The Second Oldest Profession

The psychiatrist Fuller Torrey once described psychology as “the world’s second oldest profession, remarkably similar to the first.  Both involve a contract (implicit or explicitly) between a specialist and a client for a service, and for this service a fee is paid.”  Both professions shape themselves and their services to fit the wishes and feelings of their client, to make them feel better in body or in mind, but the underlying goal is to do whatever has to be done in order to make a living.  “Give the customer what he wants” is the motto, whether it is the pleasure of sex, the benefits of strong workers and soldiers, the thrill of self-actualization or the blamelessness of victimhood.  In this liaison, American society has abandoned its moral and cultural tradition while psychology has lost its soul and neglected, even scorned, its own scientific foundation.

Dr. Tana Dineen in, “Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People,” pg. 266

I disagree with Dr. Dineen in that psychology never had a “scientific foundation.”