Father Chad Ripperger On Psychological Wounds & How To Heal
In this post, I will share Father Chad Ripperger's analysis on spiritual and psychological wounds and how to heal. Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!
“(1) A wound is something which is inflicted by oneself or another, so there is some agency causing the wound. (2) A wound causes some harm to something good, i.e. there is something good which undergoes some type of damaging action. (3) When a wound occurs psychologically, there is some evil caused or associated with the good…. (4) A wound is something which normally causes pain. (5) A wound requires a healing process. (6) Only that which is psychologically capable of healing can heal. Likewise, in the psychological realm, only those with the proper psychological tools and resilience can heal. (7) The healing process regarding the wound can be accelerated by medicine. When we analyze the notion of a wound, there are several components that occur psychologically. The first is that when the person is wounded, the perception of the injury remains, either actually or potentially. It remains actually when it is present in the imagination or in the possible intellect. It remains potentially when the habit of association in the cogitative power is built up by maintaining the phantasm of the wound in the imagination. This habituates the cogitative power. Even if the person does not think about the injury for a long period of time, when the phantasm reoccurs in the imagination, the cogitative power will re-associate the injury in the memory. Also, since a wound is something which causes pain, the will and the concupiscible appetite will be habituated in sorrow at the presence of the image or concept of the injury and so the person with the wound will experience sorrow in the will or the sensitive passion of sorrow.”1
“A wound can heal intellectually (e.g. if someone forgives the person) while the cogitative power still retains the association of the person, event or thing with the pain, sorrow, and injury…. A psychological wound tends to debilitate the person psychologically. This comes from the fact that sorrow or any strong passion tends to captivate the soul…. Time heals psychological wounds, not per se but per accidens. It heals the wounds because over time, the person recalls the image less often, which causes the wound and the phantasm to fade from the memory…. Some of the virtues which aid in overcoming wounds are humility, meekness, fortitude, longsuffering, and patience…. Often those who suffer some psychological wound will lack emotional or appetitive stability because the sorrow of the wound will cause many other passions. Sorrow causes anger and since the wound is something which persists, the person suffering from a wound will find it difficult not to hold on to the anger arising from the sorrow.”2
“Those suffering from wounds must also be careful not to give in to the subtle form of delight or pleasure that arises when we experience passions according to our disposition. Over time, a wound will dispose the person to the passion of sorrow from which this pleasure can arise. Those who suffer wounds are prone to the passion of despair since the sorrow will seem unmitigated. They will also be prone to the passion of hatred since the sorrow will constantly remind them of the evil that they have suffered which will move them to hate the thing which causes the injury. This wound can be increased by desire insofar as sorrow can cause desire since the person who sorrows desires to be released from the evil that he suffers. Those who suffer wounds sometimes find themselves being inclined away from anything that requires social interaction. Since sorrow causes flight, those who are wounded will often seek refuge in isolation and quiet. As the wound ‘festers’ (habituates the various faculties of the soul), the person will find that social interaction will cause pain, not just with the person causing the wound, but with all people. Since we are inclined as human beings toward social interaction by virtue of the third category of inclination of the natural law, we receive a certain pleasure by fulfilling that inclination…. Those who have been wounded will often find themselves subject to many phobias (habits of fear).... Wounds have a great capacity to affect our judgment, which in turn can affect our spiritual life by drawing our attention to the wound rather than God.”3
“Those who have been wounded will often think that in meting out anger they are teaching others a lesson or something of this sort, but in fact their prudential judgments have been compromised. The healing of a wound requires a healing of each of the faculties involved in the wound. It requires a healing or purification of the memory. In addition to praying for the grace of forgetfulness, the person can work on trying not to think about the injury…. Reflection on how the directee himself has caused injuries to others can help him to see the injury he suffers in context. Trying to view the injury from the point of view of vicarious suffering as well as meditating on the injuries Christ suffered, Who was in no way of deserving them helps one to see how little one’s suffering is compared to Christ’s.”4
Our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 6:14-15 says, “For if you forgive other people for their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive your offenses.” On the topic of forgiving others, Father Ripperger says that it: “provides a great deal of psychological benefit. Forgiveness is the remitting or releasing from the debt of justice that one person owes to another because of some act which the person has committed against the other. For human beings, this has a profound impact. When we forgive someone, the possible intellect will judge and see the necessity of people practicing forgiveness for the sake of the common good. The will in letting go of the offense committed against him performs an act of detachment in which the good of vindication is let go. If we volitionally hold on to evils committed against us in order to seek vindication, it will flow over into the lower faculties and cause disorders, such as anger, sorrow, fear of never getting revenge, the passion of despair when one feels that he cannot be vindicated and feels helpless. Forgiveness affects the cogitative power by disassociating with the image of the other person the desire for vindication. This will cause a decrease in anger and so we can begin to see that forgiveness can actually have a cathartic effect. Passions will quiet down and memory can be healed, since in the memory the harm caused to self will be forgotten in light of the good we have done to the individual by forgiving him. Forgiveness must, however, be based in something real, i.e. we should forgive people when they are ignorant or sorry. If a person knowingly offends us and refuses to be sorry for it and continues offending, we should not extend our forgiveness exteriorly to them. We must always forgive them interiorly for our own benefit and because of Christ’s percept, but sometimes the exterior effects of our forgiveness should not be extended for the benefit of the person committing the sins. If, however, we find that even though he does not want to be sorry for what he has done because of the blindness which his sinning against us has caused, we should forgive him because he displays practical ignorance. Since his judgment is blinded, we can forgive him for what he does because he does not fully understand what he is doing.” 5
Detachment is one of the most critical things to a fruitful spiritual life and mental health. “Detachment sometimes called holy indifference… is an indifference in the appetitive faculties, in relation to a created object. Detachment has as its finality perfect charity. Detachment for the sensitive appetites consists in the cessation of all antecedent appetite. However, detachment is principally in the concupiscible appetite with respect to the passion of love. With perfect detachment in the concupiscible appetite, the appetite does not incline when its object comes into the imagination until reason indicates that it is to be pursued…. Detachment is absolutely necessary to obtain perfect mental health in relation to any created good. This follows from the fact that if we are attached (have the passion of love) to some created good, the passion will always affect judgment. Moreover, attachments indicate that the cogitative power is assessing the object according to the attachment… the danger consists in making the passion (i.e. the attachment) the principle of judgment…. Any attachment is inherently imperfect. Detachment in the will consists in the will choosing to turn away from the object of attachment by letting loose of it or by not pursuing it…. The will is normally the last to be purified of attachments since there can be volitional attachments without appetitive attachments.”6
“Detachment is key to overcoming (a) wounds and (b) avoiding being wounded. A wound is an injury which persists in something which is good. If we are attached from the good of self, then when it is injured, we take less offense at it. Since detachment is a lack of that habit of the passion of love in relation to created things and since sorrow arises out of love, those who are detached will not suffer sorrow when they are offended. Only someone who suffers from attachments is capable of being wounded. Further, the degree to which one can be wounded is in direct proportion to how attached one is to the thing which is injured, whether self or something in relation to self. Detachment also helps the person to be able to embrace vicarious suffering. We have already discussed vicarious [experienced in the imagination through the actions or feelings of another person] suffering elsewhere, but a reflection on it in the current context is helpful. Since vicarious suffering helps to give rationality and direction to one’s suffering, one can see the good in suffering, not in itself, of course, but insofar as through it one can gain many spiritual things for self and others. If those who are detached, and even those who are not, take Christ as their example in suffering, they will be able to make sense of the wound and overcome it much more rapidly since they can direct the suffering toward a rational end which will aid them psychologically. To this end, a strong devotion to the Sacred Heart, which was ‘bruised for our offenses,’ helps us to join our suffering to Christ, to see how He suffered so that we could emulate His example and gain the graces for ourselves and even for the person who caused the wound in order to overcome our trials and defects. Developing a spirit of mortification is indispensible, both in overcoming a wound and not suffering a wound when injuries are inflicted. Detachment will give a stability to a person's emotional life which can be turbulent when the person is wounded.”7
“Forgiveness also directly affects the wound…. Forgiveness is an action in which the person lets go of the injury. If the person causing the injury or wound is sorry, the directee can be moved to forgive the person since the directee sees that the person sorrows at the injury caused. The sorrow of the injury is lessened since the person sees that the other suffers for what he has done. Yet, even if the person is not sorry for inflicting the injury, the directee can be moved to forgive the person, since that is what Christ would have him do. Yet, Christ does not have us do things without rational motive. We forgive others because, if we do not, the wound continues to fester in our souls. Hence, we forgive others so that we may benefit from it. Those who do not forgive perpetuate the suffering from the injury, whereas those who forgive turn away from suffering the evil of the infliction by not holding on to it. Moreover, we can always remember that in forgiving another, we recognize that it is not our place to extract vengeance. We can forgive people or suffer the evils which they direct toward us because we know that in the end justice will be served because of the General Judgment. We can also forgive people because we know that people are not functioning the way God had intended because of original and actual sin. We can forgive people because we know that without God’s grace we could be worse than the one inflicting the injury. Through forgiveness, we detach ourselves from apppetitively and intellectually holding on to the injury. In this respect, forgiveness removes the cause of the wound so that it can heal over time. The person must foster the virtue of mercy by which he is inclined to forgive people of the debts they owe him. Anytime anyone injures us unjustly, he becomes our debtor because what he owed us, i.e. right treatment, was not rendered. But it is only through a habit of forgiveness that one can overcome the cause of the wound (the injury).”8
“Self-inflicted wounds also require the person to forgive himself. By this is meant that he must let go of the fact that he has done something either to himself or to another which is evil. He must accept that without grace and even with grace but by free choice, all of us are capable of the worst of crimes.”9
Offer up the wounds you have experienced to God for the conversion of sinners, reparation for the sins of the world and yourself which have been committed against the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and other critical intentions you may have!
PRAY FOR THOSE WHO HAVE HURT YOU, ASK PARDON FROM GOD FOR THOSE WE HAVE HURT, AND SEEK TO LOVE OTHER PEOPLE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE THROUGH ACTS OF KINDNESS AND COMPASSION!
FORGIVE ME IF I HAVE WRONGED ANYONE READING THIS!
LORD JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, HAVE MERCY ON ME, A SINNER!
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Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, p. 561.
Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, p. 560.
Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, p. 561.
Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, p. 562.
Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, pp. 395-6.
Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, pp. 436-7.
Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, pp. 563-4.
Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, p. 564.
Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, p. 565.