In his new book, “Healing Your Wounded Soul: Growing from Pain to Peace,” Fr. Joshua Makoul masterfully blends Eastern Orthodox
Christianity’s ancient ascetical wisdom with complementary insights from modern
psychotherapy to offer hope to those emotionally – and spiritually -- crippled by
painful memories of abuse, rejection, and shame.
It is a
mission for which Makoul, dean of the St. George Cathedral in Pittsburgh and
veteran certified counselor with academic degrees in Psychology, is
well-qualified. His straightforward, crisp, and thought-provoking writing style
builds a solid foundation of understanding such therapeutic concepts such as “relationship
trauma,” “transference” of past pain to present experiences, and “projection”
of our own faults onto others.
None of
those psychological frameworks are left to stand alone, however. Fr. Makoul
consistently illuminates them with the light of faith. Introspection, for
example – so stressed by secular therapists as key to unearthing the origins of
debilitating behaviors – has been key to the Eastern Orthodox path to theosis (the
eternal goal of the faithful “to become by grace what God is by nature,” as Fr.
Makoul explains).
This holy
introspection, a core teaching of the Desert Fathers’ “science of the soul,” is
the key to spiritual—and arguably emotional – healing echoed in the teachings of
the saints for millennia. As St. Isaac of Syria – one of numerous Desert
Fathers mined by Fr. Makoul – put it, “Enter eagerly into the treasure house
that is within you, and you will see things that are in heaven – for there is
but one single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the Kingdom is
hidden within your soul.”
What Fr.
Makoul’s book is not, is a self-help tome with specific quick fixes for those
memories and errant coping habits that may cripple the reader’s present.
Rather, it helps the reader acquire clearer perspective and understanding of
self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors – and with those insights, to be
ready for true healing.
Start
with a visit to your parish priest and/or spiritual father; he may, in addition
to his grounding in the Faith, have also been trained in counseling – or be
able to refer you to a network of “faith-friendly” therapists.
For
anyone struggling with painful memories, and the negative behaviors spawned by
them that can damage present relationships with God and others – or those who
have loved ones suffering such emotional injuries and their aftermath – I
strongly recommend “Healing Your Wounded
Soul: Growing from Pain to Peace.”
