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Colleagues, after forty years of work as a psychologist, I stopped using the concept of “psyche” due to its lack of content. «Psyche» is an indefinite concept used by psychologists to substantiate the subject of their activity. “We study the psyche, its origin in the animal world, its development in a child, its functioning in an adult, the work of mental functions,” psychologists say, and it seems to everyone that everything is clear. This is not true. Everything that psychologists try to study is the subject of either physiology or social sciences and phenomena. At the same time, “psyche” often refers to that in a person that is more similar to innate and that which is not a product of his rational activity. When a person has thought and acted reasonably, we do not talk about his “psyche”. But when guys get into a fight in a street skirmish, and girls squeal and look for somewhere to run away, we believe that such behavioral features are associated with the mentality of these young people and girls. If we try to speak more objectively, then, as a rule, it turns out that all the features of the psyche, our psychological features are either our biology or culture as a result of our upbringing. In other words, what people call their mind is either their body, or their mind, or their habits. The habit of being happy or upset, the habit of being offended or a program to fall in love with someone is not an initial given, not “the nature of our psyche”, but habits and social programs that we have learned. This or that «psyche of the child» is constructed by his parents, formed under the influence of the environment, corrected by his body and composed by the child himself.
What do parents and teachers say about a child: “He has such a psyche”? — They talk about the features of his behavior, which make his behavior quite adequate, although not yet quite reasonable. If a question can be discussed reasonably with a person and the person then acts reasonably, then no one talks about his “psyche”. There is no «psychology» here. Talk about the “psyche” and “human psychology” begins there and then when a person behaves adequately in principle, but he is controlled not by the mind, but by something else: learned habits, hormonal levels, the influence of others. If a person behaves completely inappropriately, they say that he is «injured by the psyche.» Also, people refer to the “psyche” when they want to justify their problematic behavior: “My psyche could not stand it anymore, I wanted to grab it right in the hair!”.
According to observations, clients in the position of the Victim more often talk about their “psyche”, relieving themselves of responsibility. «I have such a mentality» …
Psyche in the traditional sense
The psyche is the inner, subjective world of a person. His thoughts, feelings and experiences, moods and relationships, plans and dreams, expectations and views. These are thinking, perception, memory, motives, feelings and emotions, speech and attention — all organs and functions when they occur within us.
When a person for the same purposes (for orientation in the outside world, managing his state and behavior) begins to use something similar external — external memory, external attention and external urges, this is not called the psyche. See Organization of one’s own life by external means.
In the psyche, one can distinguish the control and executive parts. The controlling part of the psyche is what is called personality in the natural science approach. The executive part of the psyche includes thinking, speech and psychomotor processes.
Preserved and developed psyche
A preserved and developed psyche is what ensures adequate human behavior, the ability to understand others and be understood by them. Violation of the psyche takes a person beyond the norm. On the other hand, the high development of mental processes — memory, thinking, speech, attention — allows a person to be more successful and creative. See mental health
Mind, consciousness, will
To use the searchlight metaphor, the searchlight of the psyche is directed outward and illuminates the outside world. The searchlight of consciousness is directed inward and illuminates the inner world. And the will is a tool that coordinates the psyche and consciousness. Suppose the consciousness says: we must go forward and upward, and the psyche informs us that this peak is far away, and the path to it is rocky and through thorns. A conflict arises between the psyche and consciousness, the consciousness insists, the psyche resists … Then the will comes, understands and makes a decision. Which? See →
Mind and body
The psyche affects the body (somatics), the body affects the psyche. See Psychosomatics
Development of the psyche
The psyche is not inherent in all living organisms, but is formed only at a certain stage of biological evolution. On what exactly — experts argue. Everyone agrees that animals and birds have a psyche. Do worms have it — they doubt it. The presence of a psyche in protozoa and amoebas is very rarely spoken of.
Views on the psyche of other interesting researchers
According to F.E. Vasilyuk, in the typology of life worlds, the psyche is an organ, a tool for orienting a person in a difficult external world. Consciousness should be distinguished from the psyche — an organ, an instrument for orienting in the values of a complex inner world, and will — that which organizes the life of a creative person in a complex inner and difficult outer world. See Typology of Lifeworlds
According to OI Motkov, the psyche is an organ and a system of functions of a living being responsible for the holistic construction of its optimal behavior to satisfy the life goals originally built into it. See More
The criterion for the presence of a psyche for behaviorists is the possibility of learning. If a worm is capable of learning, it has a psyche. Accordingly, according to the results of experiments, worms have a psyche, but a small one — they learn weakly, for a long time and not for long. Plants have even less psyche…