Codrin Țapu (born in Bucharest, 17 December 1973) is a Romanian psychologist, writer and aphorist whose work seeks a middle ground between spiritual and material belief systems, attending to the many dimensions of the self. He is associated with the revival of psychology in post-communist Romania.
He studied psychology at the University of Bucharest, earning his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees there. From 1998 he taught in the psychology department of Hyperion University, and in 2006 he became an associate professor at the University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine. He also published a humanistic-systemic psychology textbook and a dictionary of psychopathology.
His central theme is the hypostatic model of personality, which he set out in a 2001 book. In this view, a person appears in many aspects, or hypostases, depending on the inner and outer realities she engages with. His spiritual writings propose a universal view of deity that even makes room for atheism, and his aphorisms have been compared with ancient sacred texts and with the work of Gandhi and the Sufi mystics.
His influence is felt mainly in Romanian psychology, where he is credited with opening a field of concrete, systemic study of personality. Some critics, however, find his many neologisms hard to follow.
Key ideas
- Hypostatic model: a person shows different hypostases depending on the reality they relate to.
- Multidimensional self: personality is both an active agency and a relatively stable construction.
- Interconnected spiritual support systems: a view that joins spirituality and materialism into a network of support.
- Universal view of deity: a conception that even includes atheism.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.