The following comes from a Mar. 24 story in the Oakland Catholic Voice.
With a blessing from the bishop of Oakland, the Kairos Psychology Group has opened in the diocese. The practice, led by Father Stephan Kappler, who has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology, will offer psychotherapy, assessment and consultation, primarily to priests and vowed religious.
Father Kappler, a priest with 20 years of experience in the diocese, was recently named pastor of St. Jarlath Church in Oakland. Kairos Psychology Group will offer services in both English and Spanish.
At a small rite at the offices near Jack London Square, Bishop Michael Barber, SJ, blessed the office on Feb. 21, employing the blessing for hospitals and health care centers, as he sprinkled holy water in its three rooms.
Present were Deacon Noe and Sylvia Gonzalez. Deacon Gonzalez will serve as the spiritual director of the group. Also present was Sister Dorothy Heiderscheit, OSF, who is CEO of the Southdown Institute, the Canadian facility at which Father Kappler completed post-doctorate work.
Southdown offers a multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of priests and vowed religious, mostly in residence for a 14-week program.
When the clients leave Southdown, they are often referred for continuing treatment in their home communities. In a first, the institute will be referring West Coast clients to Kairos Psychology Group.
“It’s good to have a branch of the Southdown Institute open in our diocese, the only one on the West Coast of the United States to give psychological and spiritual healing to priests and religious in particular,” the bishop said.
It was clear to Father Kappler that he wanted to use his training as a psychologist to assist priests and vowed religious.
“For me there was something really special when I was working at Southdown, because I saw the need for providing space for clergy and religious for mental health treatment,” he said. “It’s OK to talk about the pressures of the job, so to speak, and for priests and for religious to honestly say, ‘I need help.'”
At Kairos Psychology Group, that help will come from a variety of perspectives, including Father Kappler’s as a psychologist, Deacon Gonzalez’ as spiritual director, Sister Kathleen Laverty, SHJM, RN, and a psychiatrist.
The group will provide assessments, which are multiday sessions that will include visits with each of the providers. The clients are usually referred by their religious superiors or bishops.
“The assessment becomes richer when it is not just from the experience of one person,” said Father Kappler, who will be responsible for making the final assessment.
Because the assessment takes place over a period of 2½ to three days, it also offers the person being assessed the opportunity to gain some trust, and perhaps to talk about topics that were uncomfortable when the person first arrived, Father Kappler said. Perhaps the person will feel more at ease speaking to the spiritual director, or to the nurse.
“It›s a fairly intense time for them,” he said. “A lot of self-reflection happens.”
It’s also a reason he chose the location carefully. During breaks, the people can walk to nearby Jack London Square, enjoy the scenery and perhaps get something to eat.
Although Father Kappler’s practice is focused on serving priests and vowed religious, it is also open to those seeking to enter the formation process, as well as others who may be involved in pastoral ministry or leadership.
To read original story, click here.
Why did you use the pejorative nomenclature in the title?
Priests have been consulting psychologists and psychiatrists for many decades now. Your use of the word “shrink” will foment ill will and acrid comments from your rabid followers. California “Catholic” indeed!
Turn your venom on to me and give the priests and bishops a break.
Paul, spot on my friend! I am sick and tired of how people look upon the office of priesthood these days. Yes there were pedophiles. But there are pedophiles in every field out there. And celibacy has nothing to do with it. I had a friend who was a priest. He cheated on his celibacy vow–with an adult woman. He never had an urge to touch a child. And to say that priests cannot help and treat priests, is pure ignorance.
I’m seeing it now: A line of Woody Allens in Roman collars, waiting to have their private thoughts evaluated in the light of bizarre Freudian theories. Please! If these religious would pay more attention to the Word of God than to their selfish desires, they wouldn’t need these “psychotherapists” and other charlatans.
Didn’t they send the pedophile priests to a psych place on the East Coast and they were returned “cured”? Nothing ever changes………..
I knew a priest some years ago who was not only eccentric, but was probably psychotic/crazy. He believed in space aliens, U.F.O,’s…to the extent that he was telling me and others he was addressing, that “the Pleaidan’s”, were living amongst us…and had been for years. This sent off a little alarm bell in my head…found out from a brother who was a member of his religious community that this priests was “nuts”…his words, not mine…later found out he had a diagnosis of being bi-polar and was on psychotropic medication…had been for years…he was a brother before he became a priest…his religious community should have recognized he was “deranged”…and not allowed him to take solemn vows, let alone sent him off to St. John’s seminary in Camarillo!…The Church has enough problems…we don’t need “actively psychotic” clerics running around on klonopin, buspar, thorazine and any other psych. med…
First of all your comment, “we don’t need “actively psychotic” clerics running around on klonopin, buspar, thorazine and any other psych. med…” is a ridiculous statement that makes no sense. Would you rather have, “actively psychotic’ clerics running around without medical treatment such as the psychotropic medication that you listed. I know what you meant, but either way it was said out of ignorance. Secondly, a person who is receiving treatment for any number of psychiatric disorders, whether it’s via chemotherapy, counseling or both can be productive, valuable and trustworthy employees in any field, including a religious position. There are many people in the ‘real’ world who are in positions of employment such as medical doctors and teachers who also are being treated for psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder, and even schizophrenia and they are just as safe and responsible as a control group who do not suffer these same medical problems. Your entire message is under an umbrella of ignorance and discrimination. And the truth is, you deal with people everyday who are on these meds, and have these problems-and you wouldn’t have a clue that they were and “less” that you. And about the medications you listed. Be happy about them. Those psychotropics allow people a chance to live a normal life. And when it comes do psychiatric and psychological disorders–everyone is in the book for something. If not now, you may be later. Would you like to be prevented from fulfilling you dreams because of a medical disorder? And about the whole alien thing.
No Vincent…these men should be removed from the seminary…denied ordination and if already, ordained they should be defrocked forthwith, as their ability to discern the spiritual concerns of their parishioners would be gravely compromised due to an injurious mental illness, that is theoretically incurable… schizophrenia and being actively psychotic is not the same thing as a person with a “personality disorder”, which many people have, but can still often muddle through life, albeit somewhat maladaptively…without destroying too many peoples lives, on the other hand…masking symptoms with heavy doses of psychotropic meds. is not the answer…being removed from active ministry is…think Mcfly..
Are they saying that Sylvia Gonzalez is a deacon?? Since when is this permissable….
Fr. Kappler has some strange credentials:
1. He is affiliated with the notorious St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland (see https://www.sliconnect.org/conferences/cpi/presenters/ which has a correct photo of him–in civvies)
2. His published research is on “kinky” topics; for example, “Roman Catholic Gay Priests: Internalized Homophobia, Sexual Identity, and Psychological Well-Being”
Source: Pastoral Psychology, Volume 62, Number 6, December 2013 , pp. 805-826(22)
Abstract: Using convenience sampling, a national sample of 156 actively ministering or retired Roman Catholic priests was obtained. One hundred and five (105) of these priests identified as gay/homosexual (67.3 %), 42 identified as heterosexual (26.9 %), and 9 identified as bisexual (5.8 %). Due to the small number of bisexual participants, the bisexual priests’ responses were excluded, and the whole sample was divided into a gay/homosexual group and a heterosexual comparison group. This confidential study yielded a response rate of 78 %. The priests were mailed self-report survey instruments, including the Scales of Psychological Well-Being, the Internalized Homonegativity Inventory, the Gay Identity Questionnaire, the Depression-Happiness Scale, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, as well as a demographics questionnaire. Results demonstrated that internalized homophobia was negatively correlated with psychological well-being and associated with depression. Internalized homophobia was also found to be related to less integration of sexual identity.
Fr. Kappler has some strange credentials (continued):
3. When pastor of the “progressive” St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Berkeley, he contributed $500 to the opposition to Proposition 8–as reported in the LA Times (https://projects.latimes.com/prop8/donation/90458/) and more extensively in the East Bay Express (https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/the-struggle-for-berkeleys-soul/Content?oid=2862428)
4. He seems to have a dislike for clerical attire and and a penchant for civvies–as seen in the photo with the Oakland Diocese Catholic Voice article on the blessing of the new facility (https://www.catholicvoiceoakland.org/2014/2014images/2014_0324_LQ3A8822.jpg): Bishop Barber is wearing clerics while Fr. Kappler is sporting a secular suitcoat and tie.
That’s not a photo of Fr. Stephan Kappler; it’s a photo of Fr. Jayson Landesa.
I need to respond to Vincent with this final thought…if he read the post, I stated that “this man SHOULD have not been allowed to take final vows”, let along been ordained into the ministerial priesthood…this is the most powerful and important vocation on the earth…”the Priest, the man of God”…trying to trivialize my point by suggesting that other citizens i.e. industrialists, civil servants et al are functional as schizophrenics, so why not a Priest?…these other secular vocations don’t have the spiritual well-being of their flock in their consecrated hands…which could determine where they spend eternity…does this clear up all ambiguity?
In an article that links stress with mental illness and proposes that priests are more likely to suffer mental illness than the general population (which rate is 1 in 5) because of the high stress:
The question of stress, I think, arises when the priest has to deal with difficult people, an experience that all priests will have at some stage or another. These difficult people will come in three classes: lay people, other priests, and clergy who exercise authority.
The difficult lay people are usually, though not always, lapsed Catholics. As such, they will not know their priest well, and he won’t know them; when difficulty arises, it is magnified because there is no antecedent relationship which might serve to calm matters down. Essentially the difficult layperson acts as a difficult customer in a shop: not happy at the service provided, and threatening never to return. In these circumstances the best thing to do is to observe the old mantra that the customer is always right. One can’t usually do much to placate this sort of person, and trying to score points is futile. Nevertheless, it is hard for the priest to put up with being the victim of what is known as “dump and run”; he has to bear in mind that it is not personal, and that the angry Mr or Mrs Jones, who does not know him, would have been angry with the curé of Ars himself.
cont
cont.
Far harder to deal with are the practising Catholics who take up the cudgels against their pastors. Whereas angry Mr Jones will never be seen again, the parishioner who makes trouble for the priest may be an ever-present figure who makes Father’s heart sink on a daily basis. Just one or two such parishioners can be enough to make the poor priest’s life a misery. Anne Atkins writes movingly of the state her husband was reduced to, without giving its cause; I have known priests similarly reduced to nervous exhaustion: not being of a combative disposition, they were mercilessly bullied by parishioners.
What is the solution, if any, to the stresses and strains that the clergy face? I wish I knew, but I would hazard a guess that the best solution is support from friends and from other clergy, who ought to understand the sort of situations that the stressed out and depressed priest may be facing. The worst possible solution is to deny that a problem exists or to see the suffering priest as himself “the problem”.
https://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/02/03/are-priests-more-prone-to-stress-and-mental-illness/
How about if we consider the needs of the priests! If any of us had to face the problems of the lay people in the parish we would need psych help too. To paraphrase someone, if your arm breaks you go to a bone doctor and when your brain breaks, you go to a brain doctor. Our priests need to have psych help available when they need it. We all do.
While I can’t and won’t comment on Fr. Kappler (he doesn’t sound very Catholic), I can comment on the fact that good priests and religious can and sometimes do get help from good Catholic Psychologist, and Psychiatrists. Some even get help from semi secular Institutes such as the Meninger Inst. After all, when they enter the life of consecrated religion, they don’t become somehow no longer human!
May God have mercy on an amoral Amerika!
Viva Cristo Rey!
Yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founding Director
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.
Shrinks are like dentists: if you need one, go to one!
Even the Holy Father used to teach Pyschology in his younger days, and one reason the Catholic Church no longer refuses Christian Burial to people who commit suicide is because of Psychology: namely, the Church has learned from people in this field that many suicides are not morally culpable because they are in so much pain.
Priest’s, like all people, suffer from illness and require medical intervention from time to time…including psychotherapy…the “Major” was illustrating a valid point…a Priest who is under stress or has an anxiety attack, needs support and counseling…this is not an organic, or hereditary mental health issue, which is incurable, i.e. schizophrenia…this mental health illness would invalidate a candidate from the priesthood, had the Bishop or rector been aware of this illness before entry, and if manifested during the seminary, the candidate would be excused for this illness… he should NOT be allowed ordination/holy orders!…stress and anxiety are manifested in a number of ways, that are curable with medication and counseling…short term modalities of treatment…long term, ongoing mental health issues, such as schizophrenia impact a person’s ability to think reasonably, even while taking psychotropic medication…this person would be a disabled cognitively…and cognition is one faculty a Priest must possess, in order to spiritually direct his flock, a split from reality would most certainly hamper his ability to discern the needs of a man/woman seeking spiritual direction in the confessional…the Church has enough problems without it’s clergy “running around” talking about Martians and Venusian’s, who are living amongst us… as if that Priest is living his life through an episode of the Twilight Zone, sans Rod Serling…
I didn’t give this appointment much thought, but now that I’ve looked at the St. Luke’s writeup for Fr. Kappler, I see that the whole gay thing further extends its arms into Oakland. The Lavender Mafia is a Hydra: take it out in one place, it pops out in another.