Psychology: body, soul and spirit

The question who am I is a very interesting question to ask. It is, in fact, one of the most important questions for psychology and for clinical psychology.

Perhaps the most common answer is: “I am my body”. This body you see in front of you. And with that, the body becomes important… we have to take care of the body, do gymnastics or weight training, maintain weight, look as good as possible, wear fashionable clothes…

But then another question arises: are you just your body?

If you are just your body, you change every day, with molecules coming in and out… you change with age. You age and your body ages. You can hide this with plastic surgery and botox, but it is an inevitable process.

Then another answer may arise: I am my body, but I am also my soul (or psyche – which will give the word psychology, study of the soul). With my soul, I feel, I have emotions and feelings. I am happy and I am sad. I think about life… and the way I feel and think is my soul.

With that, we can also take care of our soul, seek happiness, practice having good thoughts and feelings, live with good and intelligent people and so on…

And here also another kind of question arises: is the soul mortal or immortal? Does it age and die as the body or soul continues to live in another plane or world?

These are questions for spirituality to answer. Spirituality comes from the spirit and the spirit has always been considered, in our tradition, as something other than the body and the soul.

For example, in the definition: man has a body, a soul, a spirit.

The difference between soul and spirit is not very clear. Some people speak as if it were just one thing, others already make the distinction, saying that the soul is responsible for emotion and thought, while the spirit is connected to God. It is the divine part in man.

Talking about God in psychology is, in a way, taboo. Because psychology wants to be a science and, in our culture, we have the conflict between science and faith, science and religion.

However, psychology also studies religion. Thinking about the history of humanity without religion is impossible. Man has always cultivated his relationship with the gods or with God. Even nowadays, where this dimension is forgotten, the absence is perceived in the void, in the lack of a meaning for life.

In any case, psychology of religion is not religious psychology. A psychology researcher who studies religious phenomena is not necessarily religious or will want to make his patients follow this or that religion.

What I want to say, in this text, is that answering the question who am I is not as simple as it seems. If the body is something apparent, something you can pick up and touch and see, the same is not true of the soul (and spirit)…

Have you seen your soul? Your spirit?

It’s like that oriental question, what was your face like before you were born? Who are you?

Felipe de Souza

Clinical Psychologist

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