"Recognition of what one lacks is one of the most dynamic forces in the human spirit. Realisation of our greater selves comes first through the recognition of what we are not. That, I suggested, is the significance in the Sermon on the Mount of the enigmatic 'blessed are the poor in spirit': only the spirit that recognises itself to be poor, through what it is not, has any promise of increase." Laurens van der Post from The Heart of a Hunter

The most important practical knowledge we can have about the human psyche is about its healthy development. For this, we require an explicit standard of what psychic health and mental balance are. This is not easily found by studying conventional psychological theories, if at all. The lack of a clear, practical and wide-ranging model of psychic health is perhaps the cardinal weakness of modern psychology and psychiatry and of most forms of therapy, from psychoanalysis onwards. Of course, this reflects the lack of an adequate overview of the human psyche in its various levels of development.

Just as there are different levels to the human psyche, with corresponding degrees of personal development, there are various relative standards of 'psychic health' corresponding to each stage of development. These should move towards progressively more stable psyches and greater fulfilment, they must take as their highest ideal the standards of development closest to human perfection. Such an ideal is found in Vedanta, by which less complete or more partial standards of psychic functioning can be compared and ordered. In other words, healthy functioning at the level of animality and egoism does not provide any basic ideal, even though such a condition is relatively better than mental disorder.

Practising professional psychologists and psychiatrists deal more with mentally disturbed persons than normal ones. Their observations and studies are thus generally biassed towards the pathological, and are often further hampered by the external approach that scientific methods impose on them. The standards of what psychic health is as stated or implied in the chief therapeutic traditions therefore mostly suffer from the shortcomings of a narrow and modest ideal, that of average psychic functioning. The first attempts by Charcot, Freud and others to investigate madness led to a great emphasis of investigation in psychology into the unhealthy psyche.

Concentrating on mental and emotional disturbance, neurosis and psychosis etc., combined with the influences of Darwinian determinism and materialism, psychologists neglected the broader questions of value that arise where human fulfilment, psychic balance and the perfection of behaviour are involved. By the same measure, the traditional philosophies and religious questions were side-lined and psychology concentrated on the physical and environmental conditioners of life. The idea of the human spirit was left to fend for itself, regarded as no more substantial than a ghost of an idea. All the works of the human intellect, its philosophies and religions, its moral strivings and sublime aspirations were ignored as products of an unscientific imagination, mere ideologies or idealisms divorced from the inexorable realities of nature. Psychic health was soon seen not only in nothing but pragmatic, worldly terms, but also more as the absence of serious mental disturbances rather than as connected with the presence of the best qualities in us.

A prime example of the pathological viewpoint is seen in the very influential psychological pessimism of Freud, whose very strong biasses towards abnormal early sexuality, incest and repressed aggressions set an unfortunate standard with a notable over-accenting of the sick and disturbed.

THE ROLE OF VALUES IN PSYCHIC BALANCE

The goals of personal development in Vedanta are clear and positive. What we call psychic health is not some technical medical condition... it is an overall condition of a person's being. Integrated and well-balanced personality is also therefore intimately related to the understanding of such human values as truthfulness and open-mindedness, peace of mind, sympathy and compassion, moral uprightness and unharmful behaviour. In brief, just as a healthy body depends on physical activity, work and good diet, the healthy psyche eventually depends on what the mind takes in, cherishes and expresses. Mental health reflects the quality of a lifestyle ordered by positive values. Full health in a psychic sense involves harmony, which includes coherence of thought, word and deed and equanimity or 'psychic non-attachment' in all situations.

Avoidance of firm values in the therapy of the mentally suffering is a great misunderstanding. Though setting up ethical and moral standards which all must recognise or to which all must conform is abhorrent to much 'civilised opinion', the fact is that values do exist as norms throughout the spectrum of human life. Not to include the basic human values positively in studying mental health and treating deranged persons is like sticking one's head in the sand to escape a problem. When a person has sufficient personal autonomy combined with good mental discipline and positive activities accepted and carried out joyously, mental balance is never far off.

Persons may harmonise more or less well with the surrounding world and people may also vary as to the degree of inward harmony. The social environment and personality are, however, always in interaction. In an environment where values are weak or anti-values flourish, a healthy personality is less easily formed and defended. A good person can hardly ever remain well-balanced while living in passive acceptance of the pressures or requirements of morally bad social surroundings.

Persons whose characters are formed in one society can lose their balance when having to live in another, while a misfit at home may thrive better abroad. The personality is thus not independent of the social and other conditions under which a person lives, it is the basis of the capacity to interact more or less fruitfully and positively with and within society.

STANDARDS FOR THE HEALTHY PSYCHE

There is a pressing need for a publicly accessible 'model' of psychic health that enables people to reach a better understanding of their own personalities and to set overall standards for their own fulfilment. The higher psychology draws upon Vedanta, which has long taught standards that are understandable, acceptable to common sense and are progressively testable by personal experience.

Unity Of Thought, Word And Deed: A Key Test: The connection between our present thoughts, words and deeds is the crucial test. It applies in all manner of events in life and sets a true standard for personal development and character education in all spheres of life. In actual practice, this relationship between word and act is a main focus point for evaluating all our interactions with one another. The greater the harmony or reasonable coherence of between thought, word and deed, the healthier a person's psyche of the individual.

Everything depends firstly upon what one thinks... and consequently what one therefore tends to say and do. As the foremost interpreter of Vedanta - Sathya Sai Baba - points out, thoughts that are in accordance with human values lead to unity and harmony, while anti-values - whether harboured in the mind, expressed or acted on, easily lead to conflicts of thought, word and deed.

Disharmony of words and actions soon makes itself evident when deceit is used, lies told and so on. On the other hand, stable, harmonious human relations are only built where there are enough good thoughts, truthful words and loving acts.

The relationship between word, thought and deed can also be reflected or expressed 'non-verbally' at the bodily level. Today there exist many techniques which concentrate on all manner of aspects of body stance, tensions, movements and reactions etc. for helping persons towards self discovery and improved self-satisfaction. Inner conflicts and emotional blockages that lie behind disunity of thought, word and deed can be investigated and modified or removed by the aid of such techniques.

A life lived according to functional values is the basis of an optimally healthy human psyche. The highest of behavioural ideals can be shown to follow from human values, whether main or subordinate. One general variant of these is expressed here in terms of more specific behavioural norms:-

- control of speech habits
- independence towards property, money etc. (non-attachment)
- regulation of desires (self-control)
- personal non-attachment (ego-control)
- judgement not swayed by strong passions or excessive emotions
- positivity of attitude and approach in views of others
- morality in thought and deed - service of others
- sacrifice of own interest for the common good
- recognition of personal and human limitations
- control of the mind's vagaries (peace of mind)
- spiritual knowledge and self-realisation
- equanimity and fearlessness
- ability to love/give selflessly without thought of returns
When universal human values are articulated in respect of what we may expect of a fully-harmonious personality, these could be stated as including:-
- natural self-confidence (physical equipoise and social openness)
- freedom from fear in general (i.e. whether 'irrational' or 'rational')
- the ability to care for or love others without preconditions
- mental equanimity in the face of strong disturbing influences
- freedom of self-expression without undue effort or going to extremes
- determination and sensible perserverance despite difficulties
- ability to identify with others in happiness and grief
- emotional self-control without self-suppression
- freedom from compulsions or useless habits
- recognition of one's limitations without losing faith in one's potentials
- strict reservation of judgement of others
- control of speech habits
- open-mindedness on complex issues
- non-dependence on specific sensory influences
- relative non-attachment towards physical property
- control of own desires in the best interests of a group etc. (or of oneself).

These conditions can be taken as hypotheses about healthy functioning, open to operational testing and personal or other experiment. Where all the above conditions are really fulfilled, a person may be said to have developed strong character combined with authentic spontaneous selfhood, practically amounting to self-mastery. Authenticity is having authority, especially authority over one's own body and mind. Such a person has developed supra-personal qualities in that egoism has been mastered and that the illusions of personal identity are transcended in selflessness. This 'selfless self' is the result of identification with all beings and all being, both knowing and experiencing that we are one with all and everything and not limited to the body. On the basis of such experience all relations of parts and wholes, such as those between individual and society or human and cosmos, are realised as expressions of the same one 'Overself', in the image of which each individual is recognised as being created.

One of the most significant facts about the individual self is surely its relative insignificance before the fact of Universal Selfhood. Such a recognition is intrinsic to mature psychic health. Just as any individual is a tiny speck when compared to the universe, the limited worldly self (jiva) is but a dot against the vastness of the Overself (Atma).

EARLY DEVELOPMENT AND PSYCHIC HEALTH

The importance of early childhood experiences in the development of the psyche, for better or worse, is a well-established general fact of psychology. Modern research has studied the abnormal in depth. These studies mostly only imply ideas of 'normality', but fail to express and develop them adequately. The cart must not be put before the horse, which easily occurs when the concentration on causes or conditioners of the abnormal or 'deviance' are the primary consideration. Self-knowledge through personal action is disregarded while it alone gives the ultimate model of attainment of psychological balance (i.e. entirely stable psychic health).

The above point can hardly be laboured too much because of the very broad and often subtle influence pathological theories have had both in research and in the layman's ideas of psychology. Understanding the development of the human personality, of the ego and of character must be founded firmly upon an ideal of development, the potential and attainable goal inherent in every psyche which may be called 'the birthright of the soul'. Otherwise, to go by the 'average' person tends mostly to discover the 'lower common denominators', so to speak.

The on-going study of childhood is essential to any complete psychology. The many types of conditions of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual environment must be more thoroughly investigated. This includes the relative effect of the values (or anti-values) expressed in the behaviour or daily practices of the parents and general family, the peer group and the other socialising groups (eg. school) in early life. The effects of different types and qualities of sensory and mental stimuli to which children are subjected, from talk or gossip to books and films or TV, also requires serious critical study. Likewise the relative amount and type of discipline to which children are subjected must be examined for their relative effectiveness or failure in training the healthy growth of character and balanced personality.

Inherent or inborn characteristics of children, when studied comparatively, such as in studies of identical twins and also of highly dissimilar children, can show the relative influence of heredity and environment, example and mental precept. Whether one accredits inborn tendencies to pre-natal, genetic or reincarnational causes, their observable effects must be known if one is to be able to make correct allowances in upbringing, moral training and the design of suitable environments for those of various traits, whether individually, racially or culturally conditioned.

Modern Western psychological views on childhood development took its start from the views of Sigmund Freud. Freud was doubtless the first to broach in public the subject of emotional and sexual conflicts in early childhood and to bring openness to the discussion of sexuality and other emotions that were repressed due to their social unacceptability. However, Freudian and other forms of psychoanalytic theory frequently misplace emphasis concerning the role of early childhood experiences in personality development, often to the extent of making aberrant sexuality into the all-overshadowing determining factor. But such aberrance cannot be normal. The identity conflicts of the child in relation to the mother and father were for Freud the key to understanding all psychic unbalance in adults. He also unfortunately concealed (as being infantile sexual fantasy) the fact - known to him - that has become publicly known only in recent times, that incest was an actual and fairly widespread problem and was not simply something fantasised by his patients.¹

Early childhood experience is unquestionably of prime importance in the formation or malformation of many personality traits. Yet common distortions arise often from placing undue emphasis on certain more obscure childhood experiences while neglecting other more obvious ones. This is seen in the over-inflation of traumatic and regressive theories in the literature and in therapy.² The situation is somewhat similar to that of medicine in which research into the unusual is most popular because of the attention it receives, while common and obvious ailments from the common cold to other extremely widespread problems (nutritional, spinal, muscular, and allergic etc.) are much under-researched.

For example, the assumption that adult psychic imbalance can invariably be traced back to childhood problems or early traumas is not always justified. It tends to rely on a more causal-deterministic model of thought that neglects the non-causal power of transcendence that can characterise both minor and major steps in human psychic development. It further tends to assume, in the face of the fact that a trauma is a subjective relation to external or objective events or acts, that certain types of objective event or act necessarily have a traumatic effect.

When a child's parents divorce, for example, the effect may well be traumatic at a young age, but whether or not it is so depends on how - even whether - the child experiences this. Because of the huge varieties in cultures, family relations, personality, attitudes, felt needs and other circumstances, it is by no means given that parental divorce is traumatic for the child or children involved. It may even be a most welcome change and development. Such instances are easily obscured by current trends in theory and therapy. Children can, moreover, make many adjustments with ease and of a degree that is often beyond the capacity - or even the imagination, of mature adults.

Because trauma is a subjective reaction and one which has also supposedly been repressed, it is really beyond any other form of investigation than that of the adult who (supposedly) once experienced it. Yet from what is known of the mind's propensity to 'fulfil prophesies' and produce inner materials to suit strong wishes or imaginings (including those learned from the therapist), it is highly likely that much more has been made of the apparent results of 'regressive therapy' in its many present shapes and forms. The general social effect of psychological theories and the effect on the subconscious of 'patients' who are gradually led to accept them, can be extrapolated from anthropological studies of such 'belief-systems' in primitive society, in medicinal-witchcraft and in various forms of healing. Subconscious processes are capable of producing most extraordinary 'solutions' to conscious mental inputs, as the results of various techniques of 'positive thinking' indicate and as many supposedly extra-sensory, mediumistic and shamanistic experiences illustrate to a yet greater degree.

Common sense insists, moreover, that the earlier growth is spoiled in life, the longer and more difficult to counteract their effects it will be later in life. This is borne out by the study of habituation whereby habits are shown to be progressively harder to break or modify as they become more ingrained with increasing age.

To sum up, excessive importance has been given to the influence of supposed traumas in childhood. The whole culture surrounding this idea is invariably more mystifying than clarifying. It directs attention away from the more fundamental values in life which go to make up the emotionally and mentally well-balanced person.

MOTIVATION: THE EMOTIVE AND THE COGNITIVE

Human behaviour cannot properly be analysed or judged without intimate understanding of what motivation may be present. The study of human motivation is a vast subject including the widest possible range of physical, instinctual-biological, emotional, mental and moral considerations. Motives also play a large part in political decisions. Where the line is to be drawn between psychology and politics, or science and ethics, is always an open issue. Whether an act is ethically, politically or rather psychologically motivated will depend on understanding relevant circumstances, precedents and emotive ideals or values involved.

Psychology cannot ever be such a separate or authoritative science that it can determine either the meaning of individual acts or their rightness/wrongness. This question is never quite independent of the whole sphere of human knowledge and enterprise. Any standard of psychic health set by psychology (including the present one) must therefore continually be measured against - and be reviewed according to, much wider norms than those that apply in any scientific discipline or theory of the psyche.

Once any theory is absolutised, it becomes repressive. Where psychological doctrines aim to explain everything psychologically, this is the fallacy of 'psychologism', a dangerous presumption. In this century we have witnessed many attempts at enforcing only one possible standard of judgement, often quite successfully, in such absolutised systems of explanation as the historical and/or economic-political Marxist-Leninism, the biological Darwinian natural selection, the psychoanalytic systems of Freud, Reich and others. Each such 'ism' claims to explain everything on its own terms and assumptions. Whatever a person does, it is 'explained away', whether as, say, a sex-based wish-fulfilment (by Freudianism³), as false bourgeois ideology (by Marxism) or as conditioned by one or another absolute factor.

A sound view of psychic health should be flexible in giving room for all relevant facts, by remaining aware of its assumptions and by being inclusive and open to eventual extension or modification. It can succeed in this only if it is sound and hence capable of openness without losing its way.

Feelings are often complex phenomena. The study of direct and immediate forms of emotion and their effects as well as the more complex and sustained emotions at the physiological level helps us understand what influences psychic health. The way the bodily system reacts to excessive emotions - whether expressed, unreleased or 'repressed' and whether positive or negative, is important in understanding 'health'⁴.

The standard of emotional health will naturally often vary in many a detail with the cultural background and environment. Variables to be accounted for specifically in each case include the individual's inherent character traits, the bodily, social and 'intellectual' forms of expressivness and inexpressivness, as well as the types of social roles available and acceptable and the changing requirements made by local mores and way of life etc. A very wide-ranging research literature on the influence of such factors in emotional disturbances already exists, yet there clearly remains much to discover. The above-stated standards of psychic health offer a new range of considerations, factors and values which have largely been overlooked or rejected as the baby went out with the bath water along with traditional philosophy and religion.

A person's mastery of the emotions, rather than being at their mercy, implies some proficiency at 'detachment', which usually involves both imbibed, trained and learned responses as well as a measure of self-understanding and of at least a fairly good general understanding of human behaviour. It is the business of psychological therapists and psychological investigators to define more precisely how this proficiency and the degree of its presence or lack in a person's behaviour is to be detected and understood.

The conditions under which it is regarded as psychically healthy to express what type of emotions or desires, is an issue that appears to alter with periodic changes in society, its belief systems and accepted custom. It is always a crucial question in the growth of sound character and psychic condition. The free expression of emotions, especially the negative - but also of unrestrained passions - can be a psychological trap into which individuals can fall - and even eventually pull whole segments of society into it. The opposite extreme of a ban on the expression of 'normal' emotionality can, of course, also in time destroy the individual's psychic health and disrupt the healthy morality of society.

The most appropriate keyword in the question of how to determine psychic health is probably the ancient prescription of the golden mean or middle way: moderation. Even this ideal becomes self-defeating, however, if it is enforced immoderately.

The influence of imitation is demonstrated in a reverse fashion in that a person will not usually follow verbal advice or admonitions of those who are potential 'role models' if they do not themselves act in accordance with their own advice. Imitation depends for its effectiveness upon action rather than words. This can be observed and may also be tested by experiments.

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