Dr. Peter Martin, Psy.D., joins WCAT Radio Show Host Dr. Mary Anne Urlakis in Episode 30 of “Vows, Vocations, and Promises: Discerning the Call of Love,” to discuss his contribution in the recently published comprehensive new book: Spiritual Husbands-Spiritual Fathers: Priestly Formation for the 21st Century, edited by Bishop Felipe Estevez and Bishop Andrew Cozzens. In this episode, Dr Martin discusses his recently published chapter, “Striving for Affective Maturity and Authentic Peace of Soul: The Role of Deep Forgiveness and Secure Attachment.”

Dr. Martin is a licensed psychologist, and the Internship Director of Integrated Training and Formation at Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska, an APA accredited site, where he is responsible for the psychological and faith-integrated formation of pre-doctoral psychology interns and other mental health professionals. Additionally, in 2008 Dr. Martin initiated and heads a clinical outreach site, through Catholic Social Services, at the Newman Center on the campus of the University of Nebraska where he provides therapy to university students and consultation services to priests, FOCUS missionaries, and other staff. Dr. Martin provided growth counseling services from 2012-2013 to seminarians at the Institute for Priestly Formation summer program in Omaha. Dr. Martin served on the Executive Board of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association from 2013-2016. His areas of interest include supervising therapists in faith-integrated treatments of psychological disorders, in practicing trauma-informed therapy, Forgiveness-Therapy, treating “implicit God-image Problems” and psychological obstacles to authentic spiritual encounters with God and giving and receiving love, in studying the psychology of belief and unbelief, and the social scientific understanding of religious conversion.

Dr. Martin and his employer, The Immaculate Heart of Mary Counseling Center and Catholic Social Services, are in the early stages of aggregating data for psycho-spiritual assessment project to directly serve the Church hierarchy, both women and men’s religious, and to indirectly serve all the laity. Dr. Martin is also currently developing and implementing an adaptation of Witness to Love’s Marriage Preparation Mentorship Program (a virtues-focused, attachment-based model of couples’ mentorship) to support the pillar of human formation of diocesan seminarians and religious life.

In this interview, Dr. Martin discusses the need to seek and foster authentic peace of soul. He outlines various impediments to authentic peace, including flawed patterns of attachment. Dr. Martin elucidates the ways in which persistently compromised internal peace and deficit attachment patterns can negatively affect priestly formation. Peter Martin and Mary Anne Urlakis explore the role of Deep Forgiveness as the therapeutic antidote for debilitating anger and resentment, specifically delineating the definition of forgiveness, its requisite characteristics, and benefits. Dr. Martin specifically addresses the challenges of seminary formation with regard to seeking authentic peace of soul, healing attachment issues, and working through anger to the liberating joy of Deep Forgiveness.

Dr. Peter Martin’s chapter, entitled: “Striving for Affective Maturity and Authentic Peace of Soul: The Role of Deep Forgiveness and Secure Attachment” is published in Spiritual Husbands- Spiritual Fathers: Priestly Formation for the 21st Century, edited by Bishop Felipe Estevez and Bishop Andrew Cozzens, published by Holy Apostles College and Seminary’s En Route Books and Media, which is available at: https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/spiritualhusbands/.