I realize this is a high point of controversy amongst Christians, but I don't think the Bible uses the words "soul" and "spirit" interchangeably at all. They seem to be chosen very deliberately. I would call the "soul" that part of us that includes our mind, thoughts, logic, most of our creativity and emotions. It's the rational part of us and is the dominant part of our being. Whenever the Bible uses the word "soul" to refer to a whole being, it means us humans. But we do have bodies and spirits as other components of our being.

The spirit is what enables us to communicate with spiritual beings -- hopefully God, but it can commune with demons as well. Intuition is a property of the spirit, among others. However, we are not creatures that are dominantly spirit, and whenever the Bible uses the word "spirit" to refer to a whole being, it's *always* to angels or demons and NEVER to human beings. (King James, anyway. I don't subscribe to the absolute infallibility of other English translations, but this distinction may be preserved in others as well.)

Animals, balancing things out nicely, are primarily physical creatures.

We are made in God's image, and I believe this maps pretty well to the Trinity. The underlying complexity is beyond the scope of human comprehension, but I think it's fair to make the basic correlation to God the Father's function being analogous to that of our soul's; God the Son's function being revealed to us as a physical being; and the Holy Spirit's function being the primary means by which our own spirits commune with God and, conversely, He with us.

With respect to this thread, I would agree that hurting one aspect of our beings harmed hurts all of us. We are not three separate beings in one, we simply have three basic components of our beings. Harm to any one -- or any part of one -- harms the whole.