Psychology and Psychiatry: Rotten to the Core

One of the things I’ve discovered in nearly half a century of living is that if everybody is doing something, it is quite often the opposite of what God is calling His people to do.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”—Matthew 7:13-14

For some reason, the Church has a habit of jumping on bandwagons. Whatever it is the world does, Christians want to do it too.

Whether it’s the philosophies of emergent church, ecumenism, or Eastern religion, we have set aside discernment and scooted over to make room for them to sit comfortably alongside the Bible.

If the world can conceive of it, the Church will adopt it.

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in our welcoming embrace of “Christian” psychology. In fact, we’ve done more than simply given it a bear hug — we’ve shared our toothbrush and let it spend the night. Actually, scratch that. It’s more like we’ve fluffed the duvet and invited it into the master suite.

If we look more closely, however, we will find that psychology is another false religion, rotten to its very core. Not only is it unbiblical, but it is based on the occult and godless roots of its founding fathers. Furthermore, it is fraudulent and unscientific, despite what the industry itself would have us believe.

I’ll go into more depth in future articles, but here’s a brief summary of each of these points (which may not seem brief to some, but brief by comparison to all that could be written!).

1. Psychology is unbiblical.

Psychology literally means “the study of the soul.” The questions psychology answers are the same ones answered by Christianity and the Bible:

Why am I here?

What is my purpose?

Why do I suffer?

How can I be happy?

How should I live?

Since God has already given us everything in the Bible for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3), why would we need to have those same questions answered by psychology, whose founders sought to answer life’s most important questions apart from God?

Christians don’t need Christ plus psychology. He alone is sufficient. But as “me too” Christians, we are constantly craving what the world has, and we somehow think putting a Christian spin on psychological theories will make our idols pleasing to God.

Instead of ministering to our Christian brothers and sisters, as every believer is called to do, we send them out to “professionals.” In some cases, our Christian psychologists are more revered than our pastors — and in all cases the false prophets preach another gospel than we have received from God in His Word.

“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. … As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”

—Galatians 1:6-9

Psychology could easily be called the Religion of Self, because it teaches that the way to right living and happiness is to:

• find yourself,
• believe in yourself,
• love yourself,
• be proud of yourself,
• stand up for yourself, and even
• forgive yourself.

God’s Word however, teaches that the way to right living and true joy is through relationship with God, which means to:

• seek God (not self),
• believe in Christ (not self),
• love others (for “no one ever hated himself”),
• humble ourselves (not be proud of ourselves),
• die to self, and
• forgive others while repenting of our own sins.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that standing up for myself, esteeming myself, setting boundaries for myself as to how much of my time and attention I will give, and having “me time” is exactly the opposite of dying to myself. And yet Christians daily embrace this kind of language and incorporate it into our hearts and lifestyles as if it were true. As with any sin, it certainly feels good for the moment to stand up for ourselves, but God says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” I myself have fallen into the trap of thinking I need “me time,” yet in fact when I yield to God, the blessings of giving up that time to do the good works He has prepared for me (Ephesians 2:10) are beyond anything I could have imagined. (For an inspirational story of a young woman’s obedience to God and sacrificial living, read Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis.)

The Bible says, “In the last days, men will be lovers of themselves…” (2 Timothy 3:2). I can think of no other time in history when this is more true than today, even in the Church. I truly believe psychology’s stealth entry into our belief system plays a large part in the fulfillment of this prophecy.

When it comes to pride vs. humility, the correct attitude is so simple even a child can see it: You can be proud of yourself, or you can humble yourself, but you cannot do both because they are polar opposites. God Himself says He “opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). And yet we teach our children to embrace the very attitude that God opposes!

God’s Word says, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). Psychology says, “I can do all things” (through belief in myself), or “If I can imagine it, I can achieve it.” But God’s Word says, “Nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). God can do infinitely more than we can ever ask or imagine, but first we have to stop relying on ourselves and surrender completely to God’s plans for our lives.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.”

—Proverbs 3:5-6

Even though we give lip service to this verse, the language of psychology is so deeply ingrained in our culture that most of us simply accept the diametrically opposed beliefs of psychology without holding them up against the light of Scripture, as we are commanded to do.

God’s voice says repent and turn to God alone. But we make excuses and look for reasons for our sin: our past, our circumstances, our genes, our brain chemistry.

God’s Word says confess our sins and pray for each other so that we may be healed. But we go to professionals (the secular priesthood, the religion of the state), instead of to one another, the body of Christ, as God commands.

We take to heart the wisdom of man and confess not our own sins but the sins of others! Even “Christian counseling” often leads eventually to gossip, bearing false witness, and dishonoring parents.

And we can be sure any time we pay for counseling services, it is not God’s way, for God’s Word is free to all:

“Unlike so many, we do not peddle the Word of God for profit.”

—2 Corinthians 2:17

God says He has given us everything we need for life and godliness in His Word. Do we believe Him? As believers encouraging and ministering to one another (for free!), led by the Holy Spirit, we have such an opportunity to change lives. Instead, we have set up a false religious system in the Church that insidiously undermines God’s one way of sanctification.

“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”

—John 17:17

I have wondered many times if one of the reasons we can see God removing His protective hand from our nation is because we have not humbled ourselves and repented of the sin of bringing this idolatry of psychology into our churches, nor have we made any effort to cast it out. We do many things in the name of Jesus, but our hearts are divided; we have a form of godliness but deny its true power to save and deliver (2 Timothy 3:5).

“He sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.”

—Psalm 107:20

We need to repent and turn to God with our whole hearts, and He will deliver us, never with the philosophies of men, but by the truth of His Word!

2. The foundation of psychology is based on the occult and godless roots of its founding fathers.

I was enamored with psychology in my high school and college years, and even throughout much of my adult life. But I wasn’t told in a single psychology class, in my counseling sessions, or in any church service about the occult and godless roots of psychology’s founding fathers.

Sigmund Freud is considered by many to be the father of psychoanalysis. He believed all thoughts and behaviors were determined by the unconscious mind (an unbiblical and unscientific concept) and that all behavior is determined by age 5 or 6 based on how we pass through four stages of infant sexuality (courtesy of Freud’s twisted version of the Greek myth, Oedipus). Freud abandoned the Jewish scriptures and in fact all religion, calling it a construct of men’s imaginations. By his own description, he was a “godless Jew” and a “hopeless pagan.” People who would rather not admit their sin before a holy and just God are happy to line up for deliverance on the Freudian psychoanalyst’s couch.

Carl Jung, another psychoanalyst whose theories have influenced personality testing like the Myers-Briggs, imbibed heavily in alcohol and believed Christianity was only a myth. Indeed, in a letter to Freud, he stated that he wanted to “transform Christ back into the soothsaying god of the vine … and absorb those ecstatic instinctual forces of Christianity for the one purpose of making the cult and the sacred myth what they once were — a drunken feast of joy where man regained the ethos and holiness of an animal. ”¹

“He delved deeply into the occult, practiced necromancy, and had daily contact with disembodied spirits, which he called archetypes. Much of what he wrote was inspired by such entities,”² including Philemon, his own familiar spirit.

Abraham Maslow is most well known for his hierarchy-of-needs theory, with all needs centered around the self. “He believed that people are motivated by their needs in an hierarchical order so that when needs are fulfilled at a lower level one can then move on to the next level and be motivated by needs at a higher level.”³

Maslow believed that man was basically good and that children develop better without “interference” of parents. “Maslow rejected the Lord and His Word … and even blamed Christianity, with its doctrines of the fall and sin, for preventing the natural development of humanity and for thus being a major source of evil.”⁴ The Bible says God provides for even our most basic needs (Matthew 6:25-34), yet Maslow’s theories have been thoroughly embraced by our culture and the church!

This is just a sampling of what you’ll find if you expose the foundations of psychology. The Bible says a bad tree cannot bear good fruit (Matthew 7:18), and only a little leaven leavens the whole lump (Galatians 5:9).

We also know that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), and the founding fathers of psychology had no fear of the Lord. Therefore why do we listen to their ideas and embrace their philosophies of how to live? They were without wisdom!

Not only were they without wisdom, but even a cursory review of their theories shows how discombobulated the entire field of psychology has been. “Psychology icons like Freud, Jung, Adler, Maslow, Fromm, Rogers, Ellis, Glasser, Harris, Janov, Watson, Skinner, Allport and May have over the years created a hodgepodge of conflicting theories and therapies.”⁵

There are psychologists who believe in the psychoanalytic view, others that practice behavioristic techniques, still others who subscribe to the humanistic model. In all, there are 450 different and often conflicting psychotherapeutic approaches.⁵ What every psychological approach has in common, though, is the false belief that man is inherently good.

What was fashionable in the 1920s or the 1950s or even as recently as last year may be considered out-of-date now … or not, depending on whether a particular contemporary psychologist feels like using it. When psychiatrists and psychologists were asked how they diagnose a person, every one of them would tell you it’s a gut feeling — there is no medical or scientific test whatsoever — and if you visit 5 different psychiatric “professionals,” you’re likely to get 5 different opinions.⁶

Furthermore, people are under the impression that “trained professionals” deliver better “results” than lay people. Over 40 studies have shown that the opposite is true.⁵ And every believer is in fact equipped with the Holy Spirit and capable of ministering to others using only God’s Word — so much better than the fruitless and shifting methods inspired by godless men.

“Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.” —Psalm 1:1

3) Psychology and its partner in crime, psychiatry, are both fraudulent and unscientific, despite the fact they pretend to be real medical specialties.

In Psychology: A Study of a Science, Dr. Sigmund Koch, of the American Psychological Association, concluded that it is now “utterly and finally clear that psychology cannot be a coherent science.”

Dr. Lawrence LaShan, former president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, concurred: “Psychotherapy may be known in the future as the greatest hoax of the twentieth century.”

And R. Christopher Barden, a psychologist and lawyer, stated, “It is indeed shocking that many if not most forms of psychotherapy currently offered to consumers are not supported by credible scientific evidence. … Too many Americans do not realize that much of the mental health industry is little more than a national consumer fraud.”⁷

Indeed, most people do not know that every single diagnosis listed in psychiatry’s “bible,” the DSM-IV, was voted into existence by committee.⁸

“It is important to understand clearly that modern psychiatry … began not by identifying such diseases by means of established methods of pathology, but by creating a new criterion of what constitutes a disease. Thus, whereas in modern medicine new diseases were discovered, in modern psychiatry, they were invented.”

—Dr. Thomas Szasz, M.D.

Not only is psychology without merit, but psychiatry defrauds the public as well. Medical psychiatrists have been trying for years to validate their biochemical theory of mental illness, but “after decades of research that has yielded not a single definitive biological marker connecting brain dysfunction to mental disorders,” we are letting doctors evaluate and treat us as if such diseases exist.⁹ To put it more loosely, making a diagnosis of mental illness is “a near mindless act where you can speculate whatever you want and never be ‘wrong’ (if any new or unrelated symptoms emerge just add another diagnosis).”¹⁰

In fact, there is not a single scientific study that shows prescription psychotropic drug users suffer from an objective, confirm-able abnormality of the brain.

I am going to share with you just a few quotes from the experts themselves (not the ones getting paid by drug companies). These people have risked their reputations to speak out against the sacred cow of psychiatry, many because they understand the true dangers of the psychotropic drugs being hoisted on the public and know the risk-benefit ratio is in nobody’s favor.

“There’s no biological imbalance. When people come to me and they say, ‘I have a biochemical imbalance,’ I say, ‘Show me your lab tests.’ There are no lab tests. So what’s the biochemical imbalance?”

—Dr. Ron Leifer, psychiatrist

“All psychiatrists have in common that when they are caught on camera or on microphone, they cower and admit that there are no such things as chemical imbalances/diseases, or examinations or tests for them. What they do in practice, lying in every instance, abrogating [revoking] the informed consent right of every patient and poisoning them in the name of ‘treatment’ is nothing short of criminal.”

—Dr. Fred Baughman Jr., Pediatric Neurologist

Sadly, many if not most patients accept their doctor’s reassurances that psychiatric drugs are safe. And few doctors have the time or inclination to understand the side effects and dangers of the psychotropic drugs they prescribe, other than the information provided by the drug companies themselves. As a result, most of the American public routinely elects to take psychotropic drugs without true informed consent.

“Until the psychiatric community is called upon to provide conclusive evidence that the nearly 400 disorders listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA’s) Diagnostic and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) are not merely subjective clinical diagnosis but rather objective, confirmable abnormalities of the brain, the debate surrounding the benefit or risk of psychotropic drugs seems moot.”

—O’Meara, Psyched Out, p. 4

“Psychiatry makes unproven claims that depression, bipolar illness, anxiety, alcoholism and a host of other disorders are in fact primarily biologic and probably genetic in origin. … Modern psychiatry has yet to convincingly prove the genetic/biologic cause of any single mental illness.”

—Dr. David Kaiser, psychiatrist

While “there has been no shortage of alleged biochemical explanations for psychiatric conditions … not one has been proven. Quite the contrary. In every instance where such an imbalance was thought to have been found, it was later proven false.”

—Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist

“There is no blood or other biological test to ascertain the presence or absence of a mental illness, as there is for most bodily diseases. If such a test were developed … then the condition would cease to be a mental illness and would be classified, instead, as a symptom of a bodily disease.”

—Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry,
New York University Medical School, Syracuse

“The FDA’s data reveal that sugar pills were as effective as the drugs in a majority of clinical trials.”

—O’Meara, Psyched Out, p. 17
(See this video for more on the placebo effect.)

“Biological psychiatry is a total fraud.”

—Fred Baughman, as quoted by Dr. Timothy Scott,
America Fooled: The Truth about Antidepressants,
Antipsychotics and How We’ve Been Deceived

Science falsely so called

Even in the medical industry, psychology and psychiatry have been looked on as the red-haired stepchildren, trying to constantly prove that they really are medical specialties. Since they haven’t been able to do it with science, they have resorted to marketing. Indeed, the entire American public has been taken by what is perhaps the most successful marketing campaign in history. Our entire culture has bowed to the biomedical claims of psychiatry, not realizing how fraudulent, dangerous, and deadly they are.

Even the body of Christ has been taken captive and cheated by the religion of self, which promises everything but delivers nothing. For Christians and non-Christians alike, careful examination of psychology reveals its shortcomings. It cannot stand up to scrutiny and will crumble like sand through our fingers.

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

— Matthew 7:24-27

Which are we building on: the rock or the sand? If we have built on the sinking sand of psychology, now is the time to renounce our idols and false religion and begin to build on the rock of God’s Word alone.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.”

—Psalm 127:1

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