Pope reveals he saw a psychoanalyst for six months

Francis sought help to ‘clarify a few things’, decades before he became head of the Catholic faith

POPE FRANCIS has revealed that he sought help from a psychoanalyst when he was younger. He is believed to be the first Pope in history to have visited a psychoanalyst – or at least to have admitted to it.

In a new book, he says that at the age of 42 – decades before he was made Pope – he went to a psychiatrist in Buenos Aires for six months.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as he was known then, was at the time the head of the Jesuit order in his native Argentina.

“At a certain point, I felt the need to consult an analyst. For six months, I went to her house once a week to clarify a few things,” he revealed in the book, Pope Francis: Politics and Society.

He did not specify exactly what “things” he wanted to clarify or why he felt the need to seek psychiatric help but he did say the treatment was successful.

“In those six months, she really helped me,” he said. “She was a wonderful person,” the pontiff, 81, said.

At the time – around 1978 or 1979 – Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship and for many people there was much to worry about, with political repression and forced disappearances.

In his professional life, the Pope-tobe encountered resistance to his tough style of management as head of the Jesuit order.

He admitted a few years ago that “my authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultra-conservative”.

The revelation was a surprise for the Vatican, said Robert Mickens, editor of the English-language edition of La Croix, the Catholic daily newspaper.

“I suppose there may have been oddball popes in the Middle Ages who sought advice from seers or something, but nothing like this,” he said. “Bergoglio is a person with his feet on the ground, but he realises that you can’t pray away all your problems. That said, he would be the first to say that analysis is no substitute for spirituality.”

The candid admission comes from a 432-page book written by Dominique Wolton, a French intellectual, based on a dozen lengthy conversations with the pontiff. It will be published on Sept 6, the day the Pope travels to Colombia on an official trip.

The Pope also disclosed that he feels as though he lives “in a cage” at the Vatican, because he is not able to wander out of the tiny city state on his own.

But spiritually, he said, he feels “free”, adding “nothing makes me afraid”.