Psych results

On Friday I trekked back to our see city to meet with the psychologist. He read his report to me and then left the room for a few minutes so I could look over it. When he returned, we discussed the aspects of the report I found questionable.

There were a lot of them. I told the psychologist at one point that if I were reading this report as a description of someone else, I would think that person was either robotic or deeply repressed and unhappy. The report repeatedly indicated that I suppress my emotions, that I have trouble enjoying life, that I do not let myself feel much. Oddly, although it said (correctly) that I am very even-tempered, it also said that I am vulnerable to periods of depression, lethargy, and low energy. Considering that I have hardly had so much as a fleeting bad mood in the last decade, that claim seems overstated at the very least. Of course, "vulnerable" is a word of possibility, not of actuality, and perhaps it's true that my characteristic ways of engaging with the world leave me open to depression that has so far not manifested itself. But then that hardly seems worth mentioning, since who isn't vulnerable to depression in that rather weak sense? (The psychologist commented that my self-perception was highly correlated with the more objective tests of personality functioning [such as the MMPI]. That indicated to him that I have a highly accurate take on my own personality. So it's hard for me to understand why he did not seem willing to accept my report that I do generally enjoy life and feel content and happy.) It would seem more important to highlight what is distinctive about me, which is my even-temperedness and my ability to control my emotions when I recognize that the indulgence of emotion would be counterproductive.

Now in the language of the report, this would be described as "repression." But that term has such unfavorable connotations, at least to a non-psychologist, that its use here strikes me as inadvisable. Indeed, that worry about misleading connotations came up repeatedly in my discussion with the psychologist. (I'll have to have some faith that the Bishop, having read plenty of these reports, understands what is and is not implied by their technical, clinical language.) For example, the report says I have "a rigid view of right and wrong." That could be taken to mean quite a number of things, only some of which are true. Yes, I do have clear standards of right and wrong, and I know how to differentiate between explaining behavior and excusing it. But I am not censorious or quick to find fault, which is what a lot of people would think is meant by those words.

In general I think I come across pretty well on the report, so perhaps I shouldn't be complaining. It's not as if the psychologist is describing me as someone in urgent need of therapy before I'm turned loose on the Church. It will be interesting to me, though, to see what the Bishop and the Commission on Ministry make of it. I meet with the COM two weeks from yesterday. I worry about being a bit rusty. When I was meeting monthly with my discernment committee, I was geared up for serious discussions about priesthood at a moment's notice. I was in the groove. But those meetings ended months ago, and I'll need to find a way to get back into that groove before I head off to the COM. Otherwise it will seem as if I have nothing to say for myself, and no serious thoughts about ministry.