Catholic Marital Infidelity Treatment: A psychotherapeutic guide

Abstract

The Catholic psychotherapist offers a unique viewpoint on how to conduct and conceptualize marital psychotherapy, and particularly when treating marital infidelity. Indeed, he is able to effectively treat and conceptualize this traumatic experience by linking the psychological sciences with his anthropological foundation. This foundation is grounded within a Catholic concept of human flourishing, vocation, and the traditional goods of marriage. This dissertation proposes a Catholic therapeutic framework for treating marital infidelity, which I entitle Catholic Marital Infidelity Treatment (CMIT). Catholic Marital Infidelity Treatment’s framework includes the following components. First is a Catholic understanding of marriage, how that understanding influences a person’s core beliefs, and how those core beliefs influence therapy. Second are the origins and uniqueness of each couple’s attachment styles, how those styles interact within marriage, and how attachment functions as an explanation as to why spouses react in a post-traumatic manner when they discover an affair. Third, a unified approach of cognitive, emotional, family systems, interpersonal and reconciliation based interventions that promote fidelity and a deepening of marital love. Finally, CMIT launches the couple towards resiliency and post-traumatic growth so that they may not only find healing, but also move towards flourishing.