Critically Thinking About the Con Known as "Psychology"

The Truth revealed by Psychologist John Rosemond

Straight out of graduate school, I encountered a strange phenomenon. When I would be engaged in social conversation with a group of people I’d just met and someone asked what I did and I replied, “I’m a psychologist,” a palpable tension would vibrate around the group. Invariably, someone would laugh anxiously and say, “Oh! You’ve probably been analyzing me for the last ten minutes!”

Needless to say, I had not been analyzing him or anyone else, whatever that means. Sizing him up, taking his measure, yes, but everyone else, regardless of occupation, had been doing the same thing. The ubiquity of the “analyzing” comment led me to conclude that the profession of psychology has successfully mystified itself such that the average Joe or Jolene believes its practitioners possess supernatural mental powers. The further problem, however, if my experience is reliable, is that a fair number of psychologists – two or three out of ten, by my experienced estimate – believe their own press. They believe, in other words, that they do actually possess the ability to peer into another person’s mind, conscious and subconscious, and see what the person himself cannot see or will not admit to. Speaking personally, the only classes I flunked in graduate school were mind-reading and fortune-telling.

Psychology is fake science, as fake as fortune-telling. It is fake because it is not science at all. It pretends to be science but is nothing more than a philosophy or, more accurately, a motley collection of incompatible philosophies concerning the nature of human beings. Psychologists believe they can discover this by teaching rats to run mazes or by simply sitting back with a cigar in a comfortable upholstered chair and thinking, pondering the great questions.

Psychology is a philosophy, an ideology, a worldview or, more specifically, a human-view. No psychological philosophy of human nature has ever been verified by independent research. The three major schools of psychological philosophy are humanism, behaviorism, and Freudianism.

The humanists are responsible for the notion that the brass ring of la dolce vita is high self-esteem. Independent researchers find that sociopathy and high self-regard go hand in glove. No valid research finds that human behavior is governed by the same principles as the behavior of a rat or dog. It’s a Darwinian proposition that has no confirming evidence and plenty that disconfirms. Freud is best summed up by one of his colleagues, who likened him to Hans Christian Andersen and other fabulists.

When I likened psychology to fortune-telling, I wasn’t kidding. Consider that the fundamental theses of the three major schools of psychology have been proven false.  Consider that despite the evidence, psychology graduate programs continue to teach these fake “sciences” as if they were equally valid ways of viewing the human condition. Consider that one must master the vernacular of these fakeries in order to qualify for psychological licensure.

Most of all, consider that the profession of psychology is not regulated by meaningful practice standards. Unlike dentists, who must adhere to specific treatment protocols, a psychologist, once licensed, can do whatever “therapy” he feels best fits his intellectual and emotional predispositions — and even invent a new one he can then market through online seminars.

Primal scream therapy, anyone? Some psychologists continue to practice PST, by the way. Does screaming one’s real feelings at one’s deceased mother make some people feel better for a while? Probably, but so what? The question begs, does screaming at one’s dead mother make one a better person? Because the question is wholly subjective, that cannot be determined. The individual in question cannot be relied upon to give an objective answer to that question. However, consider that the efficacy of zero psychological therapies has ever been verified. So, why not scream at one’s dead mother?

I once knew a psychologist – a colleague at the time – who was “treating” anxious children by giving them amulets and teaching them spells they could use when they felt uneasy. His supervisors, psychologists all, knew what my colleague was doing and said nothing to him about it. One of them told me he thought it was “harmless.” Consider that the practice standards of psychology are silent when it comes to amulets and spells. Can you imagine what would happen if a medical doctor was discovered to be treating physical disease by chanting over his patients?

Consider that no evidence exists that would firmly link biology and mental health problems of any sort. The fifty-plus-year failure to find biological smoking guns strongly suggests that there are no such smoking guns. Yet many psychologists (who are not qualified to give physical examinations) tell their clients that the problems they or their children are presenting are due to gene mutations, brain differences, and biochemical imbalances.

Did these therapists perform some surreptitious physical exam that revealed said anomalies? No. Are they disciplined by their licensing boards for telling their clients things that are not verifiable? No. Consider that a leading psychiatrist is on record as saying, “The term ‘biochemical imbalance’ is nothing but a useful metaphor.” Pray tell, how it useful? The answer is: to convince people to consume (or cause their children to consume) psychiatric drugs, that’s how!

Concerning the educational process one must endure to earn licensure as a psychologist, consider that when the consumer is “blind” to the educational level of his or her “therapist,” individuals with terminal high school degrees are rated equivalent to individuals with PhDs in psychology. Fake licensing requirements.

Like psychological treatments – talk therapy, cognitive behavior modification, screaming at dead parents, and so on – none of which has proven efficacy, psychiatric drugs are fake drugs. Consider that no psychiatric drug has ever reliably outperformed a placebo in double-blind clinical trials, which is why the FDA vets psychiatric drugs according to unique standards that virtually guarantee their approval. In the final analysis, when it comes to effect, psychiatric drugs are equivalent to placebos except they (a) are expensive and (b) present the possibility of dangerous side effects. Approximately 10 million children ages 3 through 17 are currently taking these drugs for fake psychological diagnoses like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Psychological diagnoses are often compared (by mental health professionals) to verifiable biological diseases like diabetes, but the comparison is disingenuous. Unlike diabetes, which is objectively verifiable, psychological diagnoses are not. They are not measurable realities; they are mere constructs. Take a certain set of behaviors, give them a name, and voila’! A psychological diagnosis!

Does a person “have” diabetes? Yes. Does a person “have” bipolar disorder? No. He frequently exhibits behaviors that a respected but fake professional organization has grouped and called bipolar disorder. Then, after the fact and without compelling evidence, said professional organization has claimed that bipolar disorder is caused by an imbalance of neurochemicals, a claim that has been thoroughly exposed as cut from whole cloth. Then a pharmaceutical company steps in and graciously offers a medicinal solution to this fabricated anomaly.

To arrive at a psychological diagnosis, a psychologist will often give paper and pencil and question/answer tests. These are fake tests! They are given to create the illusion that scientific evidence led to the diagnosis. Take it from one who has administered these tests and once believed they were of value, the test results can be interpreted to justify almost any diagnosis.

What is psychology’s track record? Take child and teen mental health, for example. Based on child and teen suicide statistics, the mental health of children today is ten times worse than it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Mind you, since the 1960s, the per-capita number of child and teen therapists has increased exponentially. Today, most children will have face-to-face contact with a mental health counselor of one title or another before age eighteen. Yet, child and teen mental health has been in free-fall since the aforementioned per-capita increase began.

The mental health professions explain those damning facts by claiming that child and teen mental health problems were largely misdiagnosed before the 1960s, a claim that conveniently cannot be proven or disproven. Correlation does not prove cause, but it certainly looks as if psychology has been a negative influence for America’s young people, at least.

Fake education, fake tests, fake diagnoses, fake explanations, fake treatments, fake drugs, fake licensing requirements, fake practice standards, a questionable track record…psychology is a farce. Under the circumstances, given the facts, psychology does not qualify to be a restricted, regulated profession. Concerning the giving of advice to people with problems of living, mental health professional licensing boards should be disbanded, letting market forces rule.

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John Rosemond is a heretic psychologist who has written some twenty books on children and childrearing. His websites are: JohnRosemond.com and ParentGuru.com.

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Here are other materials by scientist John Droz, jr. that you might find interesting:

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not, on issues from: COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2022 Archives. Send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name, and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?)

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