The Seba library treats Akedia in 4 passages, across 2 authors (including Coniaris, Anthony M., Jung, Carl Gustav).
There is something wrong down inside us. A monster threatens to destroy us. That monster consists of the passions which are described in detail by the Fathers of the Philokalia.
This passage situates the patristic catalogue of destructive passions — the spiritual-psychological tradition within which akedia was named and systematized — as the central diagnostic concern of Philokalic psychology.
, Philokalia: The Bible of Orthodox Spirituality, 1998supporting
it easily passes over into the so-called ‘free association’ of Freud, whereupon the patient gets caught in the sterile circle of his own complexes, from which he is, in any case unable to escape.
Jung’s description of the analysand trapped in a ‘sterile circle’ of complexes evokes the phenomenology of akedia — repetitive inertia and incapacity for volitional movement — without naming the patristic category.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960aside
complexes can have us. The existence of complexes throws serious doubt on the naive assumption of the unity of consciousness… an active complex puts us momentarily under a state of duress, of compulsive thinking and acting.
The complex’s capacity to dominate and paralyse conscious volition parallels the akedia tradition’s account of spiritual captivity to a demoralising inner force.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960aside
a consciousness lost and obstinately stuck in one-sidedness, confronted with the image of instinctive wholeness and freedom.
Jung’s image of consciousness stuck in one-sidedness and unable to move toward wholeness structurally recalls the condition of akedia as a failure of integrative psychic movement.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960aside