Psyche and Soma Meet the Prefrontal Cortex Through Ancient Greek Teachings on Metacognition
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Anna Dafna is a multiple award-winning ADHD and high-performance coach, mentor, and psychologist (GMBPsS). She coaches ambitious yet scattered minds to move beyond productivity and into presence. Through her holistic, evidence-based and soulful approach, she transforms how we think about focus, identity, and success.
If Socrates were alive today, he probably wouldn’t start with a lecture. He would ask a question. Why did you react like that? Why did you make that decision? Do you actually understand how your own mind works?
More than 2,500 years ago, travelers arriving at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi encountered three words carved into stone: γνῶθι σεαυτόν - Know thyself.
Socrates built an entire philosophy around those two words. In Plato’s Apology, he explains his mission: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”[1]
Today, psychology has a word for metacognition, the ability to observe our own thinking before it drives our behavior. But the Greeks believed that understanding oneself required more than thinking alone. It required understanding three dimensions of human life: psyche, soma, and logos.
Psyche: The inner life
The Greek word psyche (ψυχή) originally meant breath, the invisible force that animates life. In Homer’s epics, psyche referred to the life force that leaves the body at death. Later philosophers expanded the meaning.
For Plato and Aristotle, psyche came to represent the inner life of a person: awareness, character, motivation, and meaning. Aristotle described it simply: “The soul is the form of a living body.”[2]
The soul, in this sense, was not separate from life. It was the principle that makes a living being alive, aware, and capable of meaning.
Soma: The living body
The Greeks used the word soma (σῶμα) for the body. Ancient Greek medicine, especially the teachings of Hippocrates, recognized that the body constantly communicates information about its internal state. Hippocrates wrote: “Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.”[3]
Modern neuroscience now studies these signals through interoception, the brain’s ability to sense internal bodily states such as heartbeat, breathing, and gut sensations.[4] These signals influence attention, emotional awareness, and decision-making.
In simple terms: The body often knows something before the mind fully understands it. Yet many people today are disconnected from these signals. Stress and trauma can distort them. And many neurodivergent individuals may have more sensitive neuroception.
Physician Dr. Gabor Maté, whose work explores trauma and health, emphasizes that the mind and body are not two separate systems connected from a distance. They are one living organism.“The brain and the body are not separate; they are one system.”[5]
What Maté calls unity, the Greeks would recognize as the relationship between psyche and soma.
Logos: The reflective mind
The Greeks used the word logos (λόγος) to describe reason, reflection, and meaningful thought. Heraclitus wrote: “Listening not to me but to the logos, it is wise to agree that all things are one.”
Logos allows a person to step back from impulse and reflect on their actions. Modern neuroscience identifies similar capacities in the prefrontal cortex: executive functions such as strategic planning, reflection, and impulse control.[6]
One of these functions is response inhibition, the ability to pause before acting. Without that pause, behavior becomes reactive. With it, reflection becomes possible.
When psyche enters the underworld
Greek mythology often illustrated psychological truths through stories. One of the most revealing myths is the story of Psyche and Eros.
Psyche, a mortal woman whose beauty rivals that of the goddess Aphrodite, unintentionally provokes the goddess’s anger. Determined to humble her, Aphrodite gives Psyche a series of impossible tasks.
She must sort thousands of seeds overnight. She must collect golden wool from dangerous rams. And finally, she must descend into the underworld. That final task is the most symbolic.
The underworld in Greek mythology was not only a place of death. It was also a place of truth and transformation.
For Psyche to enter the underworld means something deeper: She must go within herself. She must face uncertainty, fear, and reflection. Only after this descent does she return transformed.
The myth suggests something profound about human development. Wisdom grows when we are willing to pause, reflect, and learn from experience.
Modern neuroscience describes a similar process through neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganize itself through repeated experience. Interestingly, even the word neuron comes from the Greek νεῦρον, meaning nerve.
With repetition, patterns of thought and behavior become easier to access. Reflection becomes easier, too.
Odysseus and the pause before action
Another Greek story illustrates the power of reflection. When Odysseus sails toward the island of the Sirens, he knows their song will make sailors lose all judgment. Ships that follow the sound crash against the rocks. So Odysseus prepares in advance.
He orders his crew to block their ears with wax and tie him tightly to the mast of the ship. Even if he begs to be released, they must refuse. Odysseus understands something fundamental about human nature: In certain emotional states, impulse can overpower reason. So he creates space between impulse and action.
Modern neuroscience describes this ability as part of executive function, particularly response inhibition.
The Greeks described the thinking that enables this pause with another word: logos.
Harmony
The Greeks had a beautiful word for inner balance:harmonia (ἁρμονία). Originally, the word described the tuning of musical notes into a coherent sound. Later philosophers used it to describe the alignment of the human being. When psyche, soma, and logos work together, life begins to feel coherent.
Modern science might describe something similar through the regulation of the nervous system and homeostasis. Different language. The same insight. Clear thinking depends on the state of the whole system.
The ancient insight that still matters
The Delphic maxim carved at the Temple of Apollo still speaks across centuries: Know thyself. Through awareness of the psyche, the signals of the soma, and the clarity of logos, modern psychology calls this metacognition. The Greeks might have said it differently.
Listen to the psyche, the inner life. Notice the soma, the signals of the body. Let logos, reflection and reason, guide the next step.
The ancient Greeks understood that wisdom rarely appears as a sudden revelation. It grows gradually, through experience, reflection, and the willingness to look inward. Just like Psyche descending into the underworld, the journey toward self-knowledge often requires turning inward before moving forward. And perhaps that ancient insight still holds today: The better we understand ourselves, the wiser our decisions become.
The Greek language contains a powerful word that captures this idea: holos (ὅλος), whole. It is the root of the modern word holistic.
To know oneself fully means understanding the whole human being: mind, body, and inner life. And perhaps that is where wisdom begins.
A practical next step
Ancient philosophy invites reflection. Modern neuroscience gives us tools. If this idea resonates, start with a simple question: How well do you actually understand how your own mind works?
You can begin by exploring your Executive Function Profile, which measures areas such as attention, impulse control, and metacognitive awareness. Take the Executive Function Predictor here.
Because knowing yourself, as the Greeks understood, is not a single insight. It is a lifelong practice.
Read more from Anna Dafna
Anna Dafna, ADHD Coach, Mentor, Psychologist (GMBPsS)
Anna Dafna is a multiple award-winning ADHD coach, mentor, and psychologist (GMBPsS), coaching neurodivergent, scattered, and misunderstood minds to move beyond productivity and into presence. Her evidence-based, soulful approach bridges neuroscience, psychology, and identity, transforming how we understand focus, performance, and self-leadership. She is the founder of Anna Dafna Coaching Ltd and has been featured internationally for her pioneering work in moving beyond burnout and into brilliance.
References:
[1] Plato (2003) Apology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[2] Aristotle (1986) De Anima. London: Penguin Classics.
[3] Hippocrates (1978) On the Nature of Man. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[4] Craig, A.D. (2009) ‘How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body’, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), pp. 59-70.
[5] Maté, G. (2022). The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture. London: Vermilion.
[6] Diamond, A. (2013) ‘Executive functions’, Annual Review of Psychology, 64, pp. 135-168.
[7] Homer (1996). The Odyssey. London: Penguin Classics.
