The Istoriaphile’s Corner

Both psychiatry and religion care about the human spirit.  I know they have seemed like enemies at times and I doubt if the extremists in either practice trust the other but trust has never been high on any extremist’s list, so that’s not a fair comparison.  No, at their best, I believe both practices have overlapping interests but by tradition, they’ve rarely worked together.  In The Road Less Traveled, Dr. Scott Peck associated the spiritual growth demanded by faith with growing emotional maturity but these were positive associations.  To me, his more exciting, revolutionary work was chronicled in People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil.  In this book Dr. Peck suggested that evil could be cataloged and classified like any emotional illness and, more importantly, it could be treated. Dr. Peck defined evil as when a person uses his or her political power to let some one else suffer, rather than face their own personal shortcomings.  The classic example is when one person lets another take the blame for his or her misbehavior.  Now, under that definition, everyone has committed an evil act at some point in their lives but committing an evil act doesn’t make a…