inner logic

The functioning of the mind has fascinated mankind since there was an awareness of existence. In former times it was rather a matter for priests, magicians, oracles, doctors and sometimes exorcists ; since Freud there has been the psychologist .

The psychologist studies the ways of thinking while his counterpart, the neurologist, examines neuronal structure and chemistry of the brain that enable thinking processes. Recently psychologists are being discredited by neurologists with the claim that everything is biology and chemistry , that there is no human genius and disfunctioning is just bad chemical control.

Curiously, few look at it in a holistic way- if there is a chemical and biological function it is there for a reason. Aparent malfunction might also be there for a reason- maybe it isn't just some form of illness.

Let's take for example depression, one of the largest spread mental diseases. It touches people from all backgrounds, cultures, situations. It has little relation to external circumstance. And aparently it is not a new thing but has existed through the ages.

What if depression had a function ,a role?

Let's assume that there are different mental/spiritual phases in life to go through ( there is evidence that this is genetically pre-programmed). What happens if for some reason the individual doesn't move in his mind? What if depression was a means of the subconscious to force evolution upon the conscious?

Depression lowers certainities and beliefs, habits , attachments in such a way that there is only a way out if something new is shaped. In a way the inner 'hard disk' is erased to create new space. Depression could be a natural mechanis created to make us evolve.

Treating depression then is not a question of how to stop the disease by blocking mental chemistry, but how to accompany the process to be sure that it evolves without risk toward a new phase of life.


I wonder if there are other psychological processes that can be reconsidered.

My hairdresser saw me this week do a Sudoku. 'I've been doing those all the time for months!' she exclaimed-' today I don't do them anymore!'

That reminded me of the learning process of children discovered by Maria Montessori: Maria discovered that children if not forced to occupy with certain games will stick to the same thing until they have learned to master the task and then loose interest . In a Montessori school you can see for example a child that will do nothing than maths for months- and he will do it at home, in his free time, on the week end, on the loo- he doesn't let go.. and then, after a couple of months, he stops and turns to grammar for example.

Now is there a way to examine adult obsessions in the same way?

If you're hooked upon a video game, you can't close a book, you are up to an activity in a comulsive way- there might be something in it your brain considers worth spending time on, something to learn.

It would be an interesting question not to look at such a behaviour with suspicion ( because the obessed person isn't 'available' for other occupations) but ask what it is that is learnable, that the brain considers important, for which a need is felt. That would enable enhancing a possible learning process or understanding and helping if the addictive activity is exercised for a psychological reason.

Medicine is more and more convinced that illness has a link with the body and might be a non- verbal way of expression of suffering or a forcing of the mind by the body.

There might be more sense in psychological and biologic disfunctioning than we think.