Psychopannychia and the Person in Psychotherapy

The term Psychopannychia triggers our imaginations. We might think of some type of psychiatric disorder, perhaps an anxiety related disorder. Psychopannychia (the soul active all night long) is actually the name of a published work. It was John Calvin’s first written work in which he intended to speak as a theologian (Tavard, 2000, p. 4). He was addressing a 16^th century controversy regarding the soul falling asleep at death and waking up at the final resurrection.  Calvin “…considered it his duty to take up the pen in defense of the true doctrine, namely that the soul neither sleeps nor dies at bodily death, but remains fully alive as it is taken up in the Lord” (Tavard, 2000, p. 1). The term “soul” is actually referring to the person remaining fully alive at bodily death. Could this discussion of the issue be relevant to clarifying how we should regard persons in this life, as we work with them in psychotherapy?

The Challenge to Find a Timeless Concept of Change

Understanding how people change should be a persistent pursuit for those of us who practice or are training others to become practitioners of psychological healing. I wonder about our paradigms of change though. I was taught in an era in which personality theories were very important. In fact, in my doctoral training program there were three required courses on personality theory and psychopathology, each from the perspective of a different personality theory. We didn’t talk about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM). This was before the multi-axis DSM-III. I suppose because I’ve experienced this shift in the conceptualization of psychological problems and movement away from identifying with personality theories, it may explain why I wonder if even now we truly understand change. Also, I have to wonder how people thought personal change happened before there were psychological theories. It seems we tend to think of our own time period as having the most advanced and accurate ideas. However, perhaps beyond current conceptualizations, there have always been common factors that most significantly account for change.