~ Wherefore all these things are but the names which mortals have given, believing them, to be true (Parmenides; On Nature)
We cannot gain insight into the mind using science. Though we may be able to see or measure behavioural or cognitive phenomena and infer correlations with the brain, we cannot present these as "evidence" of what goes on inside the mind. The mind remains invisible to itself, its inner workings elusive.
The mind is real in a way that is very different from the empirical data we may collect trying to understand it. It has a metaphysical reality that cannot be grasped by verifiable facts, a reality that is unfortunately dismissed by contemporary psychology for lack of evidence.
That is what I regret.
When science is the only proof of validity we are willing to trust, vital expressions of human psychology-- hope, love, faith, the quest for justice, truth, morality and even the quest for wellness itself-- are excluded from our science of the mind which will therefore always be an imperfect reflection of the reality of, and remedy for, mental health and suffering.
It is good that psychotherapists try to be accountable for cures they claim to work. But it is a tragedy that some potent restoratives are beyond the scope of our current definition of best practices.
It would be nice if our study of the mind returned to its roots to embrace the possibility of evidence for things unseen, a truth that is revealed but not to the eyes. It is described by a Greek word aletheia, the unveiling or revelation of the nature of things, a disclosure that is not factual but experiential, intuited but not defined. To the modern intellect this sounds airy fairy, yet it has been at the core of restorative practices like prayer, meditation, religion, poetry, philosophy and other expressions of the human spirit which, even if psychology may dismiss them, are indisputably transformative.
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