This isn't entirely unlike the relationship of psychology and theology. They're close with their respective BFFs, science and religion, who are rumoured to have a long-standing feud. Although, when you ask people what happened to lead to this presumed in-fighting, no one can quite put their finger on why they're at odds. Something about the Church—from whence most early scientists arose—silencing new theories out of fear of change, perhaps. Something about scientists being hostile to religion, though many probably just have a healthy division of work and private life. After all, science can give us an empirical is but cannot give us an ought. Religion can give us an ought (in a meaning-making way) but lacks the tools to answer granular questions about biology, geology, or even psychology.
Psychology itself went through a period of disambiguation in the 1800s, where it was given a distinct role, out from under the umbrella of theology or natural philosophy. Experimental psychologists such as Wilhelm Wundt defined it as being "between the natural sciences and the humanities" and, to the chagrin of many of his contemporaries, he declined to give it a religious or theological origin—despite, or perhaps because of, his own religious origin as the son of a Lutheran minister.
This is where we might start to wonder if psychology has been working to distance itself from its religious, theological, or even philosophical origins. Maybe psychology and theology are more like child and parent in a dysfunctional family where neither chooses to identify the other as family?
We can look to the etymology of "psyche" for a clue. As Rev. Dr. Joanna Collicutt reminds us, "psyche" or psuché can be translated as "life," "soul," "human being"—but in contemporary psychology, it is too often understood solely as "mind." When Jesus says, "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it," it is to our psyche that he is referring (Matthew 16:25, NIV). What was once the study of the soul became, largely, the study of the workings of the mind.
Dr. Justin Barrett argues that modern psychology largely confines itself to a kind of methodological naturalism—"That is, for the sake of their inquiry, they assume that the only permitted explanations are naturalistic. The supernatural or spiritual are not typically entertained as part of explanatory or predictive accounts." From a methodological point of view, this attention to measurable phenomena is commendable and perhaps even necessary. We wouldn't get far in understanding mental processes and mechanisms if every human action and response were explained by "it was probably the angels again."
Yet, psychology has been left to roam the countryside with its inheritance for long enough. It's time for it to come home. Not in the sense that psychology should abandon the distinctness of its approach and process, but it's time for its historical and etymological amnesia to end. Methodological naturalism is one thing, but discounting the subjective, ethical, and epistemological teleology that undergirds psychological investigation is not viable or, ultimately, ethical. Spirituality and meaning-making form us each in innumerable ways, and being keenly aware of biases and presuppositions regarding health, the "greater good," and the ends of psychological inquiry require robust conversations and thoughtful interactions with the fields of philosophy and theology.
One way to begin this journey is to consider what kind of "health" or even "mental health" psychology is aimed at. We can struggle between over-pathologizing mental states and a kind of happy-go-lucky positive psychology, but what grounds or sets the intention for our view of health? More personally, what do you understand mental health to look like? Each of us carries our own interpretations, impressions, and biases into our work—from culture, religion, upbringing, education, or otherwise.
As a Christian, I look to a word like sōzō in the Greek New Testament to set the tone for healing. This is the word used in Mark 5 for the healing Jesus brought to a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years and the word used when he "healed" Jairus' daughter from death. It's a word that encompasses "salvation" together with physical cure. Not dissimilar from "shalom" in the Hebrew Bible, it captures the way that health and wholeness are not to be found apart from community, but in a restoration of relationships—a kind of harmony with oneself, with one's community, with one's world, and with God.
I don't expect that salvation itself will be discovered under a microscope or in a brain lab. I do expect that what we find there, or on the therapist's proverbial couch, will be an indicator of the possibilities of a wider and more generous understanding of what restoration and transformation might look like for each person. Acknowledging that further dialogue and learning is needed between psychology and the humanities enables a religiously and culturally literate approach to the psychological sciences—one that not only works within the limits of the science but acknowledges and appreciates these limits, and our own limits as researchers, as we seek the health of our communities and our world.
Psychological approaches that do not engage with philosophical or theological critique or contribution are at risk of being unaware of their own biases. One such bias imported from modern Western culture is that of individualism—the sense that health or wholeness of mind is a personal project. In dialogue with philosophy and theology, psychological practice will be aided in its reflexive awareness, just as philosophical and theological inquiries are aided in their empirical grounding when in conversation with psychological investigation.
As I have gotten to know each of my fellow researchers as friends (not frenemies!), I am reminded that none of us needs to navigate these questions and concerns alone. We are all learning, we all have questions, and we all have something to contribute. I anticipate with hope upcoming "family reunions" with psychologists and theologians. Community is a crucial aspect of mental health—needed more than ever in an age of polarization. I'm grateful to witness and, Lord willing, contribute to this healing work.