What is the psyche?
The word comes from the Greek "psycho" which translates as "cold air", which refers to the last sigh of a dying person and is interpreted as the "soul". Now well I found two ways to write the word in Spanish: psyche and psyche; which caused some confusion because some authors appear to use the first term referring to the soul and the second, psyche, the muse who falls for Eros; others, the most recent, do it backwards. The dictionary of the Real Academia dispelled the doubt: are synonymous.
There is a difference at least, psyche is a broad word because it covers the term psyche and then we refer to both. The soul: "psyche" is a property of the human being that we have failed to demonstrate its existence rather than effects or attitudes of the people. Why psychology speaks about human behavior than of the soul. However, the study of the soul is very old and dates back to the same Greeks who have dedicated a muse for this purpose.
A good image of the psyche, and its relationship with the ego, terms that are often confused, is that used to use, they say, Jung (the famous Swiss psychologist), with a large circle representing the totality of the soul or being, and ego, image or idea that we have of ourselves and of our being, as a point within this large circumferenceimplying that we only know a fraction of what we really are. The psyche as a great circle representation is nothing new, since the circle tends to represent the "totality", as we see also in mandalas, representations of all in the Eastern contemplative traditions.
Within the religions there are many theologians who have dedicated many works to the concept, all which I prefer is the Holy Tomás de Aquino, he holds that the soul is the essential part of the human being, that is, that the essence of the human being is the soul. The essence of anything is what makes it different from the others, for example so that the chairs are chairs is its essence, while the essence of the human being, that which makes us so different from other things is the soul. It is a very abstract concept, in fact it is more difficult to understand abstraction.
Admitting the existence of the soul, the psyche studies properties of the soul, that they can be interior as for example what psychologists call the superior properties in what is called the conscious and the subconscious. The former have to do much with the instinct and the latter with the rational part of the soul. Much controversy from this point and therefore there are many trends ranging from paranormal to those who conform only to psychology. In summary the psyche or psyche refers to the human being in its essential part, which hinders the serious work and perhaps facilitate the misinterpretation, is a matter of a little common sense distinguishing between what is science and what does not.
Translated for educational purposes.
