ABSTRACT
The very failure of psychology in its ‘applied’ and therapeutic forms to cope with the emotional distress and confusion which are so prevalent in our society exposes the fallibility of our ‘scientific’ dogma and indicates the falsity of our myth of origin. Indeed, not only are psychology’s claims to an objectively valid understanding of and a therapeutically effective concern with the ills which beset us false, but it is more than possible that psychology, far from minimizing, actually compounds our difficulties. The definition of psychology which was taught to author was ‘the scientific study of human behaviour’, and the chief aim of its most representative school – behaviourism – ‘the prediction and control of behaviour’. One of the central arguments of this book is that, far from ‘curing’ people’s distress, psychology too easily serves to provide us with an excuse for continuing, as a society, to inflict it.
