Psychology Is Harmful

Not only does psychology stem from maniacs and evil sources, as I have demonstrated in previous posts (read here for an example). Not only is it not a true science (read here). Not only does it not succeed more than talking with a good friend (read here). 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, and 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, in fact, that is the title of the book, it is written by two Navy Seals. 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, it is called The Making of a Leader, by Robert J. Clinton. 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 to all sectors of our lives.

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. Taking ownership for yourself and your situation is also often the key to getting out of bad situations that you find yourself in.

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 get a 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 overall is 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 the result of sin and rebellion.

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

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[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