Modern Psychology And The Church

 

There are situations that get to all of us. I had a friend from work who went through more than most people ever will. The poor woman was diagnosed with breast cancer at 38 years old. It was very aggressive and at 40 things were not looking good for her. Her sorry excuse for a husband abruptly abandoned her at this point. Three months after he left her, an electrical fire burned her home to the ground, and she (along with her then 12 year old daughter) had to move into her mother's basement. She went to Judgement less than a year later. Is there anyone who wouldn't be depressed at such a turn of events in their life? Thank God there were psychiatrists to give anti-depressants, and a good therapist (specializing in depression) with whom to talk. Of course getting spiritual help is paramount while getting other forms of  assistance. 

No one should feel ashamed to seek help if they need therapy. If you break a leg, you see a doctor; there's no shame in that, and there should be no shame in seeking out psychological help when needed. A great Traditionalist I knew was a psychologist who attended the Ave Maria Chapel of Fr. DePauw for many years. However, just as there are bad doctors, there are bad therapists and bad psychological methodologies. Many are anti-theistic and seek, not to help, but to weaken or destroy belief in God.

Although few like to state it, sinful living is the source of many ills that plague us. Few therapists believe that, let alone proclaim it. More and more, psychology is less about mental health, and mostly about pushing ideological agendas, like the "transgender" insanity. The dependence upon therapy is also out of control. According to one source, in 2002, around 27.2 million adults in the United States received treatment or counseling for their mental health within the past year as compared to 55.8 million in 2022. That's more than double in only twenty years. 

(See statista.com/statistics/794027/mental-health-treatment-counseling-past-year-us-adults). 

In the Vatican II sect, the "priests" are little more than glorified social workers, promoting a gospel of self-love and acceptance, and from which all traditional Catholic teaching on sin and the need for grace has been removed. It would be wrong and potentially tragic for individuals who need serious counseling to forsake it because they feel “all psychology is worthless.” That is not the case, nor is it the message of my post. 

In this post, it will be demonstrated that much of modern psychology:

• has inherent anti-Christian bias
• has many hidden dangers
• has occult influences

Hopefully, after reading this post, you'll be equipped to avoid the pitfalls of much of modern psychology, and receive real help should such ever be necessary. Such is possible. Besides the psychologist who was a Traditionalist, I have another psychologist friend ("conservative" Vatican II sect) who is very ethical. With this in mind, let the exposing of modern psychology begin.

An Inherent Anti-Christian Bias

While there is an almost universal rejection Sigmund Freud's (the so-called "father of psychotherapy") diabolic theories, there are some of his ideas that have remained and infected the practice of psychology. True psychology should seek behavior modification, drug therapies, and help deal with trauma to overcome phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc. False psychology has pushed the following ideas:

• There is no sin. God is either denied or considered some vague "higher power."  No one needs forgiveness from God, they just suffer from an "addiction." Adulterers are merely "sex addicts." Those who bully others are "power addicts." Vatican II sect "priests" no longer offer sacrifice to God or forgive sin. They are more or less social workers using occasional religious verbiage. The confessional is not about doing penance, but discussing your "problems" that don't need supernatural remedies.

• Normalize the deviant. In 1973 the American Psychological Association (APA), removed homosexuality from its second edition of the  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). This is the book which lists mental problems. Since then, sodomites are considered "normal," they were no longer to be considered sick and/or immoral. Now gender dysphoria, along with sodomy, is celebrated. A man who wants to be a woman, or vice-versa, is "healthy and normal" as opposed to sinful or sick. 

• Make deviant the normal. People who reject "sodomite rights" for religious and/or ethical reasons are "homophobic." In other words there's something wrong with you in opposing sins against nature that (literally) "Scream to Heaven for Vengeance." If a man wants to "identify as a woman" we are expected to believe he is actually a woman. This is delusional and divorced from reality. Yet, YOU will be labeled as having a mental disorder---"transphobia." Ironically, those afflicted with anorexia and see themselves as morbidly obese when they are dangerously underweight, are rightfully treated as being mentally ill. How long before we must accept them as overweight or be labeled "transweight-phobic"? If you tell the truth that the statement "I identify as..." really means "I pretend to be..." you will be demonized and could lose your job in many cases. 

• Everything is ethical as long as you "don't hurt anyone" and there is "consent." Adultery is only wrong if your husband or wife doesn't consent. Having an "open marriage" where one or both can sleep around is ethical. Murder is wrong because someone gets hurt against their will. Euthanasia is ethical because the person consents to be killed. This concept of "consent" is out of control. I once told someone who was making anti-Christian remarks at a legal conference I attended, that I would not listen to his offensive garbage. As I got up to leave, I said, "You must be battling some horrible demons affecting you. I'll be praying for you." Enraged, he shouted "Don't you dare! I didn't consent to your prayers! And I don't believe in demons!" At this point, I turned around with a silent room watching. I calmly but forcefully stated, "Luckily, I don't need your consent to pray for you or anyone else I so choose. Just because you don't believe in demons doesn't make them any less real. If your understanding of the law is as poor as what I've heard today, I pity your clients. I'll double my prayers for you tonight." He stood red-faced with anger as I then exited. 

The Cult (and Dangers) of Unqualified "Self-Love and Acceptance"

There are two fundamental principles at work in modern psychology; you must love yourself and accept who you are. It sounds both innocent and benevolent, but it is neither. It is a huge departure from Church teaching. 

1. Self love. "If you don't love yourself first, no one else will." How often have you heard this slogan? Psychology will play off this notion and make you believe, "I won't be good to others if I'm not good to myself." Next thing you do is send your three-year old off to daycare forty hours per week, or dip into family funds to drink and gamble.

 Should you love yourself? That depends. We should like ourselves when we live in conformity to the Will of God. We should like ourselves for the good we do. However, we should not like ourselves and feel guilt for the evil we do. This is anathema to psychology. Psychologists want us to think of the self-rejecting teenager, trying to be popular. She should just love herself. Really? Even if she's not popular because she spreads rumors and manipulates others? Modern psychology denies Original Sin and the Fall.

Vatican II incorporated this idea into the heretical document Gaudium et Spes para. #13, "For sin has diminished man, blocking his path to fulfillment." It should say that, sin "prevents man from attaining his salvation." The error promotes the belief that man's "fullness" (he's "diminished" and has a blocked path to reaching his "fullness" or "fulfillment") is the principal value and, moreover, is the basic element of the idea of sin. On the contrary, the Church's perennial teaching is that sin is an offense committed against God because of which we merit legitimate punishment, including eternal damnation.

2. Accept yourself because you're not responsible. 

• We are products of our environment. (Blame your parents, poverty, society, but not yourself for anything about yourself you don't like)

• Therefore, we are not responsible or accountable for our actions.(Denial of free will)

• Therefore, we are victims. (No sin, just "addictions." You're a "man trapped inside a woman's body"? You were determined to be that way, so be proud of gender dysphoria, etc.)

Ironically, modern psychology tells us we are responsible for our own happiness. Yet how can we be responsible for anything if we are biologically and/or environmentally determined? (Self-contradiction won't interfere with their teachings!). In the Vatican II sect, many clergy teach that God must love us unconditionally since we can't help the way we are as products of our society. One of my regular readers wrote that she went to "confession" in the Vatican II sect (before finding her way back to the True Church), and for "penance" she was told to sit for a while in the Church and "let God love you" (whatever that means--you can't make this stuff up).

 Vatican II joins modern psychology in the heretical teaching of humanity's "intrinsic self-worth." In Gaudium et Spes, para. 24 states, "...if man is the only creature on earth God has wanted for its own sake, man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself," as if people possesses such value in themselves that it would cause God to create them.  In the Catholic meaning, the self-worth or "dignity of man" cannot be considered as a characteristic in people's very nature that imposes respect for all choices, because this dignity depends on right will turned toward the Good and is therefore a relative and not an absolute value.

On April 8, 2024, the so-called "Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith" (DDF) published the declaration Dignitas infinita (On Human Dignity), approved by Bergoglio. Two glaring errors in the declaration:

• Only God possesses infinite dignity
• Not all humans have equal dignity. A priest has more inherent dignity than a layman. A person who does good works to reach his final end possesses a dignity that is greater the more he seeks this end. Likewise, a person who turns away from his end and does evil forfeits this dignity, and is subject to the death penalty in certain circumstances, which Begoglio heretically rejects in principle

That's how far the Vatican II sect has fallen in line with modern psychology's obsession with "self-worth and acceptance." 

The Occult Teachings in Modern Psychology

 Psychology today is increasingly accepting the occult—so much so that an entire post would be needed to do justice to this topic.  As far back as 1988 psychologist Gary Collins wrote, “There is evidence that occult practices have been accepted by a large and perhaps growing number of psychological professionals.” (See Gary R. Collins, Can You Trust Psychology?, [1988], pg. 104).

 Indeed, their numbers are growing daily. Jungian, humanistic, shamanistic, transpersonal, Hindu, Buddhist, and fringe or esoteric psychologies as well as parapsychology are now fusing psychology and the occult as a means of very powerfully changing people. In a joint quest for self-awareness and personal empowerment, occultists themselves are joining hands with psychologists to blend their respective disciplines into a new discipline more potent than either discipline alone.

Texts such as Ken Wilbur’s The Atman Project and Alta LaDage’s Occult Psychology: A Comparison of Jungian Psychology and the Modern Qabalah, Seymour Boorstein’s (ed.) Transpersonal Psychotherapy, Walsh and Vaughan’s (eds.) Beyond Ego, Charles Tart’s (ed.) Transpersonal Psychologies, and periodicals such as The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology are only a few illustrations from psychologists or occultists which clearly indicate that psychology and psychotherapy have become working partners in the promotion and expansion of occult ideas, influences, and practices in our society. Jungian psychology is especially responsible.

Consider the conferences given by the Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP). Its influential membership has had a major impact in modern psychology and within twentieth-century American culture. Yet, AHP conferences have included subjects such as past-life regression, Tantric medicine, spiritism and trance channeling, Gestalt astrology, shamanism, aura reading and voodoo. (See Maureen O’Hara, “Science, Pseudoscience, and Myth Mongering” in Robert Basil, ed., Not Necessarily the New Age: Critical Essays, pgs. 147-48, 164).

Today literally thousands of humanistic psychologists are actually open to spirit contact either directly or indirectly, though usually under some other name.

Sigmund Freud: Needing a Therapist and an Exorcist

That psychology began with antagonism towards God cannot be denied. Sigmund Freud ((1856-1939) remains the best known pioneer in the field of psychology. While his ideas are mostly ignored today, they still have had a great impact on society. Freud is portrayed as an atheist who shunned religion because of the "science of psychology" which supposedly proved God was a subconscious projection of the human mind.  Freud's criticism of the belief in God is called The Projection Theory. According to this theory, God is a projection of our own unconscious desires. As Freud wrote in his book The Future of an Illusion, "...the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the need for protection...which was provided by the father...Thus the benevolent rule of a divine Providence allays our fears of the dangers of life."

Freud's Projection Theory commits the genetic fallacy in logic. This occurs when you try to discredit an idea based on its origin. Even if belief in God came from an unconscious desire for a father-figure, this doesn't prove God non-existent. Perhaps the very reason we have such a desire is because Our Creator made it innate within us to seek Him out. But was Freud a man who "had it all together" and was a convinced atheist? Dr. Paul Vitz, a former professor of psychology at New York University, and a former atheist himself, gives us some insight into Freud in his book Sigmund Freud's Christian Unconscious. [1988]

Here are some interesting facts on the "Father of Psychotherapy:"

• Freud was very interested in occult phenomena such as telepathy and poltergeists

• On Saturday evenings, he would frequently play tarock - a form of a tarot card game associated with the Jewish Kabbala

• In 1937, when he was urged to flee Nazism, he responded that his real enemy was the Roman Catholic Church

• Was a cocaine addict and his excuse was  "I was making frequent use of cocaine to reduce some troublesome nasal swellings." 

• The Catholic psychiatrist Gregory Zilboorg concluded: "Religion was, for Freud, a field of which he knew very little and which moreover seems to have been the very center of his inner conflicts, conflicts that were never resolved."(Emphasis mine). 

Freud was psychologically conflicted, a drug addict, and an occultist. Not a shining example to follow.

(See also The Freudian Fallacy: Freud and Cocaine by E M Thornton [1986]).  

Conclusion

Psychology can be a force for good to help people. Unfortunately, it all too often turns out to be a substitute for religion--and a very poor one at that. The Vatican II sect is all about self-esteem and self-acceptance forgetting that Our Lord told us, "... If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." (St. Matthew 16:24). A proper, Christian understanding of self-esteem and self-acceptance is good; but we must reject our sin-prone nature, deny our wants, and conform ourselves to the Will of God. To do anything less is to resign oneself to sin and Hell.