The Psychological Method vs. Christianity - Part 2

Today I will pick up the history of the roots of the field of psychology, by examining the ideology of five more of its representative teachers.

Carl Jung:

Even though his father was a Lutheran minister, Carl Jung was an unbeliever and he believed that all religions are “collective mythologies, not real in essence.”  Like Freud, Jung “delved deeply into the occult, practiced necromancy, and had daily contact with disembodied spirits, which he called archetypes.”  The Bobgans cite Jung as saying, “These conversations with the dead formed a kind of prelude to what I had to communicate to the world about the unconscious; a kind of pattern of order and interpretation of its general contents.”  The Bobgans point out that Jung even had his own personal “spirit guides,” one of whom he called Philemon, and that “much of what Jung wrote was inspired by such entities.”   At one point Jung even stated that he was demon-possessed.  On top of all of this, Jung studied alchemy and Gnosticism.

Although he partnered with Freud for a few years and carried on Freud’s legacy, Jung’s contribution to the psych field was analytic psychology because he was more interested in the “spiritual” aspect.  Rooted in this are “inner healing,” 12-step programs, personality type inventories (such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator [MBTI] personality inventory) used by corporations, educators, government, military, etc , and theories of introversion and extroversion.

Jung taught that everyone had in their unconscious various “archetypes” that affected behavior, including male and female figures.  “Jung’s theory incorporates Darwin’s theory of evolution as well as ancient mythology.  Jung taught that this collective unconscious is shared by all people and is therefore universal.”

The origin of all 12-step programs is Alcoholics Anonymous, in which Jung played a role in forming.  AA has at its core a “religious” experience, but not necessarily a Christian one.  Therefore, programs copying AA, such as those in many churches, are rooted in this Jungian philosophy.

Alfred Adler:

Alfred Adler was a Jew who was baptized as a Christian, yet was never a believer in either faith.  Instead, he believed his theory of “Individual Psychology” was superior to the efforts of any religion.  

Adler was one of Freud’s associates, but he left Freud to develop his theory of Individual Psychology.  He did not agree with Freud’s theories relative to sex, rather he taught that aggressive instincts were what motivated individuals.  He determined that “striving for superiority” was the motivation for all people, that there was always a goal to be strived for.  He also believed and taught that everyone’s “life style” was formulated and determined within the first five years of his life. 

Essentially, Adler saw two main tendencies of “social feeling and the individual striving for power and domination” as influencing every human activity.  Everyone has three great challenges of love, work, and relationships.  Without these goals accomplished, the person has no meaning in life.  It was Adler’s teaching of “striving for superiority” that gave us the “inferiority complex” of those who are not “pressing forward toward success.”   It was also Adler who taught the idea that “Behind every one who behaves as if he were superior to others, we can suspect a feeling of inferiority which calls for very special efforts of concealment.”  If one brings this to a logical conclusion, the question has to be asked, how can one then “strive for superiority” if, when they feel superior, they are really hiding an inferiority complex?

Erich Fromm:

Erich Fromm was an atheist and he believed that man “is the measure of all things.”   He stated that “the specific meaning of God depends on what is the most desirable good for a person,” and that a belief in God was childish. 

As both a sociologist and a psychologist, Fromm “opposed all forms of authoritarian government, including God’s.  In fact, he portrayed the God of the Old Testament as a self-seeking authoritarian.”  

Fromm considered society as the major determining factor in shaping personality.  He was also a secular humanist who taught that, in order for a person to reach their highest potential, he “must love himself, accept himself, and esteem himself” above all.  “Unconditional love” must be given to everyone else, and the source of that love was within oneself.  This unconditional love is a permissive love.  Fromm’s teachings are the origin for the self-esteem movement.

New York University Professor of Psychology Paul Vitz’s indictment is really a good summation of Fromm’s belief system: “Fromm claims that Christianity arose from a proletariat class so frustrated in its hopes for a political and social change that it turned to salvation in a fantasy world of the supernatural.  His own religious position is quite explicit in You Shall Be as Gods: the concept of god has evolved to the point that humankind is God, and if the sacred exists, its center is in the self and the selves of others.  Fromm’s ideal society is humanistic, communitarian socialism, which he presents in considerable detail in The Sane Society (1955).  Throughout Fromm’s works, his atheism and materialism, his political views, and other values so permeate his psychology that it is hard even to identify those contributions which might reasonably be considered scientific.”

Abraham Maslow:

According to the Bobgans, “Maslow believed that contemporary religions of his day. . . had ‘proven to be failures. . . nothing worth dying for.’  Yet he was convinced that a ‘human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion surrogate to live by and understand by.’  Thus he presented his own philosophy of life, framework of values, and humanistic religion.”  The Bobgans also say that, according to Maslow, evil is the result of ignorance and weakness, and self-esteem, based on self-knowledge and self-improvement, is the answer to the problem.

Considered as one of the founders of humanistic psychology, Abraham Maslow began his work in behavioral psychology.   Maslow indeed believed and taught much of Freud’s theory as a beginning point for his own.  Additionally, most of Maslow’s system was based in his beliefs in evolution.

Maslow is best known for his “hierarchy of needs” model.  He “taught that people are motivated by their needs in an hierarchical order, beginning with physiological (bodily) needs. . . .  According to his system, the levels proceed up the scale from bodily needs to safety needs (protection, security), to love needs. . ., to esteem needs. . . , and finally the need to self-actualize (to develop one’s highest potential).”  “In Maslow’s hierarchy, needs motivate people to evolve from organisms teeming with potential to godlike creatures as various needs are met at various levels.”

Again, notice how the self is the most important part of this system.  Maslow was very emphatic about self-esteem and the need for it.  In fact, self-esteem seems to be the overarching climax of all his teachings.  His ultimate goal for self-esteem was labeled “self-actualization.”  By self-actualization, people supposedly will benefit society because of all the good the person would be doing in the process of reaching his self-actualized goal. Ironically, after years of study, Maslow wrote, “Though in principle, self-actualization is easy, in practice it rarely happens (by my criteria, certainly in less than 1% of the adult population).”   Maslow blamed the problem on biology and  the Bible.  

One of the more harmful teachings of Maslow’s was that he felt children were inherently good and that when a child develops normally “he will choose what is good for his growth.”  He stated that a child “knows better than anyone else what is good for him” and that adults should “not interfere too much. . . but rather let them grow and help them grow in a Taoistic rather than an authoritarian way.”

Finally, Maslow’s idea for humans was that “any full perception of any woman or man includes their God and Goddess, priest and priestess possibilities, and mysteries embodied in and shining through the actual and limited human individuals before one’s eyes: what they stand for, what they could be, what they remind us of, what we can be poetic about.”

Carl Rogers:

Carl Rogers had a Christian background and even attended a seminary, but he rejected Christian teaching and stated that “I could not work in a field where I would be required to believe in some specified religious doctrine.”   “Rogers eventually became involved in spiritism, consulted the Ouija board, and even became involved in necromancy.”

Rogers is the originator of the “client-centered” or “non-directive” therapy.  Supposedly this therapy does not influence the client and is value-free.  However, studies have shown that this is not the case and that the therapy is very directive indeed.  Rogers himself was shown to be directive because “his response to his clients rewarded and punished and therefore reinforced or extinguished certain expressions of the clients.”  Of course, this also destroys the idea of “value-free.”

As with the other founders of the psych methods, Rogers had his own “self theory” which placed great importance on the individual and his ability to change, emphasizing the innate goodness of man.  Rogers also promoted the “self-actualization” theory.  “Although Rogers placed strong emphasis upon values for guiding behavior and for living a meaningful life, he taught that these values should be based upon internal, individual decisions rather than blind acceptance of values in one’s environment.  In self theory, all experiences are evaluated in relation to the individual’s self-concept.”  Rogers’ teachings are the root of the “values clarification” instruction so prevalent in public schools today: self determines values, while standards like the Bible are denigrated.

As the Bobgans point out, “Rogers’ system puts self in the position to say such things as ‘I am the one that evaluates all experiences and I am the one who sets up my own value system.  Nothing is in and of itself more valuable than anything else unless I say so.’”

In my next post I will conclude the examination the ideology behind the “psyche” fields.