The Psychological Method vs. Christianity - Part 4

SCIENCE OR THEORY?

There is nothing scientific about the psych field; psychologists have developed hundreds of theories and several thousand therapies.  A good place to start an examination to prove this is to look at some citations about Freud’s theories in particular, since, as already stated, all other theories have their ultimate origin in Freud.

Freud’s theories essentially state that “early childhood experiences, especially those that are sexual in nature, as being the crucial determinants of adult personality and behavior.”  Hunt points out that Freud’s theories “were founded upon his warped view that all thought, feeling, and motivation have their roots in sexual cravings.”  However, as Torrey succinctly puts it, “people who have invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in therapies arising from Freudian theory are not pleased to learn that the theory is devoid of any scientific foundation.”

Torrey writes  that, “Although he had been trained as a scientist and on occasion invoked scientific metaphors to support his position, after the turn of the century Freud’s interest in scientifically validating his theory appears to have waned. . . .  Freud’s critics noted the scientific shortcomings of his theory from its earliest days.”  Torrey also cites a 1916 article in the Nation which said that Freud’s theory was “well founded  neither theoretically nor empirically. . . . it conveys the impression of unscientific method.”

In 1959 Dr. Benjamin Spock attempted to prove that Freud’s theory was accurate and he recruited 21 families to study.  As Torrey tells us, “The results of the study provided no support whatsoever for Freud’s theory and, not surprisingly, little of the data was ever published.”

Torrey cites study after study demonstrating the lack of scientific evidence for Freud’s theories. The following lengthy citation from Torrey will shed some light on the subject:

The scientific validity of the oral, anal, and Oedipal stages of development has been reviewed by several researchers over the years.  In 1937 Gardner Murphy and his colleagues noted:

Although we have now been exposed for some time to psychoanalytic and other psychiatric  hypotheses regarding the effects of birth trauma, weaning trauma, extreme emphasis on early control of urination and defecation, excessive attention from adults, dethronement by a second child, we have almost no objective records of the development of children going through these experiences, or of experiments controlling certain aspects of the problem.

Ten years later Harold Orlansky reviewed the pertinent “empirical data bearing on the theory that various features of infant care determine adult personality” and reported that “our conclusion has been largely negative.”  In 1952 Ernest Hilgard et al., although sympathetic to the Freudian point of view, acknowledged in a review that “anyone who tries to give an honest appraisal of psychoanalysis as a science must be ready to admit that as it is stated it is mostly very bad science, that the bulk of the articles in its journals cannot be defended as research publications at all.” . . . .

[Paul] Kline added: “Freudian theory, so far as it is dependent on data at all, rests on data which by the criteria of scientific methodology are totally inadequate.  These data are, for the most part, the free associations of patients undergoing therapy and their dream reports, and both of these sources are unquantifiable and riddled with subjective interpretation.”. . . .

[Hans Eysenck  in the 1985 edition of The Experimental Study of Freudian Theories] likened Freud’s ideas to a “medieval morality play” populated “by such mythological figures as the ego, the id and the superego . . . too absurd to deserve scientific status.”  Freud was, Eysenck wrote, “without doubt a genius not of science but of propaganda, not of rigorous proof but of persuasion, not of the design of experiments but of literary art.  His place is not, as he claimed, with Copernicus and Darwin but with Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, tellers of fairy tales.” 

Torrey makes the clear statement that “learning and mastery are important components of effective psychotherapy not because the theories being taught have any scientific basis but because people believe in them.”  So any theory is okay, as long as the client believes the theory being espoused by the particular therapist.  The problem, of course, is that there are so many of these theories that we should be objective and not judge the theory by beliefs, but  whether there is any supporting evidence behind them.  Torrey cites a textbook by Redlich and Freedman as saying that if we used only the psych theories that were based on scientific evidence, then “not much would remain, because there are very few truly scientific therapies in our field.”

What is disturbing is that even though we should look for evidence over beliefs, this is not the norm in the psych field.  Torrey points out that “. . . scientific validity of insights and truths is irrelevant in psychotherapy.  Learning is a process, and the achievement of mastery is an end in itself.  It matters little whether the truths have a small or a large t; if they are accepted by the client, then they have the same force as religious beliefs have on the devout Muslim, Buddhist, or Christian.  As any mullah or priest can tell you, it is the strength of a person’s belief that is the important determinant of whether the person is able to translate belief into action.”  In fact, as if to prove this point, Dave Hunt cites an article from American Journal of Psychiatry that says, “Patients given conventional mental-health treatment in Puerto Rico reported less improvement than those that often went to spiritist healers. . . . [In] spiritist healing. . . mediums receive spirit messages or become possessed by spirits in order to diagnose, counsel or prescribe herbal and ritual remedies.”

Now let’s take a look at the psych field in general.

Hunt tells us that “A lengthy study appointed by the American Psychological Association (subsidized by the National Science Foundation and involving 80 eminent scholars) concluded in 1979 that psychology is not and cannot be a science.  Karl Popper, one of the greatest philosophers of science, declared that psychological theories have ‘more in common with primitive myths than with science.’”   Hunt also cites Dr. Tana Dineen as saying that if psychologists “were to look honestly at what they are doing it would cause them to have doubts about their effectiveness, their worth, their self-image and their career.”

“Dr. Arthur Shapiro, clinical professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, says: ‘Just as bloodletting was perhaps the massive placebo technique of the past, so psychoanalysis - and its dozens of psychotherapy offshoots - is the most used placebo of our time.’" 

The Bobgans cite Psychologist Roger Mills as saying, “The field of psychology today is literally a mess.  There are as many techniques, methods and theories around as there are researchers and therapists.  I have personally seen therapists convince their clients that all of their problems come from their mothers, the stars, their bio-chemical make-up, their diet, their life-style and even the ‘kharma’ from their past lives.”

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) was first published in 1952 with 112 “disorders”  compared to six from 100 years earlier.  In 1968 the total was 163 and by 1980 it was 224.  In 1994 the list had grown to 374 “mental disorders.”  Ironically, there has been no scientific validation for this exponential growth of “mental illnesses.”

Dave Hunt cites past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, Lawrence LeShan, as suggesting “that psychotherapy will be known as the hoax of the twentieth century.”  Hunt also notes that one of psychology’s most respected leaders, R.D. Laing, gave an “opinion that not even one ‘fundamental insight into relations between human beings [had] resulted from a century of psychotherapy.’”

The psych field has no scientific support for any of their theories, and yet the field is promoted as authoritative when discussing human behavior. 

The Psychological Method vs. Christianity - Part 3

Today’s episode will conclude our look at the ideology behind the roots of the “psych” fields.

Albert Ellis:

Albert Ellis was an avowed atheist who considered Christianity a cause of mental illness.  The Bobgans state that, “Atheism is the controlling philosophy behind Ellis’s theory.”  Ellis described faith in God as an “irrational belief,” and his beliefs about religion are brought to bear in several citations from his works by the Bobgans:

*  “The very essence of most organized religions is the performance of masochistic, guilt-soothing rituals, by which the religious individual gives himself permission to enjoy life.”

*  “Religiosity, to a large degree, essentially is masochism; and both are forms of mental sickness.” 

*  “If one of the requisites for emotional  health is acceptance of uncertainty, then religion is obviously the unhealthiest state imaginable: since its prime reason for being is to enable the religionist to believe in a mystical certainty.”

*  “One of his highly human, and utterly fallible, traits is that he has the ability to fantasize about, and to strongly believe in, all kinds of nonhuman entities and powers such as devils, demons, and hells, on the one hand, and angels, gods, and heavens, on the other hand.”

*  “Relying on God, or supernatural spirits or forces, or on fanatical cults, may well become an obsessive-compulsive disturbance in its own right and lead to immense harm to other people and to oneself.”

*  “[REBT] employs a large variety of evocative-emotive and behavioral-motorial methods of helping troubled individuals change their basic irrational values and philosophies and acquire more sensible, joy-producing and pain-minimizing ideas. . . it is exceptionally hard-headed, persuasive, educational, and active-directive and because it straightforwardly attacks many of the sacred myths, superstitions, and religiosities that are so prevalent among human beings.”

Now that I have mentioned REBT, let’s see just what that is.  Ellis claimed that people’s “psychological problems arise from their misperceptions and mistaken cognitions about what they perceive” and from their emotional responses to them.  His particular therapy theory is called “Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy” (REBT), which was formerly called “Rational-Emotive Therapy” (RET), and is supposed to emphasize a “deep philosophical change.”

The Bobgans sum up Ellis’ theory as follows: 

The ABC’s of REBT are appealing both in their simple explanation for complex behavior and in the truth they seem to reflect.  Ellis’s REBT explanation for human behavior is (1) that emotional problems come from the person making himself disturbed through irrational beliefs and (2) that the person can make himself undisturbed through the ABC’s of REBT, that is, through admitting his feelings and then exploring what irrational beliefs are causing them and then by changing his beliefs.  The following is a brief outline of Ellis’s ABC’s:

A.  “Activating Experience.”  Other expressions used by Ellis for this category are: “Activity,” “Action” or “Agent,” also referred to as “Adversities.”

B.  “The individual’s Belief System,” which includes “irrational Beliefs” and “rational Beliefs.”

C.  “Emotional Consequences,” either “rational Consequences” or “irrational Consequences.”

D.  “Dispute the irrational Beliefs.”  The therapist disputes the client’s “irrational Beliefs” and guides the client to dispute his own “irrational Beliefs” for himself.

E.  “Effects,” also called “functioning Effects,” which are the “cognitive Effect” and “behavioral Effect.”

Ellis contended that circumstances themselves (A) do not cause “dysfunctional Consequences” (C), but that the person himself causes his own painful emotions through his “irrational Beliefs” (B).  Thus he needs to have his thinking straightened out through “disputing” (D) his “irrational Beliefs” (B) and replacing them with “rational Beliefs” (B).  This process is to bring about both “cognitive Effects” and “behavioral Effects” (E).

Although this system has some similarities to Biblical teaching, it is in reality far from it and, like all the other systems, places self as the focus of life.  Ellis said,  “Unlike the orthodox psychoanalytic and the classical behaviorist psychologies, rational-emotive therapy squarely places man in the center of the universe and of his own emotional fate and gives him almost full responsibility for choosing to make or not make himself seriously disturbed. . . .  Moreover, when he unwittingly and foolishly makes himself disturbed by devoutly believing in irrational and in unvalidatable assumptions about himself and others, he can almost always make himself undisturbed again, and can do so often - if he utilizes rational-emotive procedures.”  He also stated, “REBT acknowledges that a belief in religion, God, mysticism, Pollyannaism, and irrationality may at times help people.  But it also points out that such beliefs often do much more harm than good and block a more fully functioning life.”

The whole point of REBT is the client’s acceptance of himself as he is, no matter what sort of person he is.  The client is to just feel good about himself, and the theory at the bottom line is no more than hedonism.  Right and wrong are personal concepts and what is right for you is what makes you acceptable, while what is wrong for you needs to be “disputed” away.  It is a very man-centered philosophy.   As the Bobgans point out, “What Ellis’ theory boils down to is this: The human is worthy because he exists.  God does not exist.  Therefore the human worth exceeds God’s worth.  This anti-god doctrine controls and colors every part of his theory.”

Arthur Janov:

Arthur Janov is the developer of the “Primal Scream” therapy method.  This therapy is heavily dependent on Freud’s teachings, as well as a world view dependent on evolution. 

“According to Janov, as the child grows he has a dilemma between being himself and conforming to his parents’ expectations.  During this developmental period, the child accumulates pain from the injuries of unmet needs, such as not being fed when hungry, not being changed when wet, or being ignored when needing attention.  Primal pain occurs as the result of the conflicts between self-need and parental expectation.  Through the process of growth as conflicts continue to occur, the accumulation of primal pain results in what Janov calls the ‘Primal Pool of Pain.’  When the pool gets deep enough, just one more incident supposedly pushes the child into neurosis.  This single significant incident is labeled the ‘major Primal Scene.’ . . . It is at this point that the child finally gives up the idea of being himself in order to gain his parents’ love.  In the process of gaining approval, the child supposedly seals off his real feelings and becomes an unreal self.  Janov calls this disassociation from one’s feelings ‘neurosis.’  Janov teaches that the primal scene occurs between the ages of five and seven and is buried in the unconscious. According to Janov, the individual builds a network of defenses against even the awareness that the pain is there and he develops a life style that hides the origin of pain and merely releases the tension caused by the pain, but he is not able to eliminate it.”

Janov, like Freud and others, places the problem in the past and the blame on parents.   He has only one cure for this malady, and that is his “Primal Therapy.”  Again citing the Bobgans, “Janov theorizes that to be cured, the neurotic must return to his major primal scene where he decided to give up his real self and his real feelings in exchange for the possibility of parental love.  He must experience the emotions, the events, and the expectations of others as well as the accompanying pain in order to be cured.”

This “therapy” is supposed to be a quick cure, beginning with three weeks of individual therapy followed by six months of group therapy.  The therapist uses many props from infant and child periods of life in order to stimulate the client.  According to the Bobgans, “In group sessions there is little interchange among those present.  The Primal is king and the individual experience is supreme.  As you can imagine, it would seem like utter chaos and outright bedlam to stumble upon such a group at this time. One might find some adults sucking baby bottles, others cuddling stuffed toys, still others in adult-sized cribs, one man standing with his genitals exposed, and a woman with her breasts uncovered.  Then there was the birth simulator for those who wanted to experience the Primals that go all the way back to the womb and the birth process.  Additionally, picture thirty or forty adults on the floor, gagging, thrashing, writhing, gurgling, choking, and wailing.  Listen to the sobbing and screeching, ‘Daddy be nice!’ ‘Mommy, help!’ ‘I hate you! I hate you!’ ‘Daddy, don’t hurt me anymore!’ ‘Mommy, I’m afraid!’  And all this is punctuated by deep rattling and high-piercing screams. Today the atmosphere is less chaotic - gone are many of the props originally used.  However, the theory is still the same.”

As with all other models, this is another one that focuses on the self.

Next time we will look at whether the psych field can be considered scientific.

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.

The Psychological Method vs. Christianity - Part 1

A little over six years ago I was asked by a friend to team with him in writing a seminary paper describing biblical problems with the field of clinical psychology and its associated disciplines.  Due to recent discussions I have had with Christians about this subject, I felt the need to post my part of the study on this blog.

I will be posting sections of my study over the next couple of weeks.  Had I done this study more recently it would have been much longer with more data from the many books I have acquired over the past six years.  However, I think for the purposes of demonstrating the unbiblical and unscientific nature of the psych field, my short study will suffice.  My original paper did not have footnotes, as those were added in later, so if any of my readers needs a reference source, just ask for it and I will look for it in my library.  Also, as with my normal practice, I will use blue to identify quotations.   Today I will begin with my introduction, and the first part of section on the history of psychology. 

Christians are being led into a form of doctrinal compromise so perfectly reasonable that, for the most part, they are unaware of it when it is happening.  I am referring to psychology and it‘s related fields.  The roots of this system are steeped in humanism, secularism, and even evolutionism, and cannot be syncretized with the Christian faith without compromising the Biblical position.  In fact, the fundamental apostasy of the system is so profound and endemic that exposing it does not require an in-depth study of a multitude of materials; rather, all one needs to do is understand the basics to see that the difference between psychology and the Christian faith is irreconcilable.  Once this is demonstrated, believers should want to wholly purge themselves of its influence.

The fields of psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, counseling in social work and the various counseling positions in our society  (hereafter referred to as “psych” fields) all have their root in Freudian theories.  As clinical and research psychiatrist (and director of the National Institute for Mental Health for five years) E. F. Torrey says, “the labels and shape of the box vary, but the base substance in all the boxes is shipped from the same factory in Vienna.”   Torrey goes on to say that most counseling is “indirectly Freudian insofar as it assumes that adult problems are a consequence of childhood experiences and that talking about or understanding the childhood experiences will help solve the adult problems.”   He also says, “Although relatively few therapists are pure psychoanalysts, the teachings of Freud and his followers pervade almost every training program for all varieties of therapists, and the vast majority of psychotherapists have incorporated at least some psychoanalytic doctrines into their practice.” 

When the root is rotten, the branches certainly cannot bear good fruit.   Because of this root, the initial focus of this study will be on Sigmund Freud and his theories.

One item to clarify: this study is not about genuine disorders of the brain - organic problems needing medical treatment.  While these types of problems are treated by those in the psych fields, they are actual medical problems that can be treated medically.  This study is solely about the psych fields and their handling of relationship problems, emotional problems, etc, by various counseling methods.


A point that must be made is that, for all the claims by those in the psych fields, there is no such thing as a “mental disease.”  The mind is not something organic that can be diseased.  If there is an organic problem with the brain that causes disruption of the normal thinking processes, that is a brain problem and not a mental problem.  This idea of a “mental disease” has led to the exoneration of personal responsibility for actions and, to cite Torrey, “can be extended to virtually every criminal act.”

HISTORY/ROOTS

To demonstrate the roots of the psych field, I have selected a few well-known representative teachers.  My purpose is not to delve into all the teachings of the individuals listed here, rather I am going to demonstrate the background and basic worldviews of the primary founders of the various psychological methods so as to demonstrate what sort of roots by which the tree of psych is being fed.   The teachers are as follows:  Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Albert Ellis, and Arthur Janov.

Sigmund Freud:

It was Freud who invented psychotherapy.  E.M. Thornton, in The Freudian Fallacy, stated, “Probably no single individual has had a more profound effect on twentieth-century thought than Sigmund Freud.  His works have influenced psychiatry, anthropology, social work, penology, and education and provided a seemingly limitless source of material for novelists and dramatists.  Freud has created a ‘whole new climate of opinion’; for better or worse he has changed the face of society.”

The first important thing to know about Freud is that he was an atheist and therefore had a worldview that was compatible with his belief system.  He even said that religion is the “enemy.”   He saw religious doctrines as illusions and claimed that religion is “the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity.”  Dr. Martin and Deidre Bobgan, of PsychoHeresy Awareness Ministries, cite Dr. Thomas Szasz as saying, “One of Freud’s most powerful motives in life was the desire to inflict vengeance on Christianity for its traditional anti-Semitism.”  Additionally, Freud had an avid interest in the occult throughout his adult life which led him to consult soothsayers.  He was superstitious of the significance of numbers and was involved in studies on telepathy and other occult experiences.  He even attempted to combine telepathy with psychoanalysis and believed patients could read their analysts’ minds.   His spiritual beliefs surely gave rise to his worldview. 

Just what sort of world view did this atheism give Freud?  

Dave Hunt, of The Berean Call apologetics ministry, cites Dr. Al Parides, Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, as saying, “If you look at the personal lives of all Freud’s. . . initial disciples. . .[they] have an unbelievable amount of particular problems in the sexual area. . . .  The amount of deviancy as far as their sexual behavior and so forth is enormous.”

So much of Freud’s ideas are wrapped up in sexuality that his name became part of our language (“Freudian slip”).   In his theories, sexual relations seemed to be either the solution for everything or the cause of everything.   Freud felt the common idea of sexual morality was archaic, and he led the way in the sexual revolution of freeing sex from its puritan moors.  Torrey says, “Freud had set the pattern when he argued that those opposed to his ideas were themselves afflicted with repression and sexual inhibition.”  Torrey also cites Freud as saying that, “psychoanalysis puts forward absence of sexual satisfaction as the cause of nervous disorders.”  These ideas could very well explain Freud’s extra-marital affairs.  

According to the Bobgans,  “Freud’s theory is a projection of his own sexual aberrations upon all mankind.  He chose to share his neurosis with the world as a universal psychological absolute.  Carl Jung, one of Freud’s closest early associates, reported that Freud once said to him, ‘My dear Jung, promise me never to abandon the sexual theory, that is the most essential thing of all.  You see, we must make a dogma of it, an unshakable bulwark.’ Freud has titillated the minds, tantalized the hearts and foisted a fallacy upon mankind.” 

Freud was also a misogynist, calling women “a dark continent.” Although he surrounded himself with women, there is much to indicate that he had problems in his relationships with them.  He called girls “the little creature without a penis” and, because of that, relegated them to an inferior status because of their lacking this organ.  He considered the desire to have babies nothing more than a woman trying to find a substituting compensation for the lack of a penis.  He felt that their main function was to be servants to men.

Freud believed that the unconscious mind, rather than the conscious mind, is what “not only influences, but determines what a person does.”  But his main “claim to fame,” as it were, is his theory that everything a person is essentially revolves around sex.   This bizarre teaching extended to the infamous “Oedipus complex” which claims that all children between the ages of three and six years old have sexual attractions and desires for the parent of the opposite sex, and want to kill the parent of the same sex.  The final result of this whole complex theory is that Freud believed that “every woman is merely a mutilated male who resolves her castration anxiety by wishing for the male sex organ.”   Freud therefore “established a system of genital superiority for men and genital inferiority for women.”

Freud was very bigoted, believing that America “is already threatened by the black race.”  He was also under the delusion of the theory of elites, “that society was inevitably divided between a small class of leaders and a large class of the led,” as Torrey cites.  Torrey also cites a letter by Freud to a friend in which he says, “In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow men, with few exceptions, are worthless,” while writing to another that “I have found little that is ‘good’ about human beings on the whole.  In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all.” 

To further demonstrate Freud’s attitude towards his fellow man, Torrey cites economist Peter F. Drucker (whose parents knew Freud) as saying, “Freud did not accept charity patients, but taught instead that the psychoanalyst must not treat a patient for free, and that the patient will benefit from treatment only if made to pay handsomely.”

The Bobgans give a good summation of Freud’s morality.  They say, “Freud’s moral stance was one of permissiveness with respect to individual action and restraint.  In particular, he felt that free fornication would be great preventative medicine and psychoprophylactic for the mind.  In fact, he believed in a strong, direct relationship between a person’s sex life and mental-emotional disorders.  He said, ‘. . . factors arising in sexual life represent the nearest and practically the most momentous causes of every single case of nervous illness.’  However, Freud warned against giving up masturbation for intercourse because of the possibility of contracting syphilis and gonorrhea.  But then he suggested, ‘The only alternative would be free sexual intercourse between young males and respectable girls; but this could only be resorted to if there were innocuous preventative methods,’ by which he meant birth control.  Thus, Freud’s only objections to free fornication were the possibilities of venereal disease and pregnancy.”

Lastly, Freud taught that people aren’t just influenced by their parents’ upbringing and the environment, rather their courses in life are determined for them.  

There is Nothing New Under the Sun

In our day we must be dramatic about everything.  We don’t want God to work unless He can make a theatrical production of it.  We want Him to come dressed in costumes with a beard and with a staff.  We want Him to play a part according to our ideas.  Some of us even demand that he provide a colorful setting and fireworks as well!

A.W. Tozer, The Tozer Pulpit, book 8, pp.48-49

Tozer wrote this over 50 years ago, and yet is sounds like today’s “seeker-sensitive,” “market-driven,” and “emergent” churches!