The Art and Science of Psychology

This came to me while I was writing one of my PhD application essays. It was too poetic for an academic essay, but I thought I’d share it here–

My academic career has consistently centered on a singular question: “Why does this matter?” While my intellectual humility tells me I’ll never answer it, my ambition encourages me to continue refining it, like Michelangelo’s “non-finito” sculptures.

At every turn in my career, I ask myself the existential question again; and every time, I arrive at the answer of intimacy: connection with ourselves, with others, and with our world. To many, connection is an unattainable goal, a destination at which we will never arrive but always pursue.

Why pursue the unreachable?

I've always considered connection to be a noble endeavor toward an unreachable end; the journey mattering more than the destination.

Why love if you could lose? Why try if you could fail?

The intrinsic motivation of connection keeps us going, while the inhibition of connection seems to lie at the center of so many negative mental health outcomes.

In my experience, two of the most highly charged forms of intimacy, often at odds with each other, are sexuality and spirituality. 

At best, they are forms of connecting deeply with oneself and others, sometimes to an entrancing, ecstatic extent. At worst, they are riddled with stigma and morally-charged rewards and punishments, even leading to physical harm and death.

As I attempt a synthesis of psychology as an art and a science, I also attempt a synthesis of sexuality and spirituality as parallel, if not unified, paths toward greater connection with oneself and one’s world.

Self-acceptance, self-value, passion, purpose, and belonging are all fundamental aspects of the human experience depicted through art, literature, tarot, psychology, and nearly every medium that attempts to capture what it’s like to be human. 

All of these rivers flow to the sea of connection.

While Michelangelo's sculptures can never escape their marble prisons, perhaps through a synthesis of research and education, we as human beings can continuously liberate ourselves and each other.