My hope is to replace mental anguish with joy, by using psychological techniques to bring those suffering to an experience of Christ in the true, the good, and the beautiful
Doctoral Student Michael Wagner’s family experiences and undergraduate formation led him to IPS
Born into a family destined to adopt nine children and have ten others, I saw how good reality can be. Children predicted to struggle throughout life can achieve independence. Children expected to be a constant burden can become a source of profound joy. A Caucasian boy and an African-American boy can fight side by side to defend the notion that they are truly brothers. These experiences gave me glimpses of the joy that one can legitimately aim to achieve in this life.
Later, I discovered that this joy could be stifled or taken away in a number of ways: through negligence, a distressing environment, losing something or someone significant, witnessing the reality of death and suffering, or as the consequence of one’s voluntary and even involuntary actions. However, I also discovered throughout my college days at Thomas Aquinas College (TAC) in southern California, that this joy could be regained by experiencing the true, the good, and the beautiful in various ways.
Freshman year, through an ongoing dialogue with the ancient Greeks (Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Sophocles and others), I developed an appreciation for absolute truth. During my sophomore and junior years, I became aware of the life-altering power of Christianity through the beauty I experienced in traditional art, music, literature, and friendship. My senior year, through participating in weekend retreats run by the Mankind Project, I came to realize that psychological interventions could also help individuals regain joy.
I had experienced in various ways the transforming power of philosophy, psychology, and Christianity. However, after graduating from TAC, I returned to Wisconsin to find that many individuals only acknowledge one of these three sources of joy and healing.
I observed that: Christians were afraid of psychology and skeptical of philosophy, philosophers were aloof from both Christianity and psychology, and psychologists assumed that both the Christians and the philosophers were delusional. Though a trifle exaggerated, these general observations do reflect underlying sentiments that prevented any true collaboration between these varied approaches to life. Meanwhile, I became more convinced that these disciplines could exist in harmony.
Finally, I saw a solution in the words J. R. R. Tolkien wrote in a letter to his son, “Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love in this world: the Blessed Sacrament. There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth.” Since Christ is the end and source of all that is good, He unifies within himself philosophy, psychology, and Christianity.
IPS has also discovered this truth. Here the professors are operating on this principle and creating a new generation of Christ-centered psychologists in three ways. First, they are teaching the most effective psychological techniques. Second, they are articulating which elements of the effective psychological models are in accord with a Christ-centered view of reality, and which are not. Third, as individuals the professors exist as concrete models of how one can integrate psychology with the truths of philosophy and Christianity in daily life.
With these new experiences added to my past experiences, I am becoming more capable of helping a broad range of individuals experiencing psychological distress. Once I finish at IPS I intend to return to Wisconsin and establish a psychological practice in my home state. My hope is to replace mental anguish with joy, by using psychological techniques to bring those suffering to an experience of Christ in the true, the good, and the beautiful.