When Paul C. Vitz first published Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship in 1977, his argument was both sharp and controversial. In the 1994 second edition, Vitz expanded his critique, adding new chapters on education and the New Age movement. His central thesis is clear: much of modern psychology, especially in its humanistic form, operates as a kind of secular religion. Instead of worshipping God, it elevates the self.1
Major Theorists
Vitz begins by taking on the giants of twentieth-century thought—Jung, Fromm, Rogers, Maslow, and Rollo May. Each in their own way, he argues, made the self into something quasi-sacred. Jung sacralized individuation; Rogers urged unconditional acceptance of the “true self”; Maslow enthroned self-actualization at the top of his famous hierarchy. These theories, Vitz suggests, are not just scientific proposals but religious visions—anthropologies that make the individual’s fulfillment the highest good.
Selfism for the Masses
What began in the seminar room quickly filtered into mass culture. By the 1970s and 80s, self-theory had spread through self-help books, encounter groups, recovery circles, and even slick commercial trainings like EST. “Self-esteem” became a household word, a value rarely questioned. Even sexuality was recast as another technique for self-realization. Vitz believed this cultural turn amounted to a sprawling cult of self, thinly supported by empirical evidence but enormously influential.
The Empty Self
The problem, in his view, is not just scientific but philosophical. Selfism, as he calls it, often produces what he terms an “empty self”—a shifting construct defined by passing preference. At the same time it preaches radical autonomy, it also lays down moral imperatives: you ought to self-actualize, you ought to love yourself. For Vitz, that is both contradictory and misleading.
Impact on Family and Schools
The damage, he argues, extends into family life and education. In the therapeutic climate of the time, divorce was often rationalized as necessary for personal growth. Adults were encouraged to blame parents for their unhappiness. In schools, “values clarification” programs sidestepped moral content in favor of student choice and self-expression. For Vitz, this was not moral neutrality but a smuggling in of self-centric ideology under the guise of education.
Cultural Reflections
Beyond the classroom, he saw selfism reflected in a broader cultural mood: the youth and yuppie creeds of the 1980s, the rise of a “nation of victims,” and a therapeutic language that crept into everyday speech. Consumer culture, too, found a ready partner in psychology, selling not just products but identities and feelings.
Religious Roots and New Age Transformations
Vitz also explores the religious roots of this trend. From Feuerbach’s idea that theology is just anthropology in disguise, to American traditions of liberal Protestantism and positive thinking, the seeds of self-worship were already in place. Carl Rogers, he argues, represents a pivotal figure where therapeutic psychology and quasi-religious language blend most seamlessly. By the 1980s and 90s, this psychology was easily absorbed into the New Age movement, morphing into a kind of modern Gnosticism where inner experience and secret knowledge became the pathways to divinization of the self.
A Christian Critique
From a Christian standpoint, Vitz frames selfism as idolatry. The self has displaced God and neighbor as the proper object of love. He acknowledges the pastoral concerns—how to deal with depression, how to avoid the “doormat” problem of self-neglect—but insists that Christian love, creativity, and even suffering only make sense in reference to something beyond the isolated individual.
Politics and Society
The political implications also troubled him. When state-funded schools promoted values clarification or therapeutic models of growth, Vitz believed they were effectively establishing a secular religion, privileging one worldview in a pluralist society.
Beyond the Self
In his later chapters, he presses further. The cult of objectivity in the social sciences, he argues, masks an existential narcissism—an endless turning inward under the guise of authenticity. Escaping from this requires re-orienting the self toward truths and goods beyond itself. In his conclusion, he suggests that the modern myths of careerism and heroic self-realization are wearing thin. For Christians, he sees an opening: a chance to model a counter-culture of service, community, and meaning not tied to the marketplace of selves.
Why It Still Matters
For readers today, Vitz’s book still raises timely questions. Are we too quick to baptize self-esteem as a moral good? Do our schools and therapies sometimes trade real moral formation for the illusion of neutrality? Has consumerism only deepened the cult of the self that Vitz identified decades ago? Whether or not one agrees with all his conclusions, Psychology as Religion remains a provocative challenge to reconsider the spiritual assumptions hidden in modern psychology.
References
- Paul C. Vitz, Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).
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