History of TFC Theory
Written by Joseph Clem, M.Ed.
This article does not constitute professional advice or services. All opinions and commentary of the author are his own and are not endorsed by any governing bodies, licensing or certifying boards, companies, or any third-party.
Dr. Eduardo Azcárate, an adolescent psychologist who received his doctorate from the Catholic University of America in 1970, began attempting to conceptualize a sequence of psycho-spiritual development (completely) according to the Catholic understanding of the human person as the premise. In the early 1970s, much of his work was done with understanding adolescent growth through openness, assertiveness and independence, and sexual maturation. Azcárate was heavily influenced by both the psychoanalytic discipline (i.e., Erik Erikson), and the secular humanistic discipline (i.e., Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers), but he was painfully aware of the limitations of these perspectives devoid of God and values. Azcárate gives some credit to Rev. Bede Smith and Dr. Donald Tyrell1 for popularizing the use of “terminal values” in the context of psychotherapy. Dr. Roger Arnold gives a helpful summary of their influence at a symposium at the 1975 convention of the American Psychological Association (APA) in which Bede, Smith, and other professionals had a panel discussion about incorporating values:
Dr. Tyrell replied that psychotherapy is essentially a moral enterprise involving corrective emotional experiences and changed values, values that are compatible with the human being as he is. The therapist must be a model of these values for the client; he must practice what he preaches.
Rev. Smith said that religion as an institution has traditionally been a transmitter of values within a culture, but gradually this role has been displaced into other institutions such as education and psychotherapy. However, the main positive values these latter institutions promote have their roots in the Judeo-Christian heritage. These values include: (a) the universal dignity of man, (b) regard and care for one’s fellow man, (c) freedom from slaveries from within and without, (d) truthfulness, particularly in the acceptance of human assets and limitations. These values have certainly been expressed in the stream of Judeo-Christian consciousness and experience throughout history.
At the end of the presentations and discussion it was obvious and gratifying to both the participants and the audience that there was a considerable agreement about the nature of the positive values that each institution proposes to establish and foster. There was a like consensus regarding the negative values that hinder or block this goal. The recognition of human dignity is the fundamental value common to each institution. Truthfulness, care, and freedom are good for people whether in education, business, family life, therapy, or religion; by contrast, hiding, lying, evasiveness, indifference, shirking responsibility, seduction, and manipulation are destructive.
— Arnold (1975), pgs. 3-4, 7
Below is paid content which includes how the ultimate values of truth, freedom, and care were identified as the pivotal points of Azcárate’s theory.
In reviewing the history of truth, freedom, and care, Rev. Bede Smith, in his master’s thesis, describes Dr. Tyrell’s key role in promoting these values:
Disclosure-confrontation is a form of group therapy introduced by Donald J. Tyrell and used in his clinical practice. Its goal is to increase the characteristics of truth, freedom, and care in the way participants relate to others in the group and to significant persons in their lives and it operates on the conviction that honest disclosure of one person to another leads to the development of such mature relations.
— Smith (1971), pg. 75
The concept of terminal values slightly predates Smith and Tyrell. Dr. Milton Rokeach published his book, The Nature of Human Values, shortly beforehand in 1973 and made the distinction between terminal values (end-states) and instrumental values (rules oriented toward those end-states). The table below from Tuulik, et al. (2016) provides a categorization of the different values listed by Rokeach which were initially aimed at identifying organizational values, including the conversation held at the APA symposium with Smith and Tyrell.
If we take the concept of terminal values and instrumental values and the concepts of honesty, responsibility for one’s own actions, and responsibility for others in disclosure-confrontation (DC) therapy, we see how those DC therapy concepts are instrumental values which serve the terminal values of truth, freedom, and care.
Also, religious values are a necessity when attempting to construct a developmental paradigm. The Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person (Vitz, Nordling, & Titus, 2020) paraphrases the “important parameters for examining human potential and flourishing” from Allen Bergin (1980) who promoted religious values in the secular psychological field:
God is supreme; personal identity is derived from the divine; self-control is employed in the pursuit of absolute values; love is primary; service is central to growth; there is commitment to marriage, procreation, and family life; responsibility is essential; acceptance of guilt, suffering, and contrition are keys to change; forgiveness is important; and meaning and purpose can be derived from reason and intellect.
Azcárate’s emphasis on the theological virtues recognizes God as the Supreme Origin and Mover in development. All of Bergin’s values can be found in Azcárate’s Maturation vs. Estrangement Growth Chart© (1979) which are italicized: Self-control (discipline), responsibility (responsible choices), service and love (otherness and care), commitment, marriage, procreation and family life (fidelity and life-giving), acceptance of guilt, suffering, and contrition (openness, truth, integration, and inner peace), and meaning.
In his desire to have ultimate values be integral to his psychotherapeutic work with adolescents, Azcárate decided upon Smith and Tyrell’s truthfulness, freedom, and care, corresponding to reason, the will, and interpersonal and intrapersonal affection, respectively.2 He defined these values according to a Catholic understanding of how the person moves towards authentic inner peace, meaning, and happiness. Truth (i.e., openness, disillusionment), freedom of each participant to make choices, and care (i.e., self-sacrificial love and acceptance) are frequent themes even more recently in Divine Mercy University’s description of group psychotherapy informed by Catholic anthropology and Irvin Yalom’s curative factors of group therapy (Vitz, Nordling, & Titus, 2020, Ch. 22, referencing Yalom, 2005). Furthermore, Scrofani’s recent Person Scale assesses the health of a individual’s interpersonal relationality by measuring across “the dimensions of affection (love to hate) and autonomy (freedom to control) with wholesome and healthy relationships occupying the interactive quadrant characterized by positive affection and an ideal balance of freedom and commitment” (Ibid., pgs. 626-627, referencing Scrofani, 2019).
Also, the therapeutic approach that Azcárate used (albeit influenced by multiple approaches at the time, especially Rogerian therapy) was entirely his own. He succinctly described this therapy as building a rapport with the client based on care so that they would be ready to hear the truth, and then from there, be challenged to act in freedom, and subsequently acting in truth and love. This is reminiscent of St. Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians: “Rather living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ” (Eph 4:15). There are many nuances to how this was done with clients depending on diagnosis, learning history, family structures, and other variables, but the core values of truth, freedom, and care guided the therapy — and it always began with care. One name I would like to give to his therapy is Truth, Freedom, and Care (TFC) Therapy.
Azcárate saw validation of his theory when he read the three last audiences of Blessed Pope John Paul I shortly before his brief papacy ended in 1978. The three audiences were on faith, hope, and love, respectively, which Azcárate understood as both following and predisposing us to truth, freedom, and care. The following year in 1979, after an annual retreat with a Jesuit sodality to which Azcárate belonged called Agrupacion Catolica Universitaria (ACU), Azcárate began a new community called Youth Apostles which based its Statutes, drafted that same year, on three ultimate values of truth, freedom, and care. Youth Apostles, and their sister community Women Youth Apostles, espouse these values as fundamental and directive for their spirituality, communal life, and apostolic activity serving young people.
TFC Theory was used in practice during the clinical work of Azcárate for several decades. During that time, elements of this theory have been continually, indirectly supported by numerous individuals in the Church and in the field of psychology and behavioral science. Much of his vision for how to apply this theory to working with young people is brought about by Youth Apostles. TFC Theory is lived out through the lives of consecrated clerics, consecrated laymen, married men, and single men in Youth Apostles who serve young people as their apostolate. It is also lived out by many others who have been influenced by this theory, such as the sister community of Women Youth Apostles — through their single, lay consecrated, and married women. Truth, freedom, and care initially carried over into the group format of small-group youth ministry at Azcárate’s local parish in 1974. It was called Catholic Life Community (CLC) in which truth (i.e., radical openness), freedom (i.e., high moral standards), and care (i.e., love, warmth, and support among the high schoolers) were ultimate values. Youth ministry of these communities continue to emphasize these values in the context of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
REFERENCES
Arnold, R. S. (1975). Human institutions and values: Report on a symposium [Washington, D.C.] Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse. Accessed via https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED127493
Bergin, A. E. (1980). Psychotherapy and religious values. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 48(1), 95-105.
Scrofani, P. J. (2019). Developing norms for Version I of the Person Scale. Manuscript in preparation.
Smith, B. (1971). An evaluation of group therapy using the 16 PF, MMPI, and TAT [Master’s Theses]. Loyola University: Chicago. 2605. Accessed via https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/2605/?utm_source=ecommons.luc.edu%2Fluc_theses%2F2605&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages
Tuulik, K., Õunapuu, T., Kuimet, K., & Titov, E. (2016). Rokeach’s instrumental and terminal values as descriptors of modern organization values. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 5 (2), 151-161. Accessed via https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331508651_Rokeach%27s_instrumental_and_terminal_values_as_descriptors_of_modern_organisation_values
Vitz, P., Nordling, W. J., & Titus, C. S. (2020). A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person: Integration with Psychology & Mental Health Practice. Divine Mercy University Press: Sterling, VA
Yalom, I. (2005). The theory and practice of group of psychotherapy (5th ed.). Basic Books: New York, NY
In particular, Smith and Tyrell wrote about terminal values in a March 1974 newsletter for Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues that Azcárate received from the American Psychological Association.
Azcárate did not mean “affection” necessarily in the Thomistic meaning which encompasses both the will and the passions (emotions). Azcárate meant “affection” more in the modern sense of interpersonal and intrapersonal relations, or in psychological terms: attachment and self-concept. This more recent defense of his theory will extend this to include Dietrich von Hildebrand’s understanding of affection as a role of the heart.