This page serves to introduce the theorists that largely inform how I approach the therapeutic relationship and the modalities I use with my clients. I also offer a list of resources below.
Dr. Anna Terruwe and Dr. Conrad Baars were two 20th century Dutch Catholic psychiatrists who integrated Catholic spirituality and the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas into their conceptualization and treatment of what we now explore in anxiety, depression, trauma, OCD, scrupulosity, unwanted sexual behaviors, and attachment wounds - to name a few.
Anna A. Terruwe, MD, PhD (1911-2004) & Conrad W. Baars, MD (1919-1981)
While Anna Terruwe practiced in the Netherlands until her death in 2004, Conrad Baars worked in the United States after being liberated from a Nazi concentration camp in which he was detained for his noncombatant service with the Dutch resistance. Upon discovering Terruwe in the 1950s during a return trip to the Netherlands, he began learning from her, translating her works, and promoting her theories until weeks before his death in 1981.
Terruwe and Baars offer a Thomistic approach to the relationship between the intellect, reason, will, and emotions in understanding normal human flourishing and suffering. Deviating from the prominence of Freud’s approach to emotional repression, they incorporated Thomistic teachings on the emotions into their theory with the principle that the emotions are meant to be guided by reason. One can find in paragraphs 1762 though 1775 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church this same teaching.
Terruwe and Baars are also well known for what they called the frustration or deprivation neurosis, a syndrome that develops from the lack of affirming love from caregivers that results in deep-seated feelings of insecurity, inferiority, inadequacy, low self-worth, and unlovableness which manifest throughout adulthood. This need, either left unmet or met inconsistently (think attachment theory), leaves one feeling deprived of the experience of oneself as being lovable and good, resulting in a frustrated need that moves one to find in unaffirming ways the very affirmation they lack. Their theory around this phenomenon Pope St. Paul VI called “a gift to the Church” following the presentation Terruwe and Baars gave to the 1971 Synod of Bishops on the crisis in the priesthood (published as an article here).
For more on the life and work of Terruwe and Baars, consider reading the 2024 article “The impact of Anna Terruwe on the work of Conrad Baars.”
Below is an incomplete list of books and articles by Terruwe and Baars.
I have also included a list of articles written by contemporary professionals and theologians.