First UK edition, 1979. Book first published 1977 by William B. Erdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, USA.
[rear cover:]
This book is a forthright and thought-provoking critique of modern psychology. The subject has become not a science but a religion. And as a religion it is a false one, based on self-ism and leading to self-worship.
Paul Vitz, Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University, has been forced to a radical reappraisal of his subject. He analyses modern approaches to psychology, examining them from scientific, philosophical, ethical, economic and religious points of view. He challenges the cult of self-help, and the fad of blaming psychological maladjustment on the family. And he presents a positive, alternative way of looking at people and their problems based on the realistic Chnstian assessment of human nature he himself has rediscovered.
'A completely justified cry of alarm. The danger in psychology of a serious confusion between science and philosophy, between the observation of phenomena and their interpretation, increases with the success of the discipline. Professor Vitz shows this with clarity and thereby renders us a great service.'
-- Paul Tournier.
'It says what ought to have been said long ago -- bravely, clearly and constructively.'
-- Karl Menninger.
'If this is the "Me" decade, here is its essence. Paul Vitz holds a mirror to our times and captures its real face behind the cosmetic image. Penetrating and absorbing, his book is invaluable reading.'
-- Os Guinness.
Author(s): VITZ, Paul C.
Edition: 1
Publisher: Lion Publishing
Year: 1979
Language: English
City: Tring, Herts. UK
Tags: anti-Christian, atheism, atomisation, careerism, Communitarianism, demoralisation, depopulation, feminism, Ludwig Feuerbach, H.E. Fosdick, Frankfurt School, Sigmund Freud, Eric Fromm, grift, idolatry, Judaism, loxism, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, narcissism, objectivising, onanism, N.V. Peale, Pietism, psychoanalysis, Carl Rogers, secular humanism, selfism, solipsism, transactional analysis, will to power
Psychology as Religion - Front Cover
Preliminary Note / Accolades
Dedication
Title Page
Printer's Imprint
Contents
Acknowledgements
About this book
1. Four major theorists
Erich Fromm
Carl Rogers
Abraham Maslow
Rollo May
2. Self-theory for everybody
Encounter groups
Self-helpers
est
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
A basic contradiction
Ethical and scientific misrepresentations
5. Selfism and today’s society
A creed for the youth culture
Selfism and language
Psychology for a consumer society
6. Selfism and Christianity: historical antecedents
Feuerbach
Fosdick and Peale
Pietism
The special case of Carl Rogers
7. Selfism and the family
The isolated individual
Parents as the source of our troubles
8. A Christian critique
Selfism as idolatry
Christian love and selfist love
Creativity and the creator
The nature of suffering
9. Christian politics
The problem for psychology
The problem for Christianity
10. Beyond the secular self
The bias in being ‘objective’
The object’s revenge
The dilemma of existential narcissism
Escape from the self
11. A new Christian future?
The end of modern heroism
The coming failure of careerism
The emerging opportunity
Notes
About this Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Indexes
Index of subjects
Index of personal names
Rear Cover
