1.

Meaning of Psychology

2. Psychology as the study of “Soul” and “Mind”

The word psychology comes from the Greek psukhe, meaning "soul," "spirit," "mind," "life," and
"breath," combined with the Greek logos, here used as "statement," "expression," and "discourse,"
more often thought of today in the form of "-ology," as "the study of." Although the academic and
clinical discipline of psychology has become a medical—and therefore a pathology-oriented—field, prior
to the late 1800s, the study of our inner mental life was the study of our soul, our deepest self or
essence.

This is to bring psychologists, my clients, and us all back to psychology as the study of the psyche, to a
focus on the ground of our being, to the soul, because that is the earliest, deepest, and most authentic
part of us. From a psychotherapeutic perspective, the psyche is the part of us that is the most influential
in effecting behavioral change and improving self-esteem.

Not coincidentally, it is also the part of us that we see illuminated during the psychedelic experience,
and it is this illumination of our true nature (or the corresponding "death" of our identification with the
ego) that accounts for the therapeutic value of the psychedelic experience. This effect is similar to the
concept of sympathetic vibration, wherein a still tuning fork brought into contact with a vibrating one
will begin to vibrate at the same frequency.

If our conscious attention or identity is brought into contact with or awareness of our deepest ground of
being, our conscious awareness elicits or comes into identity with—i.e., becomes—that same deepest
sense of self. We are transformed back into identity with the true self we abandoned in
our childhood quest for parental love.

To foster this process of re-identification, we must come to view much of behavior now labeled
"neurotic" not as pathological, but as the organism's natural response to developmental and
environmental stresses on the path to maturation. From this perspective, a "neurosis" is better seen as a
developmental challenge—the surmounting of which brings maturity or wisdom—rather than as
pathology.

The term neurosis, as generally applied, is not accurate or helpful. In fact, one of the most negative
influences on mental health is the "sick" concept itself, which tightens and distorts, keeping us from a
natural unfolding and realignment.

In essence, we need to have psychiatrists (doctors who can prescribe medical and nowadays usually
pharmacological treatment) treat true, biochemically based behavioral disorders, such as obsessive-
compulsive disorder and schizophrenia, and return the clinical practice of psychology to the unfolding of
the psyche, in all its beauty and complexity, as a non-medical, natural phenomenon.

With the exception of these biologically based illnesses, psychology must come to be seen as the science
of spiritual maturity. We call people "neurotic" when, in reality, it's not a medical illness they are
suffering from, but spiritual immaturity. We must redefine spirituality, too, not as supernatural, but as
simply the natural unfolding toward the wise, mature end of the normal curve of human developmental
psychology.
3. Psychology as the study of “Consciousness”

SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

4. Structuralism and Functionalism

5. Behaviorism