According to Conrad Baars and his colleague Dr. Anna Terruwe, criticism, neglect, abuse or emotional rejection in childhood can result in stunted emotional growth. Such “unaffirmed” individuals are incapable of emotional maturity without first receiving authentic affirmation from another person.
In affirmation therapy, the therapist aids healing by revealing the client’s innate goodness.
“Genuine … affirmation enables clients to not only know but feel their own goodness, paves the way for the client’s gradual emotional growth, and facilitates the disappearance of the symptoms of deep feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, uncertainty and insecurity,” Suzanne Baars said.
The workshops are being offered to the public as an encouragement to learn more about this therapeutic approach and to provide a networking opportunity to Catholic psychotherapists and students across the country, Lynch said.
Based on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Lynch said the Catholic approach to psychology integrates the Christian concept of the human being with sound psychological principles. Baars, who is a licensed professional counselor in Dallas, where she operates her private practice, In His Image Christian Counseling, often presents the work of her late father.
“People who would be interested in these teleconferences would be professional counselors who wish to develop a firm foundation for their therapy in the anthropology of St. Thomas Aquinas—specifically as to how his treatise of the passions (emotions) can be utilized in therapy,” Baars said. “Also, laypersons, as well as priests, seminarians, consecrated persons, etc., who seek understanding of their emotional life and how it may be integrated with reason, will and the spiritual life, would benefit greatly from hearing this approach to integrating St. Thomas’ anthropology with modern psychology.”