The Myth of Psychic Unity

23 Nov The Myth of Psychic Unity

Shweder (1991) points out that the field of psychology in general operates from the myth of “psychic unity,” that is, that all people are basically alike underneath, meaning in practice, that we believe that all people of the world are basically like white, educated Americans. He gives many examples of how this unity is not the case, that instead, all of our observations about life arise from our cultural traditions and social practices which result in very different minds, emotions, and concepts of self.

Cushman (1995) continues in this vein by writing about the excessive individualism that saturates the discipline of psychology. All cultures do not share individualism as a value. He states that we believe that laboratory results prove that the 20^th century Western self is the one, universal way of human being, and that this then creates a problem when we try to evaluate cultures that do not configure the self in the way we do. He makes an impassioned plea that mainstream psychology’s claim to own the universal truth about an objective, ahistorical human nature needs to be seen for what it is, and that it feeds the current political needs for power and privilege.

One example of a culture very different from our own is Tibetan spiritual culture. Bernbaum (1974) writes of the Tibetan use of symbols such as mantras, yantras, mudras, dance and ritual. Rather than the Judeo-Christian and Hindu tenets that desire was to be avoided, the Tibetans accepted the energy of desire and used it. Pope (2011) further differentiated Tibetan culture from ours by stating that modern humans exemplify hungry ghosts trapped in a state of incessant greed.

Another very different culture was developed when Africans were brought here as slaves, and forced to adapt to a culture not their own. Marignay (2016) writes that they kept hope alive by using prayer songs for healing. These Negro spirituals acted as a sort of existential therapy for enslaved people and provided healing and some sense of choice and responsibility.

References

Bernbaum, E. M. (1974). The way of symbols: The use of symbols in Tibetan mysticism. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 6(2), 93-109.

Cushman, P. (1995). Constructing the self, constructing America: A cultural history of psychotherapy. Da Capo Press.

Marignay, B. (2016). Prayer Songs: Therapy That Aided a People’s Survival. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 35(1), 92-105.

Pope, A. (2011). Modern materialism through the lens of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 30(1-2), 171-177.

Shweder, R. A. (1991). Cultural psychology: What is it?  In Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology (p. 73-112). Harvard University Press.

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