Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship

by Paul C. Vitz

Overview

A trenchant analysis of modern psychology -- an enterprise that Paul Vitz maintains has become a religion, a secular cult of self, now part of the problem of modern life rather than part of its resolution. Virtually rewritten, this second edition of the original 1977 text takes into account much of what has happened in the field of psychology during the past seventeen years. Two completely new chapters are also included -- one on education and "values clarification" and the other on New Age religion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802807250
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	03/01/1995
Edition description:	Subsequent
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	269,053
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.26(d)

About the Author

Paul C. Vitz is professor emeritus of psychology at New York University. His other books include Sigmund Freud's Christian Unconscious and Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism.

Table of Contents

About This Book

1. The Major Theorists

Carl Jung
Erich Fromm
Carl Rogers
Abraham Maslow
Rollo May and Existential Philosophy

2. Self-Theory for Everybody

Self-Esteem
The Self-Serving Bias
Encounter Groups
Recovery Groups
Self-Helpers
est and Forum
Self-Help Sex

3. Selfism as Bad Science

Psychiatry, Biology, and Experimental Psychology
Are We Intrinsically All That Good?

4. From a Philosophical Point of View

A Question of Definitions
The Empty Self
A Basic Contradiction
Browning's Critique
Ethical and Scientific Misrepresentations

5. Selfism and the Family

The Isolated Individual
Self-Theory and Divorce
Parents as the Source of Our Troubles
Christianity and the Family

6. Self-Theory and the Schools

Values Clarification
Self Theory Again
A Philosophical Critique
A Critique of Procedures and Strategies
Research Evaluating Values Clarification
A Violation of Privacy Critique
Why Has Values Clarification Been So Popular?
Conclusion: Why Values Clarification Must Be Rejected

7. Selfism and Today's Society

A Creed for the Youth and Yuppie Culture
A Nation of Victims
Selfism and Language
Psychology for a Consumer Society

8. Selfism and Christianity: Historical Antecedents

Feuerbach
American Sources
Fosdick and Peale
Pietism
The Special Case of Carl Rogers

9. Psychology and the New Age Movement

Social and Economic Support for New Age
Psychological Origins of New Age
New Age as a New Gnosticism
New Age Spirituality: From Psychological to Spiritual
Self-Worship

10. A Christian Critique

Selfism as Idolatry
The Problem of Depression
The Problem of the Human Doormat
Christian Love and Selfist Love
Creativity and the Creator
The Nature of Suffering

11. A Political Response

The Problem for Psychology
The Problem for Christianity

12. Beyond the Secular Self

The Bias in Being "Objective"
The Object's Revenge
The Dilemma of Existential Narcissism
Escape from the Self

13. A New Christian Future?

The End of Modern Heroism
The Failure of Careerism
The Tribalist Temptation
The Emerging Opportunity

Index