ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by presenting a general encounter between the people-changing sciences and the Protestant Ethic. For convenience, it uses the term “psychotherapy” in its broadest sense, to refer to all professional systems of treatment aimed at changing people. The chapter explores the premise that, whereas the Protestant Ethic appears to have contributed largely to the enhancement of the scientific-rational approach to psychopathology and to the methods used for altering it, the underlying beliefs of Protestantism and of people-changing systems are inherently contradictory. Nevertheless, while some writers have alluded to the paradoxical implications inherent in a “people-changing science” traceable to a Calvinist conception of man as unchangeable, the applicability of the scientific model to modern psychotherapy is taken for granted by most professional “people-changers”. If the modern “people-changing sciences” are essentially rooted in Calvinist predestinal dualism, it should not be surprising to note that treatment of deviants is likewise dominated by the Protestant Ethic.
