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the Western Standard Model of mind/psyche is really bad, constrained by demands for scientific (read: institutional) validation
if you think about mind, self, emotion, etc as a vague space to be carved up using language by introducing difference (as one does), then u can do a lot better than standard psychology DSM language
the key tension in terms of describing the mind is the scientific demand for observability, which actually isn't a problem at all on an individual level (because one can in fact observe their own internality), only when required en masse as for "the sciences"
for me the fun of learning psychoanalysis and phenomenology but also astrology and kabbalah is that they all posit different sets of symbols which "carve up" similar spaces of observation
the word i tend to use is "lens" because each set of symbols provides a different way of looking at the thing under observation, but "language" would be equally adequate as each set has its own "grammar" in terms of expressing notions
the stumbling block for a lot of ppl in terms of "psychic" knowledge is on the side of narrative. there's no "reason why" any system works (although psychoanalysis has its stories and phenomenology has its metaphysics), so u miss that totalizing satisfaction inherent to causality
in fact i think it's risky to demand causal narratives at all from the "psychic sciences" because it's all too easy to slide into bad patterns of naturalistic or ideological normativity, once u move from describing to explaining
but generally the difference between "description" and "explanation" is lost on a lot of people. many require the latter to accept the former even when a "pure empirical stance" would suffice as a demonstration.
i like how Hegel divides this: describing is inherent to perception, but explanation moves us into Understanding, which breaks from the sensible world into the "supersensible" (divine?) realm of ideas qua ideas
the toddler asking "why? why?" pushes the explainer to invoke the spirit of universal knowledge, because the child is seeking that sense of totality. but as adults we should be capable of bracketing, delimiting the thing we're discussing and putting aside questions of metaphysics
ofc u may want to think about metaphysics as an adult, but best to be clear about it. and ultimately it seems like a paranoid quest to lift the world into the supersensible realm, as so to remove all remaining doubts about why things are.
