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Deborah Clifford

Breath, spirit and life

Updated: Oct 20, 2021

The god

is near, and hard to grasp.

But where there is danger,

a rescuing element grows as well.

Friedrich Holderlin



In its emergence, psychology was considered a branch of philosophy, until the 1870s when it was colonized by science. Since then, psychology has been less understood philosophically and more as the study of the science of the mind and behavior. Before discussing the field of psychology more fully, it is important to look closely at the word psychology itself which comes from both the Greek psyche, meaning “breath, spirit, life,” and logia, meaning “the study of something.” Psyche and logia combined, have rooted psychology in the desire to give dedicated, focused, and intense attention to the attitudes and behaviors that bring about and support a sense of flourishing life. This sense of life is embodied in the attribute of liveliness and demonstrated by the attitudes and behaviors that make people vitally animated. Psychology as a discipline of study was infused from its inception with the love of life and with the questions that arise from how an animated and vital life force is established and sustained. One of the questions that immediately arises when thinking about the study of life, spirit and breath is the methodology. The ‘how’ of studying psyche seems rather more obscure than the ‘how’ of studying more easily observed and material substances. Then there is the actual challenge of framing what is meant by the concepts of life, sprit and breath, evoking the image of chasing rare and elusive wild creatures. Clearly seeing and articulating a flourishing life defies our grasping and comprehension wriggles free from such nebulous space. It appears that very elusiveness of psyche as a discipline of study has resulted in it having been set aside in favor of more graspable methodologies, in understanding the science of mind and behavior. Scientific methodologies with their firm grasp on observable data were easier to extract quantifiable and validated conclusions. Attesting to this shift to ‘proper scientific methodologies’ in the field of psychology, is the fact that the most important skill necessary to currently train as a psychologist is statistical reasoning, vital for conducting the scientific experiments necessary for linking mind and behavior. In addition, siloed specializations has led to numerous branches including; clinical, cognitive, developmental, forensic, neuropsychology, social and organizational. All of this shift to the respectable table of science has given psychology a permanent seat. It is now a widely respected field, trusted by many people, as a means to developing greater human consciousness, enlightenment and ultimately happiness. The proverbial elephant in the room, as is so often the case at the table of respectability, is the ghost of the flourishing life.


With the allegiance to scientific inquiry, came a departure from the inquiry into spirit, life and breath as the natural locus for psyche attention. Modern psychology, then, exhibits few traits of the soil from which it sprang. Subsequently, there is a crisis in the land evidenced by an ever-increasing stream of mental health issues, emerging like a collapsed dike, spilling out of healthcare clinics, overflowing into our streets, offices and homes. This is especially prevalent in nations where the study and practice of various current psychological theories is widely accepted. Studies abound with evidence of mental health illnesses straining already depleted resources despite the economic resources spent on researching and dispensing effective antidepressants along with other various psychologically motivated medications. Studies ranking happiness levels show that western nations increasingly are falling behind other less-developed countries even as we self-medicate with constant distractions – shopping, trips, food, leisure, education, etc. Current images show a desensitized humanity, walking blandly on a colonized planet, blinded by the suffering all around us. This “not seeing” allows all kinds of atrocities to happen – wars, poverty, violence against women and children and the raping of the earth’s resources without regard for the next generations. It makes the hard and complex question of “how are we to flourish in and with the world?” utterly unaskable. People so numbed out can hardly even be called ‘human. Psychology, then, in its current identity, can be seen to exert its ministrations in efforts to normalize our current cultural patterns while tinkering with scientific ways to soften the effects of collective psychic numbing. Such current patterns, in their pathologies, serve as the ripening energy for new emergences.





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