Introduction
This post is about a major flaw in the mental healthcare industry. The flaw is ignorance of the human spirit. To be more specific, providers of industrialized mental healthcare, at all levels of the industry, ignore the human spirit. Ignoring the human spirit is a major flaw because we can’t live without it. Our human spirit is what makes and keeps us alive. Without it we are cadavers. This flaw needs to be exposed and replaced with knowledge of the human spirit. Exposing it begins with understanding the four major changes that led Westerners into being ignorant of the human spirit. The four major changes are embracing the Greek philosophy of Socrates and Plato, incorporating Greek philosophy into Christian theology, dividing Western culture into public and private sectors, and industrializing the modern Western mental healthcare system. What follows are descriptions of the four critical changes that led Westerners to ignoring their human spirits.
The Four Critical Changes that Led to Ignorance of the Human Spirit
The First Change: Embracing the Philosophy of Socrates and Plato
The first change that led to ignoring our human spirit was the influence of the Ancient Greek philosophy of Socrates and Plato. They rejected and criticized the long-held, traditional indigenous culture of Greece that acknowledged the human spirit. Homer and Hesiod were the teachers of that ancient Greek culture. Socrates and Plato challenged the teachings of Homer and Hesiod by introducing a Middle Eastern-based religious philosophy. They intended their religious philosophy to end the rich indigenous wisdom taught by Homer and Hesiod.
Indigenous Greek Wisdom
Indigenous Greek wisdom was animistic; that is, indigenous Greeks acknowledged that everything was spirited and alive—everything. They also acknowledged that the world included many goddesses and gods and other invisible beings. Most importantly, at a personal level they were aware of their own human spirits as well as the spirits of other beings. They knew that their lives depended wholly on the health and strength of their own human spirits. They also knew that wounds to their spirit put their lives at serious risk.
Socrates
However, Socrates, influenced by Middle Eastern monotheism, promoted one supreme God: Zeus. He also viewed humans dualistically, as being invisible eternal psyches—souls—trapped in visible, temporary physical bodies. He believed rationalism was truth and taught that the human psyche (soul), was an invisible internal hierarchy that consisted of three parts: logos (logic), thumos (passions, emotions), and epithumos (physical desires).
Socrates ignored the human spirit. He was all about rational thinking and the eternal psyche. He diminished the importance of human passions and emotions. Even more, he diminished the importance of our natural human desires. He believed that emotions and desires clouded rational reason and logic. Even though the Athenians rejected Socrates and sentenced him to death for corrupting the youth of Athens with his foreign religious philosophy, his philosophy remains influential to this very day. It even influences mental healthcare.
The Second Change: Incorporating Greek Philosophy into Christian Theology
The second change that led to ignoring our human spirit was the rise of Christianity, especially the Imperial Christianity founded by the emperor Constantine. Constantine forced one specific form of Christianity on his Empire and banned all other versions.
The clergy and theologians who complied with the emperor’s religious standards were previously trained in Greek philosophy before they became Christians. They incorporated into their theology Socrates’ rationalism and view of humans being as eternal souls in physical bodies. Consequently, they ignored the human spirit. The only spirits they acknowledged were the Holy Spirit of God, angels, and the faithful in Heaven, and the Devil and his demons who drew humans down to Hell.
To this day, Christians of all persuasions ignore the human spirit, even though the New Testament writings contain numerous references to it in the Gospel accounts, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles.
The Third Change: Dividing Western Culture into Public and Private Sectors
The third change came in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. That’s when European royalty ended the 130 years of European religious wars. The religious wars were about Christians with different beliefs slaughtering millions over their theological differences. To end the bloodbath and economic ruin, royalty divided European culture into public and private sectors.
Royalty and Clergymen, Public and Private Sectors
Royalty ruled over the public sector. It included governance, laws, commerce, economics, science, technology, banking, and the military. Clergymen presided over the private sector and oversaw church properties, worship services, preaching, hearing confessions, praying for the sick and injured, burying the dead, and other faith-related matters.
Royalty privatized religion to prevent more religious wars and clergymen agreed to it. However, royalty legalized only three versions of Christianity: Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist. They outlawed and banished all other versions of Christianity. Many who were banished migrated to the American colonies. There they had the freedom to practice their different religions in peace.
Royalty and Clergymen Ignored the Human Spirit
But because of the enduring influence of Greek philosophy on Christian theology, both royalty and clergy ignored the human spirit. Royals ignored it because anything related to spirits was outside the public sector. The public sector included Western science and medicine. Scientists and medical doctors also ignored the human spirit because it was outside their scope of practice.
Like the royals, clergymen ignored the human spirit. They ignored it because of the influence of Greek philosophy on their theology. Besides, the only spirits that mattered to them were the Holy Spirit, angels, and the faithful in heaven, and the Devil, demons, and the damned in Hell.
Ignorance of the human spirit is a major flaw in Western culture, especially in the mental healthcare industry. To this very day, both Western scientists, including healthcare providers, and people of faith ignore the human spirit. How can we live well without awareness of our human spirit? It’s the very thing that makes and keeps us alive.
The Fourth Change: Industrializing the Modern Western Mental Healthcare System
The fourth change happened in the early 1900s when healthcare started being sucked into the Industrial Revolution. Industrialism was and still is a way of generating wealth for owners and other stakeholders of businesses and corporations, including the healthcare industry. Over time, the healthcare industry expanded into a conglomerate of hospital systems partnered with pharmaceutical corporations, insurance corporations, and technology industries.
Mental healthcare is part of the industrialized healthcare conglomeration. Mental health clinics are wealth-generating businesses for the owners and stakeholders. The clinicians are like assembly line workers in a factory. They have limited time with patients, quotas to meet, and documentation to turn in on time. These clinicians often do their documentation after work without pay. Many become dispirited and burnt out and find a different job.
Industrialized mental healthcare is deeply influenced by Ancient Greek philosophy, Christian theology, Western science, and the Industrial Revolution. Greek philosophy drives its rationalism and the body-mind dualistic view of humans.
Christianity influences its confidentiality and quasi-pastoral approach. It includes listening to clients’ confessions and offering empathy, absolution, and guidance.
Western science drives its evidence-based research and narrow focus on the physical brain and nervous system.
And the Industrial Revolution drives mental healthcare business owners to run their clinics like small assembly line factories. Like workers in other factories, the clinical staff are often overworked and underpaid, while the owners and other stakeholders of the businesses become wealthy.
Conclusion
The major flaw of the mental healthcare industry is that its providers ignore the human spirit. They know nothing about it or its role in life, healing, and happiness.
I’m here to address that major flaw. My mission is to champion the human spirit and teach others all about it. Life Therapy Education is the name of my method of teaching others about the human spirit. Our spirit is what makes and keeps us alive. It is the seat of our emotions and moods, the source of our inner wordless knowing, and the character of our personality. Its aspirations naturally drive us toward life, health, and the happiness of realizing the purpose of our lives. My dream is for everyone to know their own unique human spirit, embrace it, celebrate it, and realize their purpose for being alive.
If you are interested in learning more about your human spirit and how important it is for your life, health, and happiness, book a FREE 30-Minute Initial Online Consult with me. I’d be glad to share more with you and answer any questions you have. I look forward to meeting