Italian
Psychology (science of the soul) has spread to such an extent that schools and companies are adopting psychological tests to better outline the personality of individuals in an attempt to guide them by following their attitudes. However, these efforts sometimes risk schematizing their characteristics.
The first analogy that emerges when comparing astrological and psychological investigations is that both fall victim to this tendency to consider the individual from a schematic point of view.
However, let’s try to understand if there is a meeting point between psychology and astrology.
Meanwhile, in the minds of ordinary people, astrology and psychology are characterized by two quite similar approaches and in any case entirely comparable as far as their object is concerned.
Let’s clarify: what is psychology?
The Dictionnaire de la Psycanalyse (Fayard editions 1977) defines psychology as a “therapeutic practice based on direct conversation and on the examination of the case starting from the observation of individual behaviors.” This is how the American Lightner Witmer believed it, who used it for the first time in 1896 and was later supported by Sigmund Freud himself, the father of psychoanalysis, as shown in a letter to Wilhelm Fliess on January 30, 1899: “Now – writes Freud – psychology as it appears in studies on hysteria is emerging from chaos. I glimpse the connections with conflict, life, everything that I would like to define as clinical psychology.” Text freely translated from Dictionnaire de la Psycanalyse, Fayard editions, 1997.
From these words it can be understood that Freud’s main interest was focused on solving/curing the psychological problems of his patients. In “The Interpretation of Dreams” (Sigmund Freud, Works, Bollati Boringhieri editions, 1990) the great psychoanalyst enunciates his theory: the unconscious, which expresses itself more freely in dreams, also operates in the waking state.
What brings psychoanalysis closer to astrology is a common interest, that is, the investigation of the deep, the non-apparent, the reality that lies behind every individual.
However, while astrology operates in the field of the stars defining the influence they have on the structure of personality, psychoanalysis aims to treat the inner conflicts that such personality entails.
Now, if these two approaches have something very similar, they are nevertheless radically different, in the sense that astrology does not refer to any rules.
So there are two essential factors that differentiate astrology from psychology:
- Astrology is an ancient discipline that is concerned with both the individual’s destiny and the universal being. Psychology, on the other hand, focuses its attention on the social being from a therapeutic point of view.
- Astrology is based on a synthetic, global, unifying view of the world and the human being. Psychology refers to an analytical principle that studies the individual subject.
What brings psychology closer to astronomy is evidently the concern for the well-being of others and the desire not to be victims of our erroneous behavioral reflexes anymore, as they are at the root of difficult circumstances in our lives.
In conclusion, psychology has also found in myths and symbols indispensable references to decipher the messages, often obscure, transmitted by patients and coming from the unconscious.
The language through which the astrologer expresses himself is made up of myths and symbols.
