts Steven Robinson and Bill Gould,

Interview with Fr. Gregory Jensen on Psychology, Part One
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

From the program web page:

Steve interviews Fr. Gregory Jensen, an Orthodox priest and psychologist. Fr. Gregory discusses the place of clinical psychology within Orthodox spirituality, particularly as it relates to pastoral care and confession.

You download the interview as an mp3 by clicking here: Our Life in Christ.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory