Alumni » Our Alumni » Greg Kolodziejczak, Psy.D.
Psychology is a second career for me. My first was engineering, which I found to be intellectually interesting but somewhat sterile in terms of a deep sense of meaning.
Eventually I decided that the workings of the human mind and heart, as well as the ability of persons to relate to one another with love and compassion, were more important and more meaningful to me than even the most stimulating engineering challenges. Consequently, I left engineering and studied theology, receiving a master’s degree at Catholic University of America (CUA). It was in my studies of theology, as well as in various ministerial activities, that I developed a sense of the importance of psychology. Academically, the anthropological dimension of theology seemed to me to be underdeveloped, and it seemed that psychology could help to fill this out.
In terms of practical application, it seemed that psychology could shed enormous light on difficult personal and interpersonal situations. Hence, when IPS began offering courses, I availed myself of the opportunity.
But why IPS?
One of the things I like best about IPS has been the rigorous manner in which the curriculum forces students to examine those presuppositions and their psychological/emotional effects.
That training has served me well in the work with my clients. Whether clients are explicitly spiritual or not, existential issues always loom in the background, and a psychologist needs to be able to address those issues with breadth and depth. My education at IPS has helped me to do that.
Additionally, IPS has allowed me to investigate and write a dissertation on the subject that I find most compelling – love (agape), and the manner in which our capacity to love becomes undermined and distorted by a variety of psychological mechanisms.
What I learned from researching and writing that dissertation has been exceedingly helpful to me in my clinical work, and it formed the basis for what will likely be a lifelong project – synthesizing psychology, philosophy, and theology on the issue of love. I don’t believe that I would have been able to approach this topic in this same integrative manner at the great majority of academic institutions.
I recall taking a yearlong course at a local secular institute while also enrolled at IPS. In that course I gave a presentation on love, including some philosophical and theological perspectives. While the other students seemed to enjoy it, the professor seemed offended, as though I had violated a taboo.
IPS, on the other hand, gave me the freedom and support to pursue what I held to be most important and meaningful, and helped to equip me (both theoretically and clinically) to serve clients from an integrated perspective on love.
Dr. Kolodziejczak works primarily in private practice in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. In addition, he designed and presents sections of the Archdiocese of Boston’s marriage preparation program (Transformed in Love), gives workshops on Deepening Family Communication and Relationships for the Office of Marriage Ministries, teaches developmental psychology to catechists, and teaches a summer course to seminarians at Creighton University. In May 2011 he gave a two-day workshop to the priests of the Diocese of Fargo on Deepening the Pastoral Care of Marriage.
Along with his postdoctoral fellowship working with patients with borderline personality disorder, Dr. Kolodziejczak has done fellowships with the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP) and the American Psychoanalytic Association (APSAA).
In January 2008, as part of his APSAA fellowship, Dr. Kolodziejczak gave a presentation on Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Borderline Personality Disorder at the prestigious Winter Meeting of the APSAA in New York City. The two senior faculty in the session were Otto F. Kernberg, MD, FAPA, and Peter Fonagy, PhD, FBA.
In July 2009 he chaired a session on psychology and religion at the International Psychoanalytic Association annual meeting. In an effort to deepen his understanding of the biological dimension of an integrative approach, Dr. Kolodziejczak is currently researching and studying affective neuroscience.
In September 2011, Dr. Kolodziejczak was the first IPS alumnus to present in the John Henry Cardinal Newman Lecture series, focusing on the role of empathy, emotion regulation, and sense of self in the development of our capacity to love.
Posted 11.14.11