Energy is a concept in some psychological theories or models of a postulated unconscious mental functioning on a level between biology and consciousness.

Philosophical accounts

The idea harks back to Aristotle's conception of ''

actus et potentia In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his ''Physics'', ''Metaphysics'', ''Nicomachean Ethics'', and ''De Anima''. The c ...

''. "Energy" here used in the literal meaning of "activity" or "operation".

Henry More Henry More (; 12 October 1614 – 1 September 1687) was an English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school. Biography Henry was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire on 12 October 1614. He was the seventh son of Alexander More, mayor of Gran ...

, in his 1642 ''Psychodia platonica; or a platonicall song of the soul'', defined an "energy of the soul" as including "every phantasm of the soul". Julian Sorell Huxley defines "mental energy" as "the driving forces of the

psyche Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" (ψυχή). Psyche may also refer to: Psychology * Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious * ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unconscious by Car ...

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is currently no scientific ...

al as well as intellectual" (''On living in a revolution'' xv.192, 1944).

Psychoanalytic accounts

In 1874, the concept of "

psychodynamics Psychodynamics, also known as psychodynamic psychology, in its broadest sense, is an approach to psychology that emphasizes systematic study of the psychological forces underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions and how they might relate t ...

" was proposed with the publication of ''Lectures on Physiology'' by German physiologist

Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke Ernst Wilhelm Ritter von Brücke (6 July 1819 – 7 January 1892) was a German physician and physiologist. He is credited with contributions made in many facets of physiology. Biography He was born Ernst Wilhelm Brücke in Berlin. He graduate ...

who, in coordination with physicist

Hermann von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Associatio ...

, one of the formulators of the

first law of thermodynamics The first law of thermodynamics is a formulation of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic processes. It distinguishes in principle two forms of energy transfer, heat and thermodynamic work for a system of a constant amou ...

( conservation of energy), supposed that all living organisms are energy-systems also governed by this principle. During this year, at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

, Brücke served as supervisor for first-year medical student Sigmund Freud who adopted this new "dynamic" physiology. In his ''Lectures on Physiology'', Brücke set forth the then-radical view that the living organism is a

dynamic system In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a ...

to which the laws of chemistry and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

apply. In ''

The Ego and the Id ''The Ego and the Id'' (german: Das Ich und das Es) is a prominent paper by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It is an analytical study of the human psyche outlining his theories of the psychodynamics of the id, ego and super-ego, w ...

'', Freud argued that the id was the source of the personality's desires, and therefore of the psychic energy that powered the mind. Freud defined

libido Libido (; colloquial: sex drive) is a person's overall sexual drive or desire for sexual activity. Libido is influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors. Biologically, the sex hormones and associated neurotransmitters that act u ...

as the instinct energy or force. Freud later added the death drive (also contained in the id) as a second source of mental energy. The origins of Freud's basic model, based on the fundamentals of chemistry and physics, according to

John Bowlby Edward John Mostyn Bowlby, CBE, FBA, FRCP, FRCPsych (; 26 February 1907 – 2 September 1990) was a British psychologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attach ...

, stems from Brücke, Meynert, Breuer, Helmholtz, and Herbart. In 1928,

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phi ...

published a seminal essay entitled "On Psychic Energy" which dealt with energy Jung claimed was first discovered by Russian philosopher Nikolaus Grot. Later, the theory of psychodynamics and the concept of "psychic energy" was developed further by those such as

Alfred Adler Alfred Adler ( , ; 7 February 1870 – 28 May 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of belonging, family constellation and birth orde ...

and

Melanie Klein Melanie Klein (née Reizes; 30 March 1882 – 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested t ...

. A pupil of Freud named Wilhelm Reich proponed a theory construed out of the root of Freud's

, of psychic energy he came to term orgone energy. This was very controversial and Reich was soon rejected and expelled from the Vienna Psychoanalytical Association. Psychological energy and force are the basis of an attempt to formulate a scientific theory according to which psychological phenomena would be subject to precise laws akin to how physical objects are subject to Newton's laws. This concept of psychological energy is separate and distinct from (or even opposed to) the mystical eastern concept of

spiritual energy Proponents and practitioners of various esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine refer to a variety of claimed experiences and phenomena as being due to "energy" or "force" that defy measurement and thus are distinguished from t ...

. The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator divides people into 16 categories based on whether certain activities leave them feeling energized or drained of energy.

Neuroscientific accounts

Mental energy has been repeatedly compared to or connected with the physical quantity

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...

. Studies of the 1990s to 2000s (and earlier) have found that mental effort can be measured in terms of increased metabolism in the brain. The modern neuroscientific view is that brain metabolism, measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging or positron emission tomography, is a physical correlate of mental activity.

Criticism

The concept of psychic energy has been criticized because it lacks empirical evidence and there is not a neurological or neuropsychological correlate, unlike with the

neural correlates of consciousness The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) refer to the relationships between mental states and neural states and constitute the minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious percept. Neuroscientists use emp ...

. Shevrin argues that energy may be a systems concept. He theorizes that the strength of an emotion can remain the same, while an emotion changes. He argues that this intensity, can be understood separately from emotion and that this intensity might be considered energy. However, a significant volume of empirical research on energy psychology has emerged over several decades, much of it published in peer-reviewed medical and psychology journals. It includes a large body of randomized controlled trials; extensive noteworthy uncontrolled trials in which subjects served as their own controls, with measurements taken over time to assess client progress; as well as small pilot studies and collections of case histories that are suggestive of future research directions. Initially, there was no sound research to support this method. Callahan (1987) and Leonoff (1995) reported significant decreases in subjective units of distress (SUD) ratings of call-in subjects on radio talk shows. Both of the studies had 68 subjects with various phobic and other anxiety complaints. All told, 132 of the 136 subjects were successfully treated with TFT tapping. This translated into a 97% success rate. While these results are remarkable, the studies had many methodology problems. For instance, there were no control groups, placebo treatments, double blinds, follow-up evaluations, or evaluative measures other than SUD. Furthermore, the investigators were also proponents of TFT, a potential source of strong bias. However, these studies paved the way for further investigation of this treatment approach. Thus, as of the date of this citation, there have been over 200 review articles, research studies, and meta-analyses published in professional peer-reviewed journals. This includes over 70 randomized controlled trials, 50 clinical outcomes studies, 5 meta-analyses, 4 systematic reviews of various energy psychology modalities, and 9 comparative reviews of energy psychology with other therapies such as EMDR and cognitive behavioral therapy. All but one of the experimental studies have documented the effectiveness of energy psychology modalities. Also, the studies document the efficacy of energy psychology methods for the treatment of physical pain, anxiety, depression, cravings, trauma, PTSD, and peak athletic performance. Concerning meta-analyses, four revealed a large effect size and one a moderate effect size. The Gilomen & Lee (2015) meta-analysis indicated a moderate effect size of tapping on psychological distress (utilizing Hedge’s ''g'' as compared to the standard Cohen’s ''h''), although they opined that the results could be due to factors common to other therapeutic approaches, and not necessarily due to tapping. Nelms & Castel (2016) found a large effect size on tapping for depression, Clond’s (2017) revealed a large effect size for treating anxiety, and Sebastian & Nelms (2017) also indicated a large effect size for PTSD. Regarding the question of acupoint tapping as an active therapeutic ingredient, the meta-analysis by Church, Stapleton, Kip & Gallo (2020) revealed a large effect size in this regard, supporting tapping as an active therapeutic ingredient.

References

External links

Psychic Energy & Psychoanalytic Theory
{{DEFAULTSORT:Energy (Psychological) Motivation Psychological concepts Fringe science