In spite of the acknowledged success of the anatomical-physiological approach in psychiatry, discontent was growing at the end of the last century, for instance in christian circles. The article follows the reformed professor Bouman (1869-1936) on his search for the `soul' in psychiatry. Because of the fundamental difference between body and soul, Bouman felt the research of psychic life had to be different from the natural sciences. According to Bouman psychoanalysis was no genuine psychology because of mechanistic and causal explanations. Theoretically, he was more attracted to the `phenomenology' of Jaspers which he connected to Stern's `personalism' and Goldstein's conception of `totality'. Meanwhile the `phychological' psychiatry was opposed by Winkler. In 1925 the medical faculty tried to save his chair for psychiatry and neurology for the anatomical-fysiological approach. The Secretary of Education and Science however, who was a fellow believer of Bouman, wanted to stimulate the psychological approach and appointed Bouman as successor to Winkler. The article concludes that Bouman was important in the introduction of a new, psychological approach in The Netherlands, which proved to be an addition, not a replacement of, the older `materialistic' psychiatry. In this process phenomenology seems to have been more important than psychoanalyses.