RESUMO
Background: In today’s world there is a continuous struggle between science and spirituality, with a lot ofdoctors feeling that religion gets in the way of scientific treatment and sometimes also leads to very direand dangerous consequences. While a lot of older concepts are invalid today, there is a reason why suchconcepts existed in the first place and they were also backed by some sort of logic and rationale. It istherefore essential to compare and correlate the older concepts with the newer ones since they shall alsogive an insight regarding the existing psychological concepts at that time.Methodology: We studied and compared the various stages of ego development currently accepted mainlyincluding Loevinger’s and Piaget’s stages of ego and cognitive development and correlated it with theIndian mythological concepts of Manas, Buddhi, Chitta and Ahamkara. They can also be correlated withcertain concepts by Freud, Jung and Erikson. The sources of this information were various religiousscriptures like the Vedas and the Bhagwad Gita and at the same time we have correlated it with variousinterpretations mentioned in encyclopaedias like Britannica and DK.Result: While the study is our interpretation of the review of literature, we do realize that mythologicalconcepts are very abstract due to the wide time span; and various writers and scripture producers and theirinterpretations are also very subjective. The clinical significance of this paper comprises of correlation ofvarious symptoms with older concepts like disorders in Manas may mean perceptual disturbances ordisturbances in Buddhi may translate to disturbances in executive functions.Conclusion: While a lot of mental healthcare professionals do have a lot of scepticism in being open to themythological concepts of human psychology, this paper emphasises that there was a certain observableand objective basis to these concepts exist, which can also be co-related with the modern-day concepts ofpsychology.