This essay examines the medieval pairing of disease with dis-ease somatic pathology with spiritual rupture through Augustinian and kabbalistic frameworks, proposing their relevance for contemporary clinical practice. Augustine’s anti-Pelagian theology articulates original sin as transmissible morbus requiring therapeutic grace rather than moral correction, dignifying suffering while risking stigmatization when divorced from its medical metaphor.
Jewish mystical traditions, particularly the kabbalistic doctrine of qelipot (shells) developed by Azriel of Gerona and elaborated in Lurianic myth, understand evil as parasitic accretion around intact sanctity rather than ontological corruption, suggesting pathology as covering rather than essence. Contemporary scholarship by Scholem, Idel, Wolfson, Magid, and Kallus reveals how both traditions construe brokenness as systemic and remediable through participatory repair (tiqqun). The essay argues that when carefully reframed, theological language of sin-as-misalignment can enrich narrative medicine, trauma-informed care, and integrative practice by honoring both biological substrate and existential meaning-making.
A clinical protocol is proposed incorporating narrative intake with spiritual history, collaborative identification of rigid patterns (shell-mapping), and values-based healing practices (tiqqun-disciplines) scaled to patient capacity. This theological archaeology challenges reductive biologism and spiritualizing evasion alike, positioning healing as embodied, relational work that addresses fragmentation at neurobiological, psychological, social, and transcendent levels simultaneously.
The synthesis refuses to reduce persons to diagnoses, insists that therapeutic presence requires clinician tzimtzum (strategic withdrawal to create relational space), and locates even divine absence within frameworks of solidarity rather than abandonment. By recuperating premodern wisdom through critical scholarly engagement, the essay demonstrates how sin-as-disease discourse can move from stigma to sacred agency, transforming clinical encounters into sites of reverent, collaborative repair.
Keywords: Original sin; kabbalah; qelipot; Augustine; Lurianic mysticism; narrative medicine; trauma theology; tiqqun; tzimtzum; medical anthropology; disability theology; spiritual care; psychosomatic medicine; theological ethics; phenomenology of suffering.
Citation: Ungar-Sargon, J. (2025). Disease as Dis-ease: Augustinian Medicine Medieval Constructions of Sin and Their Clinical Implications. J Psychol Neurosci; 7(4):1-14. DOI : https://doi.org/10.47485/2693-2490.1133