While wisdom from the fields of psychology and marital and family counseling can be helpful when relationships get tough, people of faith don’t leave their religious convictions at the therapist’s office door. They know how important it is to incorporate their beliefs into whatever therapy they receive. Unfortunately, finding a therapist who specifically aligns with a Christian or Catholic worldview can be a challenge. That’s what Greg Popcak, Ph.D., found in the late 1990s when he began his private practice and wrote his book, How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love, with his wife Lisa. As word of his work spread, he began fielding calls from Catholics all over the country asking for resources for marriage counseling from a faith perspective.

The need led the Popcaks to found non-profit Pastoral Solutions Institute (CatholicCounselors.com). The Catholic Tele-mental Health Practice provides individual, marriage, and family counseling services by phone to Catholics around the world. They also direct the Peyton Institute for Domestic Church Life, a collaboration between the Pastoral Solutions Institute and Holy Cross Family Ministries. The licensed mental health counselors are attached to the Catholic Church and thereby able to offer their services across state lines. Greg describes their focus as “helping people live the Catholic vision of marriage and family.”

The couple has worked together to write 20 books integrating solid Catholic theology and counseling psychology, including practical applications of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. For the past eight years Greg and Lisa have hosted More2Life Radio, a call-in, advice program heard weekdays on almost 400 stations affiliated with the EWTN radio network and SiriusXM Satellite Radio Channel 130.

When a couple calls the show, the Popcaks articulate the Catholic perspective on the purpose of marriage. “The Catholic church has a very specific idea about what marriage is supposed to be and the role God plays in a marriage,” Greg said. “We don’t get to write our own vows. How are we witnessing with our lives what we believe is the Catholic vision of family and married life? What does it mean to live that out in our daily lives and reflect that specific vision?”

Although topics vary daily, a common challenge is when one spouse isn’t responsive to the other’s vision of married life, even though they married in the church. Another concern: the misconception that “If I have emotional problems or difficulty in my marriage or family it means I’m a bad Christian,” Greg said.

One of Greg and Lisa’s goals is to help a caller understand the purpose of a Catholic marriage, which Greg states is to help their spouse get to heaven. “God put us together because on some level he knows we will grow because of our differences as we respond as generously as we can to things that are outside our comfort zone,” Greg said. “Too often we say no to things because we don’t feel like doing them. But we’re turning down the opportunity for real intimacy and attachment. God placed my spouse in my life because he wants me to grow. If I refuse, I’m not fulfilling my call to be everything I am created to be in this life and help my spouse get to heaven in the next. “

“God uses circumstances in life to further conversion and sanctification,” Greg added. “God asks husbands and wives to physically love each other and to help each become the person they were meant to be. Christ opens the door to heaven, but your spouse has a lot to do with the shape you’re in when you get there,” he said. “God has put my spouse in my life so I can draw closer to him.”

The Popcaks’ pastoral counseling emphasizes how people can live within Catholic standards in a way that’s workable, Greg said. Their recommendations are rooted in the best information from secular organizations, integrating science and spirituality to provide solid, research-based counsel that serves the Catholic vision. As Greg puts it, “using empirical, time-tested tools to teach couples how to actually do all the things the church calls you to do.”

Those seeking the Popcaks’ help at CatholicCounselors.com will find resources to help them discern what they need and where they should start, whether it be pastoral tele-counseling, spiritual life coaching or self-help. The website states, “Let us Find Faithful Solutions for You,” as quizzes direct participants to gain new insights into their life and relationships. They’ll “discover powerful tools and techniques” in the Popcaks’ books and self-help videos.

“For more personal guidance, learn how our pastoral tele-counseling practice can help you overcome challenging personal, emotional, or relationship struggles, or find out how our spiritual life coaching services can help you lead a more grace-filled life,” according to the website. All endeavor to help people be more effective in life by incorporating their faith into the counseling or coaching they receive.

The Popcak’s best-selling book, Holy Sex, simplifies and helps couples practically apply Christopher West’s Theology of the Body.  Holy Sex helps couples connect the spiritual dimension to their sexuality, Greg said. God cares about people’s sexual love and how to express that appropriately. “A lot of Catholics interpret being open to life as being open to conception. Sometimes we have a tendency to talk in soundbites and rules,” he added. “We get the idea that to be holy is to have a super large family. But how you get there matters. We want to be in a place not just to have children, but to welcome them in a genuine, loving environment. We help couples appreciate that nuance and the role God plays in that discernment process, learning to love each other the way God wants us to and how that translates into family planning.”

The Popcaks address difficult situations in their book, How to Heal Your Marriage. “People might present a polarized question, ‘Do I stay, or do I go,’” Greg said. “The sacrament of marriage is to work for my spouse’s good. If the marriage is doing what marriage is called to do, we will grow, change and become healthier and holier.

“Ideally we support the permanence of marriage, but if someone rejects their spouse’s grace toward them, it might reveal the marriage is not a valid marriage, because it is not doing what God wants marriage to do,” he added. That’s where the possibility that an annulment might be appropriate if a spouse is not capable of responding to God’s call of marriage.

“This is another area where our work is important,” Greg said. “The church has a tendency to make standards. We teach couples how to live through them.”

How to Heal Your Marriage helps people connect spiritual practices and benefits with marriage building habits. It describes eight principles research shows healthy couples practice.

Managing conflict properly allows people to work out their imperfections, faults and failings to become more beautiful in each other’s, and God’s, eyes. “We can learn to respond more generously to each other and become more loving and holy people,” Greg said.

Another practice is self-regulation – a good, healthy psychological skill also known as the virtue of self-control. Greg described it as the way one is able to deal with another’s irritable behavior in a charitable way.

The virtue of prudence can be called mindfulness — where one increases the capacity for reasonable space between feeling and action. A person can practice taking a pause to pray and ask God for a more generous way to respond, rather than reacting in anger, Greg added.

The couples’ most recent book, Having Meaningful, Sometimes Difficult, Conversations with Our Adult Sons and Daughters, addresses a parent’s distress when young adult children make unwise choices or fall from their faith.

Greg uses an analogy of a cup to describe the relationship between parents and their adult children. “The cup needs to be deep enough to contain the conversation you want to have. You can’t have a deep conversation with someone you have a shallow relationship with,” he added. “If I want my adult children to be open to talk to me on that level, we have to regularly talk about deeper things.”

He also noted the difference between accompaniment and approval. When parents don’t approve of their children’s actions, there’s a tendency to withdraw or cut them off. Instead, Greg recommends accompanying your adult children by recognizing the intention behind their actions. “We can all appreciate their motivation; we don’t have to agree about how they are going about achieving their goal. We can see what they are going for, even though we have some concerns about how we are getting there.” This is a way parents can stay true to their faith and values while still maintaining a relationship with their adult children, which is the ultimate goal.

Navigating the waters of relationships can be difficult, especially when church doctrine seems unclear. Catholics will find help integrating their spirituality and the teachings of the church with practical, time-tested life skills at catholiccounselors.com.