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

  • Does Faith Make You Happy?

    Mother Teresa, the Nobel prize-winning nun who dedicated her life to serving the poorest and sickest in India, always appeared to be cheerful and joyous. But her letters, collected and …

  • Can You “Practice” Joy?

    How should you judge whether a Mass, or church service, was good or bad? For me, among the criteria is whether or not you leave happier than you went into …

  • Ruined for Life?

    In 1989, the military in El Salvador murdered six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter in their home in San Salvador. The priests were internationally recognized scholars who wrote and …

  • Insights into What Comes Next

    I’ve written before about my 4-year-old grandson, Leo. Many grandfathers would say this about their grandchildren, of course, but I think he’s exceptionally smart. He asks a lot of smart …

  • Boring? Maybe, but Worth It

    The Internet and social media are full of articles about people who have given up on religion and churchgoing. I get it. People ask themselves why they need it. Compared …

Dr. Ted’s Mailing List

Recent

Past Posts

mm Ted

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Aug 07, 2015

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the...

mm Tom Carney

A God of Extraterrestrial Life?

Aug 06, 2015

NASA recently said its Kepler spacecraft spotted “earth’s bigger, older cousin,” the first nearly earth-size planet to be found in the habitable zone of a star similar to our...

mm Ted

NYTimes.com: Teenagers, Medication and Suicide

Aug 04, 2015

Very important article in the New York Times by the psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman. It concerns the issue of teenagers struggling with mental health issues and suicide.  Find the...

mm Ted

Tom Doyle addresses priest sex abuse survivors

Aug 03, 2015

Dominican priest Father Tom Doyle, who has worked with survivors of priest sexual abuse for some 30 years, made a powerful address recently concerning his work and the tragedies...

mm Tom Carney

Why Do People Still Go to Church?

Jul 30, 2015

A May 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center shows that 23 percent of Americans identified as “religiously unaffiliated,” up from 16.1 percent seven years earlier. And a third...

mm Ted

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jul 30, 2015

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Jn: 6:35 No one can ever accuse the...

mm Ted

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jul 28, 2015

“Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” Jn 6:13   I was reading recently about an artist who told a story about herself as a...

mm Tom Carney

Your Attention, Please

Jul 23, 2015

If it’s hard to get people’s attention about God and religion, it may be even harder to get them to read about protecting the environment. And protection is needed...