Welcome to the Call to Flourish podcast.
My name is Thomas Kronquist.
I'm the guest host with father Charles Sikorsky, the president of Divine Mercy University.
Father Charles, how are you today?
I'm doing fine, Tom.
Ready to go.
Well, Father, we have another, podcast with doctor Benjamin Keyes, a professor here and the director for the Center for Trauma and Resiliency Studies.
We've spoken in the past with him about PTSD and human trafficking.
Today, we're gonna talk about the HEART model, and I'm gonna let, doctor Keyes explain what that is and why it is so important.
Welcome again, doctor Keyes.
Well, thank you, Tom.
Thanks for having me this morning.
Heart model, healing emotional affective responses to trauma.
Dealing with both both sides of, how our brain works.
Both the affective side, the feelings, the emotional side, but also dealing with the, issues connection connected to the distortions in our thinking around ourselves and, spiritually.
What kinds of distortion spiritually do we hold on to that may also be in our way for healing?
How do you use the HEART model in psychology and counseling?
What what type of patients, would you use it, would you use it for?
The model was originally designed around working with survivors of human trafficking.
In other words, very complex trauma that would work with people that have experienced very severe sexual trauma in childhood, that would work with people that have experienced, a compartmentalization of their thought process, also known as dissociative identity disorder, formerly multiple personality disorder.
It works with, people that are experiencing, borderline personality disorder, post traumatic stress disorder.
Those kinds of mental health issues that are sort of at the the the far spectrum of, the trauma scale, this dealing with folks that have, dealt with severe trauma.
So whether that is a, a a real severe car accident, not a long term recovery period, or dealing with somebody that's been, say, in a domestic violence relationship for a long time that is now very physical and, harmful, and they've had to get out because of safety issues.
Dealing with somebody that has experienced early childhood sexual trauma or rape or, ongoing sexual abuse.
So you use the HEART model, with PTSD symptoms?
What about things like depression and anxiety?
To a lesser degree, when when it involves the interaction somehow of, how I see myself and what I think about myself as I was growing up and and who I am now.
It deals with the inner conflict within ourselves.
The idea is that as I, the the the the model is designed to work on a secular level and also on a spiritual level.
So on a secular level, what I what I'm looking at dealing with is the internal conflict often between myself and who I was as a child growing up.
And when there's dissonance there, in other words, when there's conflict there such as the conflict that gets, brought up a lot when somebody has been sexually traumatized at an early age.
And the person will often blame themselves at that age or not like who they were at that time, and they've spent a lot of time trying to change things both within themselves and how they perceive themselves.
As they're still working with that, this this is a model that will work to basically end that struggle and, really, resolve the the internal issues about about myself.
And so as I bring those two parts of myself together into what we would call congruence, in other words, there's no more conflict, I begin to have a different way of looking at life and looking at myself.
But from a spiritual standpoint, if I put a spiritual overlay to that, it's also resolving the internal conflict and struggle that I may have had with god.
And, and and bringing that into resolution as well so that the way I look at life and the way I look at myself completely changes, in a sense of of healing, in a sense of, living in a much much stronger, much more spiritually centered way.
One of the things that's intriguing about the anachronym heart is obviously the symbolism behind that.
Right?
The heart signifying love, which is so fundamental to everyone's life and both our relationship with each other, our relationship with God.
And so much when you talk about trauma, we could say it's almost like the anti love.
Right?
It's not just an absence of love, but it's something very maybe aggressively going the other way.
Is there a story behind that as the anacronym for this treatment?
Because I know you mentioned, you know, reconciling one with their spiritual relationship with God.
Is there a relationship there?
And and and could you tell us a little bit about how that symbolism came about?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
In Jewish tradition, the heart is the one place that mind, body, and spirit come together as one in one place.
And that was really the essence because this started out talking about mind, body, spirit as a spiritual conflict, spiritual concept, except that it really wasn't a spiritual concept.
It was Greek.
And, not only not only was it Greek, but it was reinforced by Descartes in the fifteenth century and, excuse me, sixteenth century.
And, it saved his life during the Spanish Spanish inquisition.
And what and what he what he said was that that for science scientific purposes, mind and body can be studied, but the spiritual part belongs to the church.
And like I said, that's what that's really what save saved his life at the time.
But I'm not so sure that that's true.
I mean, the idea was that that mind and body had some substance and spirituality was this thing in the ether that, that really can't be looked at from scientific standpoint.
Well, I'm not so sure of that because I think I think the spiritual part might really be the core, right, might really be the center of this.
And it certainly has been from what I've seen in in using the model and teaching the model is that when people really get the essence of, resolving the internal conflict with that, And they're introduced to a very real, very alive god, that transcends transcends, doctrine and polity and denominationalism.
They get to, begin to form a relationship that's in real time and in real, real essence.
And it it's interesting.
It's actually a Benedictine practice that's been around for two thousand years.
It's it's it's paying attention to the voice of God and being able to hear it and and learn that.
But I I think we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Let me let me start by saying that at its core, the the model or the essence of the model is finding a way to forgive yourself for whatever transgression that you think that you have, involved yourself in or caused or, was part of.
And as a survivor of sexual trauma in particular, that was done to you.
So there's nothing to somebody will say, well, there's nothing to forgive.
Well, often, what needs to be forgiven internally is that you were little, that you were powerless, that you were not able to fend off the attack or fend off the sexual advances, or or on on on a reverse side that as a child looking for attention, wanting attention, that that you allowed this to happen.
Well, you didn't allow this to happen.
You were groomed to let it happen Mhmm.
And coerced to let it happen.
And so it's finding a way of of coming to a place where you you let yourself off the hook.
You you resolve that internal conflict.
How do people who have been, experienced trauma because of someone someone else's willful actions, how do they find how can they how can you help them forgive the person who's hurt them?
That seems like that'd be a very important part of the the counseling process.
Can you maybe speak a little bit about that?
Yeah.
Actually, it's not.
The one of the writers that that I sometimes quote is a is, not a Christian writer, but but, she writes basically that the only forgiveness necessary here is that you forgive yourself for healing for healing purposes.
My belief about the, forgiveness of the perpetrator is that it occurs as a natural phenomena of good therapy because it's it's correcting some of the ways that we look at forgiveness.
For instance, forgiveness is not forgive and forget.
How do you forget something like this?
Trauma that was done unto you, how do you forget that?
It's not reestablishing the relationship.
I mean, sometimes sometimes your perpetrator was some of the most horrible people in the world, or they were wonderfully, connected loved ones that just lost the the the barrier between what was right and wrong.
But I either way, it's it's it's forgiveness of yourself and that by forgiving yourself and letting yourself off the hook, you eventually get to a place where, I I don't need this person anymore.
I don't I don't need to stay attached to the perpetrator.
I don't need to excuse him anymore or her.
I don't need to, hold on to getting any kind of re repayment of of, an apology and acknowledgment, a, a jail sentence.
It's letting go of the attachment to the repayment.
And I base it I base this on the scripture that talks about the king that, forgave the man all all that talent all those talents of money.
Do you think the king ever did business with this guy again?
No.
So it's not it's not, it's it's not reestablishing the relationship.
Do you think he ever forgot that he forgave all those talents of money?
No.
So it's not forgive and forget.
What he gave up was the repayment.
In other words, some type of payment for, what what he was owed.
And it's the same concept here.
It's giving up the repayment so that I can move on.
Because if I stay attached to, if I stay attached to making sure that he comes to justice or she comes to justice, if I stay attached to, I want him to apologize to me, I want them to forgive me, I want them to whatever it is, then they're still connected to their trauma.
And so what I've gotta do with with the client is work with them to let go of that of any attachment to that.
Now sometimes that happens and sometimes that doesn't.
But the goal here is not forgiveness of the perpetrator.
It's letting go of the repayment.
And so letting go of the repayment is forgiveness.
That's an interesting way.
I I enjoy I I think that's a good way what a good way to explain it.
Right?
We don't wanna let the person who's hurt us in some way still maintain control over us.
Right?
And that's forgiveness is is is it is getting rid of that attachment.
Actually, the value in the other person apologizing or making reparation is really for their benefit.
That helps them deal with the grave injustice or sin or whatever it was that they they call that they perpetrated.
And I think we we become too attached.
And, okay, when you got you feel like, okay.
I got an apology.
It It makes me feel like that other person well, for good for him that he actually realized he did something wrong.
But that doesn't necessarily heal my wound.
Correct.
And I I actually cringe because I I've I've talked to some of the major researchers in the area of of forgiveness, theory, and and, I I just disagree with them.
They they their focus is on purposely forgiving the perpetrator.
That may never happen in situations like sexual trauma or trafficking or any any type of deep deep perpetration.
But letting go because I'm still trapped by the perpetrator, that makes sense.
Even even even to the client, that makes sense.
So that they're able to move on.
And like I said, but by doing good therapy of working with the client to to allow them to be able to move on is just good therapeutic work and happens as a natural course of doing the therapy.
Do you teach the, the heart model here and and and forgiveness therapy, as you've described it?
Is that something that's part of your, your training here?
We do a two day training on the HEART model because the HEART model first of all, it's designed to be an overlay to whatever model they've used or learned in counseling.
So if they're taught psychodynamically, if they're taught CBT, cognitive behavioral, they're taught, humanistic gestalt, any model of therapy is fine in the, in working with the healing process.
This is just simply an overlay to that model to address specific issues that will lead you into into places of of deeper healing.
And with the spiritual part of it is is really an introduction well, first of all, in in the part of self, it's an introduction to healing internally between their adult of now and their child of then.
In the process with god, it's it's healing whatever spiritual distortions I might have, ways of seeing God in ways that he really isn't or wasn't.
I think with every survivor, the the the key question for most spiritually is why didn't you rescue me out of this?
Why didn't you save me?
Well, most most counselors will try to avoid that question, or just say, well, you know, that's between you and God or any other sort of weak sort of answer.
That's the very question I want them to be able to answer as a result of this this particular model.
And the only way to do that is to directly address God for that answer.
And we use a technique that's used has been used by Benedictine monks for, like I said, almost two thousand years.
And they call it practicing the presence.
It's being in the presence of god and not doing anything but just being in god's presence.
And it usually starts off with a two or three minute process of sort of being in god's presence and learning to just connect.
And I start off with just a very, very basic concept.
I say to them, as a Christian, do you believe the scripture that says when two or more are gathered in his name, god is present?
Most will say yes.
Then we agree that god is present right now with the two of us right here, or in this case, the three of us right here.
How do you know god's here?
What do you do if I if I asked you to connect to god right here, right in the moment, how would you go about to do that?
Now some people will close their eyes.
They get pictures, senses, feelings.
Some people will, it it'll be more of book knowledge and an understanding that God is just present everywhere.
It it comes up in a lot of different ways.
And we also know that if they can't make that connection, then something's in the way.
So let's say they can't make the connection, then we would begin to work on whatever's in the way of that.
If they can make the connection, then I'll start asking about do you get a sense of how that feels towards you right now?
And, obviously, if I know I get something that's negative, it's their stuff that's in the way because God doesn't give us negative things.
And if I get something positive, I know that they're they're connected.
So can can we move closer?
Can we connect to what's there?
And it will often bring up all the various distortions.
Well, you know, god's just waiting to get me, or god really doesn't, interact with us.
He sits off on a a cloud somewhere, or any ways of seeing God that's not interactive.
But what we're doing is interactive, so that dispels most of most of that.
And just pointing out that god is present, and he's present here just like he was back when you were hurt.
And that usually brings up the question, well, why didn't he do anything?
And so I'll say, why don't you ask that question to god?
And then what often comes up in that is all the ways and all the things that they've done to you know, I can't come to god because I'm not good enough yet or I'm not, repentant enough yet or any kinds of things.
But it's it's working with those discrepancies.
Again, because we know that god is real, god is alive, and we can interact with that.
But sometimes we've gotta get quiet enough to be able to interact with that.
Even in prayer, we do our all our prayer outwardly.
We pray for all kinds of things, for people, for situations, for our government, for our families, for our church.
It's all outward.
But to hear god's voice, that's all inward.
And we've gotta be quiet enough to be able to to to do that.
And quite honestly, for most survivors of sexual trauma, there there's quite a lot of energy spent to try to stay busy enough to not get to those feelings that hurt, to not get to those things that that, I've been running away from since the trauma because all of that has to be worked with.
All of that has to be resolved.
What are some of the, yeah, things that you've seen that work?
And one of the challenges, I've seen in my priesthood with it's a similar just I think we're talking about a similar thing.
Helping people understand how much god loves them and that they're cherished in his eyes and that, but then sort of just, well, no.
As you were saying, you know, I'm I'm I'm not good enough.
I'm I'm whatever.
I'm not worthy of all this.
The feeling feeling oneself worthy of god's love, still remaining humble at the same time.
Right?
I mean but so what what are some things that have helped people to do that?
Because I, as you say, it's very easy for us to pray.
We can pray the our father.
We can pray different petitions, and that's good.
But that prayer that connects us more with him and say, it's okay just to be here and enjoy God's presence, his love.
Like, we sometimes maybe I just call it, we hold the bar higher than god does sometimes.
And that's this whole idea of forgiving yourself even if that's what it is.
It's sort of like we put we have higher standards than god at times.
And so I don't know.
Maybe you give us some tips.
Some of the things that have helped people realize that and and move forward.
Well, in the way the model works is that once once we've dealt with the personal stuff, the internal stuff within ourselves, it opens ourselves up to receiving what god has for us.
It's kinda like a birthday present.
If I give you a birthday present, and you take it and you put it in the trunk of your car, I've given you the gift, but it is absolutely worthless to you until you take it out of the trunk, open the box, and take whatever is in there out of the box.
It's the same way with God.
God's given us the gift of forgiveness, of of grace, of love.
But until we open the box, we can't use it.
And the opening of the box starts with the self forgiveness.
It opens us up to being able to receive from god.
And that opens us up to resolving the, the ways we've twisted what we've wanted from god.
You know, God is a God of presence, not not a God of rescue.
He doesn't pull us out of things.
He he doesn't intervene that way.
Where he intervenes with us is at a deep level of presence and a deep love of, his love of being with us.
And as I begin to understand that at a deeper at deeper levels, that begins to change my my, my view of god.
My my view of god was, I mean, until I was, in my twenties, my view of god was really based on Charleston Heston.
You know, those movies in the sixties of, you know, God, you know, throwing fire into the mountain and, the bush that was burning, and, I was scared of that God.
But, David Siemens, in his book, Healing of the Memories, he writes, that until we see god as truly loving, caring, wanting the best for us, that there's that healing is never complete.
And I think he's right.
That that's the completion, of the healing.
So it, like I said, the model works well secularly.
But when you put the spiritual overlay to it and it deals with the those ways that we twist in our both our thought and in our our at our feeling level and gets that stuff untwisted, it has a profound effect on our healing.
Seems like, all of us can, can, practice the presence of God.
I remember reading a book years ago.
It was called, I think it was called The Practice of the Presence of God.
And if I remember correctly, it was by a brother Lawrence.
Are you familiar with that, that book?
I am.
Very, very helpful.
I don't know if you would recommend that to, to people to read.
I would.
There there's also one like it, not the last name is Barrington.
I can't remember his first name.
But he also writes, in the same way and, what I believe he was a Benedictine, priest.
Very good.
You you mentioned, we're we're coming up toward the end of the program.
I wanted to ask a question.
You mentioned that PTSD spectrum, and I'm wondering how many how many how many people are on the spectrum?
Are we all on the spectrum somewhere?
We've we've all, you know, had, childhood, dealt with bullies.
We've all had all kinds of experiences.
Are we all somewhere on that spectrum?
From the standpoint of healing in ourselves internally, most of us are.
From the standpoint of healing trauma, no.
It's it's it's really about ten percent of the population that have experienced deep deep trauma on some level.
But all of that, like I said, can be healed.
And I think the heart model gives us, gives us the opportunity to not only do that, but to resolve both both sides of the equation.
It works with our feelings, and it works with our, what we call, cognitive distortions and spiritual distortions.
Very good.
This has been another very interesting informative, podcast.
Father, I don't know if you have any final thoughts, so we're running out of time here, unfortunately.
Well, no.
I just thank doctor Keyes.
You know, there's a tangled web of the spiritual, the cognitive, and the emotional.
And it's such a he John Paul the second once said that every human person is a mystery.
Well, you know, there's many common things where every human being has, but in the end, all of those other things may get so complex.
And I think it just underlines couple things.
The need for God's constant presence in our lives.
Right?
Emmanuel, God with us.
And just also, the need for charity and patience with others.
Right?
We just don't know what someone else has been through in their life and and and how just just the goodness of of just being kind and charitable to others, the the good that that can do, in our lives.
Well, I gotta tell you, my my work, my practice, I really owe to those clients that I have had that have allowed me into that space.
I I often I often talk about that place as being hallowed ground, because we're we're invited into the very essence of their deepest pain, and the very essence of their soul.
And, I think we have to treat it that way as clinicians, that we're we're being given a great honor, and we need to do this delicately and and work with it, as if it belongs to God, which it does.
You know, and that's the true definition of psyche.
I think back in the Greeks was the soul.
Yep.
Not too much just the mind.
Yeah.
Doctor Keith, thank you so much again for another wonderful podcast.
We look forward to having you on.
It seems like there are many more topics we could, we could we could deal with and, look forward to having you back to talk about some of them.
So, again, from from from all of us, thank you, and, have a wonderful day.
Well, thank you.
And I I do wanna remind folks that, this is something that we do train here.
And, to be involved in it, it just really is a matter of just, calling up and getting on the list for the workshop.
So, join us.
Wonderful.
Great.
Thank you.