Built on the Model of the Person from Divine Mercy University. Formation, accompaniment and care, measured every session.

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Catholic · Emmaus course

Removing the Boulders: Spiritual Direction and Catholic Psychology in Partnership

I'm helping to remove boulders so they can do the work they need to do

In under an hour, leave with the signs to watch for and a way to make a referral that respects the person.

NBCC CE · 0.75 clock hours

With Stephen Grundman, Ph.D.

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Length
45 min
Lessons
1
Level
Intermediate
Version
Catholic
Price
Free
help me serve the whole person without overstepping what I'm trained and called to do.

About this course

The course's sharpest differentiator is that it teaches scope of competence from inside a Catholic understanding of the person, where psychology and the spiritual life are not rivals. That is the theme of the course and also its market position. Most CE on referral is generic; most Catholic formation content is not CE-bearing. This is both.

Who this course is for

Spiritual directors and formators

Their unspoken worry is missing something serious, or holding on too long when a person needs real psychological help.

Speak to relief and confidence.

Catholic mental health professionals (the CE buyers)

They need clock hours, but they also want CE that respects their faith and their training.

Speak to credibility and to the rare integration this course offers.

Also for Parish or retreat audience.

From the course syllabus

Every spiritual director eventually meets the person who is doing everything right and is still stuck. They pray, they cooperate, there is no obvious sin throwing things off, and yet the heaviness will not lift. What then?

This short course sits in on a candid conversation between a Catholic spiritual director and a Catholic psychologist as they describe how they work together: how a director learns to recognize when a person needs more than direction, how a referral is made as an invitation rather than a verdict, and how two helpers stay inside their own competence while serving one shared goal. The psychologist puts her role plainly. She removes the boulders so the person can keep walking the path toward God.

In about an hour you will learn the signs that warrant a referral, the conditions that make collaboration ethical and fruitful, and the Catholic conviction that holds it together: psychological healing is not a detour from the spiritual life but a clearing of the ground for it. The course draws on Divine Mercy University’s own scholarship, including the Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person, and on the spiritual tradition from Augustine to John of the Cross.

Curriculum

  1. Module 1

    Removing the Boulders: Spiritual Direction and Catholic Psychology in Partnership

    • 1.Lesson: Knowing the Handoff - When a Directee Needs More Than Direction
spiritual directionreferralscope of competenceCatholic psychologyattachment woundsearly childhood traumadepressionanxietycouples counselingcollaboration and consultationinformed consentreleases of information