ABSTRACT
From post-classical Latin psychologia, derived from the Greek ψυχή, meaning “life” or “breath” and λόγος, meaning “word,” “reason,” or “discourse.”1 Psychology is defined as the science or study of the conscious or psychical life.2 Psychology is thus the investigation and understanding of human mental and psychical characteristics and functions. In Kierkegaard’s day psychology was understood to be primarily a philosophical engagement and analysis of such psychical processes and differed significantly from how we understand psychology today. Not until the latter half of the nineteenth century would psychology acquire the status of a formal discipline outside of philosophy in the domain of science. Thus psychology as Kierkegaard uses it should be understood as a branch of philosophy. Still, the emphasis on empirical analysis and observation in Kierkegaard’s work prefigures modern psychology, and both The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death have been understood as important contributions to its emergence.3
