Welcome!

“Do Not Be Afraid … You Are My Dearest Friends”*

Toxic Fear is perhaps life’s greatest hostage-taker. One psychiatrist calls it a “disease of the imagination.” Fear and disabling Worry can start off like a tiny seed and, watered by thoughts that emphasize worst-case scenarios, grow into a virus-like fiend that ends up dominating our mental state. It then holds us back from our ability to enjoy nearly every dimension of our life: our talents, our work, our love, our play, and our approach to a life in the Spirit.

This website is dedicated to three major Defense Systems that can be effective in helping us overcome the insidious nature of fear, as well as other mental health demons like depression. It will also focus on how we can better live out our lives free of those persistent foragers that roam throughout the corners of our minds… relentlessly haunting us.

Those three Defense Systems are: Spirituality, Psychology and Addiction. All three of these provide newly developed means of delving into the root causes of fear and depression and other mental health disorders, and assisting people in finding improved pathways to freedom, joy, and peace.

“Do not be afraid” – a phrase found 365 times in Sacred Scripture!

*Luke 12:32; translation found in The Bible in Contemporary Language, Eugene H. Peterson

Recent Posts

  • Between Belief and Faith?

    Many people think that either you’re a believer or you’re not. If you’re a believer, they may say, you must adhere to a faith that is expressed in dogma and …

  • “Thoughts and Prayers?”

    On social media, and in person, many people seem to dislike the phrase, “You’re in our thoughts and prayers,” used when someone discloses a tragedy such as a death in …

  • “She Who Is?”

    I’ve mentioned several times in these blogs that I had a sort of awakening in my early 30s about my image of God. A homily by a young priest declared …

  • Does God Have Favorites?

    Five years ago, I wrote a blog called “What’s So Great about Being Poor?” “Nothing,” I wrote, “unless being among God’s favorites counts for nothing.” It’s true that poverty, in …

  • “A Hundred Thousand Welcomes?”

    I’ve often written about my personal connection to Ireland, undoubtedly because all of my great grandparents were Irish immigrants and I’ve always been interested in them and their homeland. In …

Dr. Ted’s Mailing List

Recent

Past Posts

mm Tom Carney

Is Forgiveness Overrated?

Jul 11, 2024

A recent article in the New York Times reports on a new book by trauma therapist Amanda Gregory entitled, “You Don’t Need to Forgive: Trauma Recovery on Your Own...

mm Tom Carney

The Best We Can Do?

Jul 04, 2024

It’s strange what you remember, and don’t remember, in old age. I remember, for instance, the oddity of the snail darter – a tiny, seemingly insignificant fish that stopped...

mm Tom Carney

All About Heaven?

Jun 27, 2024

Fox News interviewed former president Donald Trump in early June and among the questions was one on the meaning of religion. I’ll provide his answer, but first, a caveat....

mm Tom Carney

The Problem with Randomness

Jun 20, 2024

I was working on my bike a couple of weeks ago and in lifting it onto a rack where I could move the chain freely, I put my right...

mm Tom Carney

My Friend Peter

Jun 12, 2024

If you’re a Christian, or seeking God in the Christian tradition, do you ever feel like you don’t quite measure up? I do, and I mentioned this in a...

mm Tom Carney

Does Education Jeopardize Faith?

Jun 06, 2024

I recently read an online article from the publication, desiringgod.com, based on research by the Pew Research Center that reports that “roughly 70 percent of high school students who...

mm Tom Carney

Can You “Believe” in Both Faith and Science?

May 30, 2024

During my time as a priest among the indigenous people of a remote area of Bolivia, I often thought that one of my jobs was trying to undo the...

mm Tom Carney

The Cost of Discipleship

May 23, 2024

The famous theologian and Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, had a lot of time on his hands as he sat in a Nazi prison in 1943. Before prison, he was...