Reference: SC: Psychology
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The Homeric Worldview
In Homer’s epics (8th century BCE), mental illness bore the unmistakable stamp of divine intervention. Até (madness, delusion, reckless behavior) descended upon individuals as an “invisible fluid” sent by angry deities or malevolent demons (alástores). When Odysseus or Agamemnon acted irrationally, Homer attributed this not to psychological or physiological causes but to external demonic forces clouding judgment.
The Homeric conception located the psychic center in the heart (kradiē or ētor) rather than the brain, viewing it as the seat of emotions and cognitive functions. No clear separation existed between psychic and somatic conditions—both belonged to the same continuum of divine influence upon the body.
Greek tragedy perpetuated these themes. Euripides and Aeschylus depicted Orestes suffering terrifying hallucinations, wild ravings, and suicidal despair after matricide—tormented by the Furies (Erinyes), avenging goddesses who drove mortals to madness as divine punishment. Popular treatments involved katharmos (purification) to remove religious pollution (miasma) and sacrifices to appease offended deities.
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The Hippocratic Revolution
The Hippocratic Corpus (5th-4th century BCE), particularly the treatise “On the Sacred Disease” concerning epilepsy, marked one of history’s most consequential intellectual revolutions. The author (traditionally Hippocrates) began with a direct challenge:
“I am about to discuss the disease called ‘sacred.’ It is not, in my opinion, any more divine or more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause, and its supposed divine origin is due to men’s inexperience and to their wonder at its peculiar character”.
This represented a fundamental shift: mental and neurological disorders arose from natural, not supernatural, causes. Epilepsy wasn’t divine punishment but a disease of the brain. The Hippocratic physicians argued that:
- The brain is the seat of consciousness, emotion, sensation, pleasure, pain, thought, and madness
- Mental illness results from material causes—specifically imbalances in bodily fluids
- Treating madness as supernatural pollution represents “ignorance and wonder,” not medical knowledge
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The Humoral Theory
Hippocratic medicine developed the humoral theory, which dominated Western medicine for two millennia. Health depended on proper balance among four bodily fluids:
- Blood (sanguine temperament): optimistic, cheerful
- Phlegm (phlegmatic temperament): calm, composed
- Yellow bile (choleric temperament): irritable, angry
- Black bile (melancholic temperament): sad, fearful
Melancholia (literally “black bile”) became the paradigmatic mental illness—what we would call severe depression, attributed to excess black bile accumulating in the brain. Hippocratic texts described symptoms including persistent sadness, anxiety, despondency, sleeplessness, and social withdrawal.
Mania represented the opposite extreme—excessive excitement, delusions, agitation, and sometimes violence, associated with yellow bile imbalance. The physician Celsus described manic patients as those who “laugh and are cheerful without cause” and sometimes exhibit “incautious rage”.
Phrenitis—acute mental disturbance with fever, roughly corresponding to delirium—was distinguished from chronic conditions, showing awareness that temporary altered states differed from persistent mental illness.
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Philosophical Contributions
Plato (427-347 BCE) developed a sophisticated psychology in the Republic and Timaeus. His tripartite soul comprised:
- Logistikon (reason): the thinking part that loves truth
- Thymoeides (spirit): the source of anger and spirited emotions
- Epithymetikon (appetite): the seat of physical desires and pleasures
Mental health consisted in proper hierarchy—reason governing spirit and appetite—just as justice in the state requires each class to fulfill its proper function. Plato explicitly linked morality and mental health, arguing that “nobody is wicked because of his own choice but because of the ‘evil condition’ of the body and because of bad education”. This didn’t excuse immoral behavior but recognized it as “contrary to nature and thus treatable”.
Aristotle (384-322 BCE) applied his hylomorphism to psychology: the soul stands to the body as form to matter. Unlike Plato’s dualism, Aristotle insisted the soul cannot exist without the body. He described the melancholic temperament—those dominated by black bile—as emotionally unstable, impulsive, prone to vivid dreams and prophetic visions, sleeping little, eating much yet remaining thin. The pseudo-Aristotelian Problems suggested melancholics were predisposed to madness because of black bile’s “precarious nature”.
The Stoics contributed the concept of ataraxia (undisturbed tranquility) achieved through internal control over reactions to external events—presaging cognitive therapy.
The Epicureans argued that anxiety and fear arose from misunderstanding nature, particularly regarding death and divine punishment, suggesting education as treatment.
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