This one is dedicated to Gustav Fechner, a psychologist back in the days when the term psychologist was used much more loosely than it is today. Really he was a panpsychist or believer in vitalistic materialism (or “kook” .. as some might have it) who firmly believed that plants had feelings, souls etc.
In 1848 he published a book called “Nanna – or on the Soul Life of Plants”:
“[I]s not the plant quite as well organized as the animal, though on a different plan, a plan entirely of its own, perfectly consonant with its idea? If one will not venture to deny that the plant has a life, why deny it a soul? For it is much simpler to think that a different plan of bodily organization built upon the common basis of life indicates only a different plan of psychic organization (1848/1946: 168-9).”
I would propose that any life-form with a ‘different plan of psychic organization’ deserves its own school of psychotherapy or at least a specialist theoretical approach to treatment. Any volunteers?
