brought me to consider what is the proper focus of a therapy session with a client: his agency in what is proper to an individual, or the family, or the society. Of course in each of these larger groups - the family and the society - the individual still retains an agency proper to himself. It seems to me much of therapy is concerned not only with the individuals duties and rights but these precisely as the come into conflict with the members of other groups and the agency of the group as a whole.
It always seemed to me that Freuds division of the soul into Ego, Id, and Superego was an observation of exactly this conflict. The Superego being a kind of buffer between individual desires present in the Id and societal norms.
When the practice of the faith become as so many chains, weighing us down rather than lifting us up, it can be useful to recall the bare minimum to be a practicing Catholic.
If we have expressed our anxiety to God and asked Him to weave it into His provident design, and yet still worry, do we sin for lack of trust in Him?
