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Paul Daneo was
an 18th century man whose intense interest and actions
around human suffering and its profound meaningfulness, has
applications
for us today. His theological reflections brought a powerful and
positive
image of how God is drawn to us in our brokenness and how we can
unite
our suffering to His, in such a way that brings light and life
out of darkness
and death. Thus the memoria passionis becomes a memoria
resurrectionis.
As we reflect on these themes we come to see the cross as God's
solidarity
with men and women, young and old, in the condition of human
suffering
In his book:
Passion of Christ - Passion of the World, Boff shares with us
that
Christ was rejected by a world oriented toward the preservation
of power.
He succumbed to these forces. But he never abandoned his project
of love.
The cross is the symbol of human power - and the symbol of
Jesus' love and
fidelity. Love is stronger than death, and power collapses
before it. The
loyalty of the cross then, the love on the cross, has triumphed.
The name for
this, Boff points out, is resurrection: a life stronger than the
life of power,
biological life, the life of the ego.
And so the
cross enters the history of love. Paul Daneo referred to the
cross
as an unfathomable
sea
of
Divine Love
. In this the traveller can find hope, a
hope that draws us out of cruel despair. Hope in the face of
self-rejection
transfigures the meaning of the sufferer's torments:
Hope is the
sensation that the last word does not belong to the brutality of
facts with their oppression and repression. It is the suspicion
that reality is
far more complex than realism would have us believe, that the
frontiers of
the possible are not determined by the limits of the present,
and that,
miraculously and surprisingly, life is readying the creative
event that will
open the way to freedom and resurrection. (Rubem Alves)
Daneo Services
is a hope based initiative that seeks to embrace the radical
implications of the memoria passionis particularly as it
translates itself in the
lives of those plagued by despair. We seek to be a project of
love that strives
to draw hope and resurrection from within the face of human
suffering. We
work to integrate the strengths of psychotherapy and healthy
religion.
We acknowledge
the tension that has long existed between psychotherapy
and religion. Many psychologists and psychiatrists look on
religion with
great suspicion, they see it as overly magical and superstitious
and
insufficiently scientific. Similarly many religious individuals
have been
mistrustful of psychology and psychiatry, which they see as
overly
humanistic, promoting rampant individualism, and lacking in any
deep
spiritual dimension.
However, this
tension between psychotherapy and religion is unnecessary.
Both theological and psychological researchers are searching for
answers to
similar questions. Questions that bring us to reflect on the
mystery of
suffering, such as: Why do so many people hate and torment
themselves
mercilessly? Why do violence and aggression exist? What is the
reason for
so much human suffering? What can we do about it? How can we
develop
greater compassion for ourselves and for others? These questions
pose an
urgent challenge to us all and invite us to engage in
reflection, collaborative
dialogue, and action.
Bringing
together the strengths of a sound psychological framework
coupled
with a healthy religious discernment can facilitate greatly the
process of
change, liberation, and the realisation of the key goal - the
installation of
Hope.
Hope is at the
core of pastoral psychotherapy. Hope allows us to risk greater
vulnerability. It enables us to continue struggling when growth
is blocked or
is very slow. There is a growing realization that a strong,
explicit emphasis
on hope has been lacking in pathology-oriented therapies. Like
the
"Kingdom Spotter" in Eamonn Bredin's Disturbing the
Peace, perhaps the
unique contribution of pastoral psychotherapy is as a "Hope
Awakener".
Paul in his letter to the Corinthians links hope with faith and
love (1 Cor.
13:13
) as crucial factors in constructive relationships.
Studies of
prisoners of war show that many of the deaths were the result of
hopelessness. Bruno Bettelheim, in reviewing his experience in a
Nazi
concentration camp, observed that prisoners who became hopeless
(because they believed the repeated statements of the guards
that they
would never leave the camp except as corpses) became like
walking
corpses. These prisoners stopped even getting food for
themselves and soon
died. This story finds echoes in the lives of many in the North
of Ireland.
People who have lost loved ones as a result of merciless torture
and
slaughter and who themselves have given up on life, and wait for
death. It is
precisely into this place that memoria passionis becomes a
"Hope
Awakener" its energy is released in order to help us seek
life and not death.
We let the
Scriptures have the final and more eloquent commentary on the
task of Daneo Services in
Belfast
, and the people and themes that form our
work
We are
afflicted in every way possible, but we are not crushed; full of
doubts, we never despair. We are persecuted but never abandoned;
we are
struck down but never destroyed... dead yet here we are, alive;
punished,
but not put to death; sorrowful, though we are always rejoicing;
poor, yet we
enrich many. We seem to have nothing, yet everything is ours,!
((2 Cor. 4:8-9, 6:9-10).
Current
Work
The current work engaged in through Daneo Services includes:
Psychotherapy; Pastoral Counselling; Marital Counselling; Trauma
therapy;
Focusing Workshops/ Training Courses; Enneagram Personality Type
Courses; Clinical Supervision for therapists /social workers
etc.; Cognitive
behavioural therapy groups; Facilitation work; Workshops (Counselling,
Pre-Marriage Courses)
The client
groups include:
Individuals (Depression, Addictions Adjustment/ Transition
Issues);
Cancer victims
Ex-prisoners (political); Chaplains (Catholic & Protestant);
Social Workers; Clergy;
Lay
Professional
Church
workers;
Volunteer
Church
workers;
Psychotherapists
Other notable
activities:
Inauguration of Focus Group for Psychologists / Psychotherapists
on
Spirituality and Psychology.
Ongoing participation in Down & Connor Focus Group
addressing issue of
"joyriding" and vengeance - punishments
Participation in Family Ministry Validated Course organised by
Down & Connor
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