Psychology versus spirituality. Which of these two disciplines will help me get better? asks the western quidam who, unlike his ancestor of the Middle Ages, has the choice. Officially born in the 19th century as a “human science”, psychology deciphers the mental life of the individual and proceeds cognitively, by inquiry and reasoning. She delves into the patient’s past to undo his knots and other conditionings.
Officially born during the First World War – before, we spoke of piety or devotion – spirituality aims for its part to connect the human being to higher entities with a view to reparation and, above all, support. daily. In other words, one questions when the other answers.
Meditation, spiritual or not?
It’s not so simple, nuance together the eminent doctor of theology Dominique Salin as well as the Geneva sophrologist Denis Inkei. “Positive psychology”, which emerged in the 1940s, favors solutions over introspection. While, on the side of spirituality, a discipline such as “mystical theology”, made famous by the monk Abelard, already in the twelfth century valued “spiritual experience”, therefore “self and life” over theology.
Same for meditation today. When some followers speak of a simple secular technique of mindfulness to be serene and in one’s business, others see in this practice a way of connecting to the cosmos and to the forces of the universe. An observation, whatever the case: spiritual because religious – the reverse is not true – the traditional Churches suffer from a desertion in favor of more creative and more open currents.
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Irony of history. In spirituality and psychologybrilliant article the review Studies published in 2013 and relayed by the Cairn.info website, Dominique Salin shows that psychology was born of religion. Whereas in the Middle Ages the human psyche could not be conceived outside of the healthy Spirit, at the end of the Renaissance, influenced by philosophy which was beginning to take on its autonomy, humanist currents “were more and more interested in to the subjective experience of the individual.
It is because the Reformation passed through there, marking the birth of modernity with its first symptoms of disenchantment with the world and secularization of minds. “Man begins to assert himself in the face of God and soon against him,” notes Dominique Salin, who continues: “The distinction is widening between the order of nature, which has less and less need of God to function, and the order of the spiritual which will increasingly be understood as supernatural, even miraculous and magical.”
watch yourself believe
the switch is interesting. For the great spiritual figures of the Middle Ages like Meister Eckhart, union with God did not take place at the level of the three faculties of the soul set out by Aristotle – memory, intellect and will –, but in what they called “the essence” or the “castle” of the soul, a kind of “sanctuary which escaped the inner gaze”. Thus, we believed, but we did not watch ourselves believe. Whereas from the 17th century, the believer “will seek to analyse, with an increasingly passionate curiosity, the impact of grace by asking himself: “At what moment did God act in me, and how?” Birth of psychological introspection.
If psychology was born from religion, it quickly freed itself from it to reach, on the threshold of the 20th century, the radical position of Freud for whom “the spiritual was soluble in psychology”. Annoyed, the Church turned a blind eye and claimed, still in the mid-1960s, that “grace makes fun of nature. So there is nothing interesting to learn from psychologists. You should even be wary of them like the plague, because they will make you lose your faith.”
Health, new divinity
Over the years, the gap has been bridged. Psychologists have opened up to behavioral therapies that favor solutions over introspection and have increasingly accepted that “all approaches, even the most original, are legitimate as long as they lead to good results”. On the religious side, the hierarchies have recognized that “in the personal experience of the Christian, the spiritual and the psychological are intertwined”, all the more so since the formators, in the seminaries and the novitiates, have “psychologized” their teaching. Above all, spirituality has become more democratic and multiplied, broadening the spectrum of beliefs to the notion of intimate quest and healing, in accordance with the cult of health which has now become a priority, if not a new divinity.
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However, in the collective imagination, an antagonism remains between analysis and belief. As if one harmed the other. Denis Inkei understands this mistrust. Himself, as sophrologist and trainer, limits himself to five sessions with each of his patients so as not to create attachment and refuses the idea that he could “change this person’s vision of the world”.
Cults, the three red alerts
“In a period of fragility like the one we are going through today, the individual can very quickly seek answers outside, rely on a reassuring ideology.” The therapist, who essentially practices anti-stress techniques acting on the nervous system and the brain, gives three tips to avoid such a drift. “A red alert should go off as soon as a ‘therapist’ or ‘spiritual master’ claims they are right and others are wrong; that he seeks to separate the patient from his relatives and his habits; that it sets out a global critique of the system.”
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Otherwise, Denis Inkei does not oppose psychology and spirituality. “It all depends on the patient. If the latter seeks to understand why he is not well, he will go to see a psychologist. But if he is looking for immediate relief, he will turn to spiritual practice instead.”
To think of oneself as alone and unique? Illusory!
The sophrologist may be a pragmatist who notably gives seminars in companies in order to manage stress, he values “the elevation of the spirit for its ability to connect the human to invisible forces”. “But I integrate the body into the mind. Often, both religion and psychology have forgotten the body. However, by modifying the breathing or the posture, one can free oneself from negative emotions and access a fine and powerful awareness of oneself and of others. In any case, continues the therapist, it is illusory to think of oneself as one and only. “Like it or not, we depend on others and others depend on us. So, all beliefs that can help us to come together rather than to separate us are welcome.”
Rise unhindered
Bring us together? What does he think of the decline of the Christian religion, the aim of which was precisely to “build the Church”, to bring together the faithful? “Religion offers tools of great spirituality and has succeeded in building community. But the notion of a constituted group implies political and social limits which pose a problem today. I believe that the Western “faithful” of the 21st century wants to rise in complete freedom, more in connection with nature and cosmic entities than constrained by historically marked dogmas. In 1968, we wanted to enjoy without hindrance. In 2021, we want to rise without hindrance.
Psychology and spirituality, one questions, the other answers