The word psychiatry carries a history that most of us rarely pause to consider. Its roots trace back to the Medieval Latin psychiatria, which itself is woven from two Greek words: psykhē, meaning mind or soul, and iatreia, meaning healing or care. Built into the very language is an ancient understanding that this field was always meant to tend to the soul.
And yet, somewhere along the long arc of scientific progress, we drifted from that. For decades—and in some ways, centuries—we leaned heavily into models that viewed human beings primarily as biological systems, fascinating and intricate, yes, but too often stripped of meaning, history, and inner life. My hope is that we are now in a season of returning. Returning to a recognition that we are far more than chemistry and structure. Returning to the truth that human beings are relational, imaginative, resilient, wounded, growing, and profoundly soulful.
Looking at Psychiatry Through an Integrative Lens
When we look at psychiatry through an integrative lens, something softens. We begin to see not just neurochemistry but the full ecology of a person’s life: the environments that shaped them, the relationships that taught them what to expect from the world, and the inner narratives that formed in response to both beauty and harm. We see how some people learned to self-soothe or numb because, at one time, those were the only available ways to survive. The human condition is so complex—so layered, so contradictory at times—that to approach healing in any way other than holistically feels limiting and incomplete.
An integrative approach invites a different kind of question. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with this person?” we might ask, “What happened?” or even, “What is this symptom trying to communicate?” When we widen the frame, biology becomes one chapter of a much larger story—one that includes emotion, spirit, ancestry, community, and connection. In this view, psychiatry becomes less about adjusting chemistry and more about restoring coherence between the many dimensions of a person’s life.
Healing Can Take Many Shapes
Healing, then, can take many shapes. It might come through a new medication that brings relief after years of struggle. It might emerge through reconnection with the body, through practices that anchor someone back into themselves. It might arise from community, from ritual, from relationship, or from a moment of insight that quietly reorients the soul. Healing is not one thing; it is an unfolding.
To be truly integrative is to hold paradox gently. It is to recognize that we are both biological organisms and meaning-making beings. That pain can be both a pathology to treat and a signal asking for attention. That healing is about repairing what has fractured while also remembering a deeper wholeness that perhaps was never fully lost.
Psychiatry is Moving Back to it’s Roots
This is the direction I believe psychiatry is moving—back toward its roots, back toward the soul. And it feels like a necessary and hopeful return.