The Triadic Structure of the Human Psychism – between Psychopathology and Theology

The aim of this work is to present the triontic theory of the normal and pathological human psychism, elaborated by the Romanian psychiatrist Eduard Pamfil, and to highlight its deep connection with the Holy Trinity model of God. The main idea of the work is that mental illness, considered from a wider anthropo-phenomenological perspective, appears as the result of a deficit within interpersonal communication and, in a deeper way, of the lack of communion between human persons. According to Pamfil, the conscious human being is the result of the interaction of its three poles: I (ipseity), You (tui-ty) and He (ille-ity). Pamfil emphasises the inter-ontic nature of the person, its unity and uniqueness. I (ipseity), stands for the “archaic-primitive condition of the person”. You (tui-ty) stands for the “alter ego function”, the structural pole of personality. He (ille-ity) is the “systemic, axiological pole”. Thus, personality is a “mobile crossroad” between I, You and He, which are “moments of phenomenological subjectivity”. The psychopathological commentary of mental illness is made for three major clinical entities: neurosis, psychosis, psychopathy. The above presented theory is closely related to the Orthodox view of human person, who has its spiritual and moral model in the Holy Trinty of God. The modification of the triontic structure of the human person will lead to important changes in the existence of each person (I, You, He) within the trinitary relational system, among which mental illness is certainly the most significant.

a. first, the three elements (poles) of a reality sector (in our case, the human psychism) must necessarily be irreducible among them.
b. second, the type of the interrelations occurring among the elements must be established. Pamfil and Ogodescu consider that these interconnect in an interchangeable manner (the term must be read as "interpolar recurrent alternation"). Interchangeability does not constitute a simple commutation of the elements, as it takes place with the "remanence of the respective functions" (each  h. the triontic mechanism of the person may either "compress" (which means an amplification of self-knowledge), or "expand" (the amplification of world knowledge). This is the pulsating character of the person.
i. before the level of the triontic organisation, the person situates itself in an "unstructured general level". This is a "pre-personant" situation where the three poles do not "sin-dynamically" cooperate (they can be individualised). It is what Pamfil calls "the dialectics of 'to have'". The coupling of the poles, the closing up of the "personant cycle", followed by the loss of the poles' identity constitute the stages of the "leap into personhood". This is "the dialectics of 'to be'".
j. interonticity is "the last level where the human being may be apprehended in its comprehensiveness of world understanding, communication and love for others".
The triontic model of the human person is in fact an interchange between the dialectics of "to be" and "to have", a "continuous methodological reference to a prospective constructivism".

Ipseity -the Person's Formal Pole
It must be mentioned from the very beginning that there are no super-or sub-ordination relationships among the three benchmarks of consciousness.
Ipseity (I) represents the instinctive level, as well as the basal layer of the affective level (primary emotions area). It designates the aspect of "monontic", of "the transfiguration in psychic phenomena". I represents in fact "the condition of the irreducibility to zero of the bipolar sequence I -YOU". Ipseity has as material substrate the brain, designating the "form" of the human psychism. By means of the openness towards an YOU the structural conditions of the person is achieved, I being "the preparatory matrix of the tuity". (Pamfil, Ogodescu, 1973;

Tuity -the Person's Structural Pole
YOU represents the replica of I, the person's affective pole. The necessity of having a YOU in front of us constitutes the very need for communication.
Eduard Pamfil emphasises the fact that YOU constitutes a "first openness within the person's ontology to which it brings and intensifies the capacity of movement and shaping". He distinguishes a basal affectivity (holothymy), different from the rest of the affects which "ensures the person's coherence and unity". Compared to holothymy, the affects seem a "perceivable, modulated, polarised and communicating" energy. The polar thymic state corresponds to normality and the affective ambivalence is specific to mental illness. The importance of the affective states in relation to the triontic model results from the fact that they "favour the balanced coexistence and the synergetic functioning of the three poles (I, YOU, HE)". The relationship of otherness to illeity is described by Pamfil in the following observation: "deriving from ipseity from which it borrows the tension and the direction, the affectivity colours illeity as well, which creates in its supreme form the comprehensive system of the emotional states". (Pamfil, Ogodescu, 1973;
continuity"). In the I-YOU plane a "communication tension" occurs which reaches accomplishment through HE. By means of this pole "the person creates and accomplishes itself as presence and axiological engagement in the world". Pamfil calls it "the very generous root of the human being". (Pamfil, Ogodescu, 1973; It is important to make a difference between the triadic interpersonal model of communication (where I, YOU, HE are personal pronouns) and the interior triadic model of the human person. Pamfil and Ogodescu had at first this interpersonal model of communication and after that they "transferred", "interiorized" the three poles within a single human being. In this second case I, YOU and HE became functions of consciousness (moments of phenomenological subjectivity)  3

. The Triontic Psychopathology
After having analysed the triontic model of the human person and each of its elements (I, YOU, HE) separately, let us now explain the model of triontic psychopathology, for which Pamfil and Ogodescu borrowed the mathematical apparatus of the theory of games. The triad is a "system model in which three rational elements interact, capable of analysing the different alternatives and making decisions intended to be optimal from certain points of view". The parameters which could be evaluated within the triad are the surprise, the organisation, the recognition and the prediction which result from the interaction of the respective elements. . We are interested in the organisation degree of the triadic model knowing that the more structured a system is, the clearer becomes the definition of the behaviour of the assembly despite the undetermined behaviour of the elements.
When do we face a maximal organisation degree? When we face a system with three interdependent elements. The relationships among the elements may be of coalition or conflict. We can distinguish three types of coalition: 1. Ordinary coalition -each player plays for him/herself. In this case there are three subgroups, each containing one player: (1), (2), (3) 2. Classical coalition -two players join forces while the third remains alone: (1,2) x (3) 3. Total coalition -all three players join forces choosing together by cooperation the strategies to follow for their common interest: (1,2,3).
Total coalition offers a model that presents the highest interdependence and coherence possible and which, converted in the terminology of psychopathology, could represent the model of the normal person.
Considering the triad as a system, four types of subsystems can be formulated: This is the triadic model with the maximal degree of organization.
Therefore, it can be noticed that the organization of a system with three elements (model I) is higher than that of a system with two subsystems (models II, III, IV). Comparing these models of triadic nature to the psychopathological reality, Pamfil and Ogodescu suggest in an expressive manner the disorganisation engendered by the psychic disease in a person's coherence and unity (1976).
Pamfil and Ogodescu consider that model II: (1, 2) x (3) is characteristic to psychopathy, denoting the unbalancing coexistence of I -YOU and HE.
Model III: (1,3) x (2) illustrates a modification in the function of alter-ego, the confliction tension between (I -HE) and YOU, and is defining for the neurotic suffering.
Model IV: (1) x (2,3) illustrates the antagonistic tension between ipseity (I) and the other poles, and is defining for the psychotic suffering.
It is essential to highlight that, whereas the normal person is triontically defined (structured), the mentally ill person is diadically structured. The reason is that mental illness can be defined as a conflict between two subsystems in triontic terms.

Psychosis -A Triontic Approach
From the perspective of the triontic theory, psychosis represents a "negative reply" of all psychic functions. By its ambivalence, a real "evolutionary negation,"   6.

Psychopathy -A Triontic Approach
In the case of the psychopathic person, the disorganisation presents the following formalised model: (I, YOU) x (HE) We can notice that the subsystem (I, YOU) is in a contradictory tension in relation to (HE). Psychopathy represents the refusal of the supreme human value which is "the prospective investigation of the existence, the refusal of the destiny-related interrogation".
As we mentioned above, neurosis represents "the disappearance of the axiological self-determination", as it presents an alter-ego deficit (YOU it's only a "neuter and icy reference". The psychopathic person lives the dissociation between the "logic-comprehensive development and the interaction capacity". The axiological level is not only a concept but also an attitude in which the "notional is only the component by means of which the act couples in normality". With these ideas, Pamfil infers the definition of the psychic disease considered globally. He emphasises that any disorganisation of the triontic structure signifies an axiological disengagement and, therefore, "the cutting-out of the moral dimension of the human being". Psychopathy does not mean, however, the negation of the ethic but a non-harmonic coexistence between moral and instinctive. We emphasize that for the psychopathic person, the loss of moral dimension (the HE, which we defined as "axiological pole") remains its essential feature  PART TWO: Theological Perspectives of the Triontic Theory of Human

General Remarks on Perichoresis
After having presented the triontic theory of human person as it was conceived by Pamfil and Ogodescu, let us now extend our analysis by making a parallel between this theory and the idea of "perichoresis" that is, the relationship between each Person of God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). The etymology of this word: peri "around" and chorein "to make room for", "go forward", "contain". Hypostases, and within the Trinity there is an identity of kind, will and achievement.
So, the logicity of Trinity must be analysed not within the limited logic of the heresiarchs, but within the relation between ousia and hypostasis (…)". He continues by pointing out that "from the human logic's point of view, the term hypostasis is included, as far as form is concerned, in the term of ousia, but as far as content is concerned, the notion of hypostasis includes the features of the ousia". The paradox One as being and Three as persons indicates the fact that "antinomies can have solutions beyond human logic". (Father C.Botoșăneanul, 2005). In the same above mentioned work, it is mentioned that "any dogma is an antinomy for the logical possibilities of the human intellect, but a transfigured one, that is antinomies which -although implying for us humans something antilogical -belong

From Interpersonal Communication to Communion
An attentive comparison between the triontic theory of Pamfil and the Holy Trinity model of God would show us the path from interpersonal communication to communion between persons. Related to this topic, a major contribution was made by Father and Orthodox theology professor Dumitru Staniloae, who analysed the concepts of "perichoresis" and "communion" in the Romanian Christian Orthodox literature (1993,2010,2013). As we know, the human person has its spiritual and moral model in the Holy Trinity of God. If interpersonal communication is formal and exterior, communion is closely related to affectivity and interiority, it is the expression of a "mutual interiority", as the French philosopher Gabriel Madinier stated (Madinier, 1947).
Communion involves a deep affective participation of the person who is in mutual relation with another person. Within the communion "I" see/find myself in "YOU", in another "ME", just like "YOU" see yourself in "ME", who When it comes to the Holy Trinity, the communion of the three Persons involves the transmission of the ontological features of Each. This fact is argued by the mereological interpretation of Holy Trinity. However, Father C. Botoșăneanul (2005)  Only because there is a third one (a HE), "the two can become simultaneously one, not only through the reciprocity of their love, but also through their common forgetfulness in relation to the third.(...) The third can be considered as the "object", the horizon which assures the two their own objectivity, because the third prevents them from intermingling in an indistinct unity, produced by the exclusivism of their love, deriving from the belief of each that there is nothing worth loving but the other".
Father Staniloae suggests that we could imagine a subject without a relation like a spot, the relation between two subjects like a line linking two spots, their relation with a third one like a surface which includes everything in its interiority, namely a triangle. This intentionality is achieved within the Holy where the anthropological premises are subordinated to a cosmology and theology of love. This ontology of love provides the basis of a certain view of the world and is closely related to epistemology, ethics and axiology, to rationality and mystery, which mutually organise within the ultimate reality and according to its specific features".

Conclusions
To conclude, we can make a few essential remarks on triontics taking into account the above analyzed issues: The triontic theory of human person provides a unitary view of human psychism.
The analysis of the trionticity can be extended to an analysis of the perichoresis concept developped by the Church Fathers.
Mental illness can be interpreted as an alteration of the triadic structure of the human person; the mentally ill person, regardless of the illness' type, appears as "diadically reduced" and beyond the triontic situation (cannot authentically communicate with the others).
Mental illness can be interpreted as a failure of interpersonal communication and, in a deeper way, as a failure of communion between persons.
All in all, we can consider that the triadic ontological structure of the human psychism is an equivalent of the trinitary model of God (Holy Trinity) and mental illness appears to be, in its deepest meaning, an alteration of God's image within the human person.