If the clinic in psychopathology allows establishing facts, the theory seeks to give a rational explanation. This explanation, in the field of psychopathology and psychoanalysis, is synthesized in a model generally called psyche. To propose a model is to enter into an instrumentalist approach, which breaks with subjectivist or metalist psychological conceptions.

This way of conceiving the psychism is in rupture with the psychologies of the mind or spirit that suppose with thoughts and the various representations a substantial existence so that they would have a virtue of truth and be for themselves their explanation.

We are in a completely different paradigm. Here, the mind is purely based on facts and the explanation must be built on a theoretical level, a theory that is summed up in an improbable model, that of the psyche.

Theoretical model

Does this theoretical model, this structure, correspond to something in man? There are two possible answers to this question. Either we do not care about this, and so we assume an epistemological stance called "instrumentalist". Or we assume that there is something in it, and adopt a so-called "realist" stance. It is not easy to choose between the two answers, and we will see why:

• The first instrumentalist answer is epistemologically perfectly acceptable and adequate. The psychism model explains the clinical facts in some way, and there is nothing to give it a real existence. However, this answer is unsatisfactory. It leaves open the question of what generates the behaviors and symptoms, and it is difficult to maintain that "nothing" can produce verifiable facts.

• As for the second realistic answer, it requires the definition of the nature, of the entity that is supposed to exist, and then we are faced with a great difficulty that is very difficult to define.

Freud

Freud, with his "metapsychology", is the first to have given a model of the psychism. But he has always remained vague about the nature of the psyche and this is not without reason. With hindsight, we can say that the obstacle comes from the fact that the psychism is not homogeneous.

It is a mixed entity within which biological, cognitive-representational, and sociocultural aspects are intimately mixed, so that it cannot be given a unified ontological status.

A definition of the psyche

The psyche is first of all a theoretical entity, a model built from the emotional and relational behaviors of human individuals in order to explain them. By model is meant a distracted and simplified system that allows for explanations and predictions.

In psychopathology, the clinic allows establishing the facts and the theory seeks to give a rational explanation. This explanation, in the field of psychopathology, is summarized in a model of the psyche often called psychic structure, because this model forms a structured whole.

Furthermore, through cognitive-representational components, the psyche joins social and cultural influences. It is within the psyche that the pulsional energy of biological origin is transformed into a process that will generate part of human thought and behavior.

Following this introduction, we can define the psyche as follows:

• There is a complex entity, identifiable in every human individual, that generates the behaviors, character traits, types of relationships, feelings, symptoms, etc., described by the clinic.
• This entity evolves throughout the individual's life and acquires contents that depend on relational, educational, social, biological, and neurophysiological factors.
• It is possible to build a rational and coherent theoretical model of this entity from the clinical facts. This model has, in the first place, an operational value, that of explaining the clinic by integrating the different influences acting on the human individual.
• The entity includes neurobiological and cognitive-representational aspects that are not always separable. It integrates relational, cultural and social influences, and finally individual biological factors.
• From this we understand that the term "psychic reality" is inadequate. Empirical reality is based on facts and the psyche, which is an entity assumed from the clinical facts, does not merge with them.

What is the meaning of the psychism?

When we talk about the psychic functioning of the human being, we must distinguish the elements that constitute the mind, the levels of functioning of the mind, and the evolutionary process through which the mind develops.

The organism structures itself through maturation processes that are facilitated, inhibited, or distorted by the relationship with the social and physical environment.

The psychism is built on the constant relationships between the child and the adults who care for him or her - human interactions consist of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Emotions of the psyche

In the first months of life, interactions consist mainly of emotions, sensations, motor movements, vocalizations. This level of mental functioning is called primary process, implicit knowledge.

As the nervous system matures and language emerges, the child will have more and more access to conscious and rational mental functioning, a functioning that fully matures around the age of 10-12, also called "hypothetical-deductive thinking".

The ingredients of the psyche are thoughts, emotions and behavior, although there are two levels of functioning: the conscious level and the unconscious level. The evolutionary process is that set of maturational processes of the organism, in interaction with the environment.

How does this help shape our mind?

As soon as the child is born, it begins to interact with the environment, with its parents, and with automatic movements. Gradually, thanks to interaction with adults, it will begin to finalize its actions for living in the world.

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What the child will learn early in its life is the climate determined by the people around it. The child uses the first ingredients it has, emotions and muscle movements (behavior).

The basic emotions are: anger, fear, pain, joy, disgust.

Affective-emotional level

The level of functioning will be predominantly the affective-emotional level, thus the unconscious-non-verbal level. The child does not understand the words of adults, but understands their emotional experiences. Their body can understand if other people are experiencing pleasant or unpleasant emotions.

If it senses danger, it stiffens, if it feels safe, it can relax. It is intuitive to understand that fear leads us to contract, safety to relax.

If the child can trust, then relax most of the time, then he can develop his natural predispositions, experiment, and thus understand what he likes to do and what he does best. In short, he can begin to build his way of existing in the world.

If, on the other hand, he has to defend himself most of the time because he feels threatened, then he will have to activate his abilities in this regard and there will be little room for experimentation.

Final considerations about psychism

The psychism has an origin directly linked to the social and cultural factors that are present in everyday life to shape the mind of an individual. This process occurs from the first months of life and is established throughout life.

The psyche, with the power of distinction of the ID, ego, and SuperEgo, presents an interpretation of what the psyche really is, varying between common behaviors and neuroses.

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