In Australia´s Quadrant, Theodore Dalrymple reasserts his view of the detrimental cultural and moral effects that the increasing popularity of psychology in the Western world has had.
This study too has undergone a vast expansion, indeed out of all recognition. Psychology is now the third most popular subject in American colleges and universities, and no doubt elsewhere as well. I suspect that this popularity is a manifestation of mass narcissism rather than of curiosity.
there are of course different ways of looking at this point that Dr. Dalrymple makes of the interest in psychology being a manifestation of mass narcissism. It is possible that such interest will in fact eventually bring about a more thoughtful approach to life, living and truly serving humanity, but that may or may not occur in the future. It is my thinking that, given Dr. Dalrymple’s background in psychiatry, he would focus on how psychiatry has failed the world by moving, as a mass, into medication management and away from psychotherapy, by not developing psychhotherapy to become more effective and hellpful to people instead of abandoning them. This abandonment is disgustingly self-serving for a potentially noble profession which is now lost in a swamp without any hope of return.