John C. Garrison

The Psychology of the Spirit: a Contemporary System of Biblical Psychology John C. Garrison

The Psychology of the Spirit (also referred to as "Spirit Psychology") represents a contemporary system of biblical psychology. This psychology comes from a classic tradition in Christian theology that views psychology as a spiritual study and human behavior as a reflection of a person's spiritual condition.

Spirit Psychology holds that, in ordinary individuals who are medically well, what we generally call "emotional" or "psychological" problems are problems of a spiritual nature. To address these problems, spirit psychology sets forth at the outset a detailed description of the whole human being?viewed as an integrated system of body, soul, and spirit. Mental and emotional health are held to be dependent on the health of this human structure. Illness in the structure is indicated by spiritual dysfunction in the person.

Healing comes about not so much from what a person does or abstains from doing as it does from special knowledge received and believed. It is, in other words, a renewal of the mind, an assimilation into thinking and belief of appropriate spiritual understanding. The successful end of this is to sense within one's being a climactic experience of a cleansing of the soul, a healing in God's love, and a growing transformation in one's character.