Not only does psychology stem from maniacs and evil sources, as I have demonstrated in a previous post, not only does it not succeed more than talking with a good friend, it is also actually quite harmful to society.
The harms are already becoming clear, and are very clear to
anyone who does the work to examine the damage this profession is doing to society,
but many people today still deny those harms. A future generation may find it impossible to quantify the harms, but they will also likely find it just as impossible to deny them.
Hunt explains,
"After closely studying
hundreds of criminals firsthand as the assistant to Dr. Yochelson (who
pioneered this new approach), Dr. Samenow confessed:
When I began this work, I
believed that criminal behavior was a symptom of buried conflicts that had
resulted from early traumas and deprivation of one sort or another. I thought
that people who turned to crime were victims of a psychological disorder, an
oppressive social environment, or both. [For] inner city youths, I saw crime as
being almost a normal, if not excusable, reaction to the grinding poverty,
instability, and despair that pervaded their lives … and that kids who were
from more advantaged backgrounds had been scarred by bad parenting and led
astray by peer pressure. …
When it came to understanding Yochelson’s
“crooks,” as he referred to them, I discovered that I had to unlearn nearly
everything I had learned in graduate school. Only reluctantly did I do so,
debating many points along the way. But Dr. Yochelson told me that he had had
to do exactly the same. …
We found the conventional
psychological and sociological formulations about crime and its causes to be
erroneous and counterproductive because they provide excuses. In short, we did
a 180-degree turn in our thinking about crime and its causes. From regarding
criminals as victims [of past traumas and deprivations] we saw that instead
they were victimizers who had freely chosen their way of life.”[1]
Notice the key issue here is that the profession of
psychology produces excuses for the perpetrators of crime, and many other
social ills. I have lost count of the amount of times I have heard someone
offer these excuses on their own behalf or the behalf of others. And those who
do so are doing themselves, or others, no favours at all.
One of the key conditions for succeeding in this world is
taking responsibility for yourself and ownership of your situation. One of my
favourite go to leadership books is on this very issue of extreme ownership.
One of my other favourite leadership books is on the same topic but from the
direction of learning everything you can in your current situation before
moving on to the next. Both books show that by taking full responsibility for
where you are in life you will maximize what you get out of your present
situation, how you can be a benefit to yourself and others, and how you can
increase your chances of finishing well as a leader. But these principles apply
much more widely as well.
Psychology is an entire profession designed to palm off responsibility to some other source, and exculpate yourself from being the main problem in your life. Even if all the other sources of your bad situation are real, still by taking responsibility for your situation you can change it much better than if you never take responsibility.
Several generations of people have been raised in a
psychologically driven culture where blaming external problems for internal
struggles is the growing norm, and this does not help anyone.
Hunt goes on to explain,
“Even from a secular point
of view, clinical psychology is dead wrong on nearly all of its conclusions and
therapies. Far from being beneficial, it has proved to be harmful. Increasing
numbers of disillusioned psychologists are speaking out against their own
profession. As one clinical psychologist, after years of trying desperately to
prove that her profession worked by showing demonstrable benefits, wrote:
Psychology presents itself
as a concerned and caring profession working for the good of its clients. But
in its wake lie damaged people, divided families, distorted justice, destroyed
companies, and a weakened nation. Behind the benevolent façade is a voracious
self-serving industry that proffers “facts” which are often unfounded, provides
“therapy” which can be damaging to its recipients, and exerts influence which
is having devastating effects on the social fabric.
The foundation of modern
psychology, its questioning and critical thinking, if not an illusion from its
inception, has at the very least been largely abandoned in favor of power and
profit, leaving only the guise of integrity, a show of arrogance and a well-tuned
attention to the bottom line. What seemed once a responsible profession is now
a big business whose success is directly related to how many people become
“users.”
No matter where one turns,
one finds the effects of the psychology industry. It’s influence extends across
all aspects of life, telling us how to work, how to live, how to love and,
even, how to play. We are confronted by psychologists expounding their theories
on the endless list of TV talk-shows … TV news journals and in the supermarket
tabloids. …
People who are mildly
anxious, slightly unhappy or just plain bored are turning more and more to
psychology for relief. Some do this through weekly appointments; some do it by
frequenting seminars and workshops; some do it by endlessly buying books on “abuse,”
“adult children,” “trauma and stress,” “recovery”; all in pursuit of an elusive
experience held out, like a carrot or pot of gold, by the Psychology Industry.
It is not news to say that
psychology has become an influential force or that society is becoming more and
more filled with people who consider themselves victims of one sort or another.
What is news is that psychology is itself manufacturing most of these victims,
that it is doing this with motives based on power and profit, and that the
industry turns people into dependent “users”: with no escape from their
problems.[2]
In psychology we see a version of the Hegelian dialectic at work. This
profession sets out to find, or redefine sin as, so-called mental health issues (some of
which are genuine of course, but not all), then it presents its theories about what
these illnesses are and then seeks to offer those solutions for things they themselves created the category for. From conception, to birth, to
healing these illnesses are guided along by this profession. While it is true
that the medical profession has uncovered certain illnesses of the mind that
can be treated, many of those which are presented by psychology as such
are simply sins dressed up as health conditions. Because of this psychology has
unleashed havoc on this world. It has provided cover for sin.
How many wives have been told by psychotherapists that
their depression is due to their oppressive marriage structure and all they
need to do is divorce so they can discover themselves to find joy? How many people have been told
their narcissism is a product of some childhood trauma and therefore they are
not responsible. How many people have been told that they are autistic, and
therefore other people should not expect better behaviour from them? How many people have had genitals removed because a psychologist affirmed their sinful delusions? How many
examples of this sort of damage can be given? This profession has unleased a lot of pain on
this world.
I say this while acknowledging that not all psychologists
are bad people. Many are good people, many are decent people, many want to
genuinely help people, and some of them do. But this profession is overall the fruit of
a rotten tree and people should be questioning it for the harm it is creating
in society, like they have many other institutions in the past. Soul science
(literally what psychology means) is not a real science, and therefore, your
chances of getting helped by a particular psychological theory are as high as
being hurt by them. Especially when the vast majority of soul issues people are
dealing with are actually sin.
When sin is the problem, whether yours, or someone else’s, Christ and his word are the solution, not theories of archetypes and hierarchies of needs.
List of References
[1] Hunt,
Dave; McMahon, T. A.. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial
Answers (pp. 107-108). The Berean Call. Kindle Edition.
[2] Hunt,
Dave; McMahon, T. A.. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial
Answers (pp. 108-109). The Berean Call. Kindle Edition.
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