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CHAPTER 11
PSYCHOLOGY AND THE CARE OF SOULS
MODERN man is in a state of profound spiritual distress. His
condition lays a heavy burden of responsibility upon all those
who are concerned in the care of souls. In this situation
psychology offers invaluable help. At the same time it makes its own
demands. In particular, it demands that the individual human
being shall be given the most reverent and single-minded
consideration. This obligation cannot be denied. Every human
being represents something unique. If therefore one desires to
help a person in spiritual distress, mere general knowledge of
human nature is insufficient. It can tell us something of how
people react to their surroundings under ordinary conditions.
It can help us to understand how adjustments are made to
changes of circumstances and common vicissitudes. It cannot
enable us to explain how this individual will react in this
situation or enable us to predict what he will do when kat kind
of crisis or temptation assails him. Before we can gain this
kind of insight—and this is the kind needed to be of real service
to our fellow man or woman—we must know him or her as an
individual and unique being. We must know his personal
history because his past experiences are gathered up into his
present being and account in no small measure for what he
now is and what he has it in him to become. We must perceive
his personal characteristics, we must understand something of
the environmental pressures and influences to which he has
been subjected and those by which his present life is being
affected. In short, we must know him as a unique, living
individual.
In its point of view about this matter, medical psychology
has a great deal to offer those entrusted with the care of souls.
The physician, especially the psychiatrist, can teach the spiritual
adviser a great deal. His manner of approach to the individual
is in itself an object lesson from which we should be wise to
learn.
In his book, The Unity of the Mind, Professor John Landquist,
1 Sjilensenhet, Stockholm, 1935.
27
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