June 2010 marked a revolutionary moment: the iPhone 4, with its first front-facing camera, brought the pictorial “selfie” world into prominence. From then on, our cameras and social media increasingly placed us at the center of every picture. The technology did not create something entirely new, but it helped reveal a social and psychological phenomenon that had been developing for decades: self becoming the center of everything.
Because of my interest in history and in how psychological and sociological trends either conflict with or corroborate God’s design, I pay attention to research emerging from universities, government agencies, and respected social scientists. Sociological trends cannot determine what is true, but they can reveal the consequences of how people choose to live. What has happened over the past several decades is what I call the Triumph of the Therapeutic Self Industry.
Abandonment of God’s Truth in Pursuit of the Therapeutic Self
Psychology has made some valuable contributions to our understanding of emotional well-being, mental illness, trauma, and human behavior. But the danger comes when therapeutic definitions and pursuits that conflict with God’s truth become the primary lens through which we understand ourselves, our relationships, the world around us, and even our faith. When this happens, psychology moves beyond helping us understand aspects of human behavior and begins to redefine God’s design, which leads us away from His life.
Again and again, the data confirms what Scripture has taught throughout human history: when humanity departs from God’s design, the result is not greater freedom but greater destruction and brokenness. Conversely, when people embrace God’s pattern for life, individuals and societies tend to flourish.
Both secular and Christian thinkers have identified our age as the “Therapeutic Age.” Psychology has made valuable contributions to our understanding of emotional well-being, mental illness, trauma, and human behavior. However, a danger arises when therapeutic definitions and pursuits that conflict with God’s truth become the primary lens through which we understand ourselves, our relationships, the world around us, and even our faith.
The problem comes when our subjective sense of emotional well-being and personal fulfillment becomes the primary definition of the good life. A good life becomes primarily about feeling fulfilled, emotionally healthy, and satisfied with ourselves. Yet this pursuit can become elusive, producing a never-ending search for professional help, relationships, experiences, and identities that promise fulfillment but never ultimately satisfy.
My Early Experience with Psychological Worldviews
I encountered this worldview early in my journey toward Jesus. I began college as an unbelieving college football player who loved to party, pursuing a degree in criminal justice and corrections. My studies involved helping people overcome psychological and criminal behavior.
For a little over half of my degree, I was an unbeliever. Then I was born again and finished my degree as a follower of Jesus. That dramatically changed my perspective.
By the late 1970s, the psychological worldview shaped by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, Carl Rogers’s humanistic psychology, and Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs had become highly influential. Maslow’s emphasis on personal needs and self-actualization fit naturally with the cultural changes taking place. The drug and sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s had challenged many traditional standards and contributed to tremendous cultural upheaval.
My Crazy Professors
As a selfish unbeliever, ideas about removing restraints and following inner urges were appealing to me. Yet I remember looking at the three main professors I had teaching psychology and thinking, “These guys are crazier than I am! How can they be teaching mental health?”
One was a very effeminate man who professed knowing martial arts in an effort to appear tough. The second was a Frenchman who was very into himself and was always hitting on female students and was roumered to have inappropriate relationships with some of them. The third was a spiritual reincarnationist who loved teaching about perverse behaviors in classes like “Abnormal Psychology,” as well as transcendental meditation and reincarnation. After I was born again, I had some good conversations about Jesus with one of them.
That experience continued after graduation when I entered law enforcement. We regularly dealt with attempted-suicide calls, and I received specialized training in handling suicidal encounters. We noticed that many of those involved in attempted suicides worked within local mental-health institutions. Among officers, it eventually became a running joke: “I bet I know where they work.” The irony was difficult to miss. Those who were supposed to help others find psychological health were often struggling deeply themselves, which probably was a motivation to get into that line of work.
God Designed Us for His Life
God, who is the source and giver of life, created us and has revealed and made available to us the life He designed us to live.
Just as the universe has an order in which the planets revolve around the sun in their proper place, God created humanity to find true life and fulfillment by revolving around Him—the Son of God—rather than around ourselves. When a planet moves outside its proper place in relation to the sun, life as it was designed to exist cannot be sustained. In the same way, when humanity moves outside God’s design and His life through His Son, we experience increasing disorder, brokenness, and ultimately spiritual death.
Self must remain in its God-designed place to experience true fulfillment. If not, it becomes a force that destroys life.
The False View of Self Didn’t Begin with Frued, but in the Garden.
The false view of self did not begin with Freud. It began in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3 describes the ancient temptation: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The temptation was not merely to gain information. Adam and Eve were being invited to become autonomous from God, to determine good and evil for themselves rather than receiving God’s definition of good and evil.
The underlying message was essentially:
“You don’t need God to define reality for you. You can determine for yourself what is good, what is right, and what will make you flourish.”
The therapeutic culture can become another expression of that same ancient impulse.
- What feels right to me must be right for me.
- My authentic self determines who I am.
- My feelings tell me what is true.
- My feelings of fulfillment become the measure of a good life.
The center of everything becomes self. The trajectory becomes self-autonomy, self-discovery, self-actualization, and ultimately personal fulfillment through self-focus.
The Biblical Trajectory Is the Opposite Direction
Christ is at the center. We surrender to Him and His truth, moving away from destructive selfishness and toward maturity in His life.
Biblical Spirit led self-denial. This is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. Jesus said, “Deny yourself.” Self is not the center—He is (Matthew 16:24–25). Scripture also calls us to put selfish desires that oppose God and His design to death (Romans 6:6; Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:24; Colossians 3:5). The old selfish way of living no longer rules us.
And we do not accomplish this simply by trying harder. We walk with the Holy Spirit, who enables us to identify and put to death selfish desires that are outside God’s design (Romans 8:12–14; Galatians 5:16–25).
Walking in God’s biblical order is Jesus first, others second, and self in its proper place. This is not self-hatred, self-erasure, or denying the person God created us to be. It is the death of self as the sovereign center of life. Paul expresses it beautifully: Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” The goal is not that I disappear, but that I find my true fulfillment as Christ lives through me.
Overcoming the Therapeutic Industry’s False View of Self
Recognize the deception. We were never designed to determine reality, morality, identity, or fulfillment independently of God. Our feelings, desires, experiences, and perceptions are not the ultimate authority. God is.
Turn away from self-rule. Our deepest problem is not simply having a poor self-image. It is our desire to be our own authority. Biblical repentance means turning from self-rule and submitting again to God’s rule. Instead of asking, “How can I become the person I want to be?” we ask, “Lord, who have You created me to be, and how do You want me to live?”
Receive your identity from God. We do not have to create ourselves or continually reinvent ourselves. Our identity comes from our Creator and, for the Christian, is ultimately found in Christ. We are God’s creation, redeemed by Christ, adopted into His family, and given a purpose within His kingdom.
Renew our minds with God’s truth. Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). We learn to evaluate our feelings and experiences through God’s truth rather than allowing our experiences to determine what is true.
Learn self-denial and Christ-formation. Jesus did not say, “Find yourself.” He said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). This is not the destruction of our personhood. It is the death of the false self that insists on autonomy so that the life of Christ can be formed in us.
Move from self-focus to sacrificial love. God’s design for marriage, family, church, and relationships confronts our natural inward movement toward self. Maturity is not measured by how completely life fulfills me, but by how faithfully I learn to love, serve, sacrifice, forgive, and contribute to the flourishing of others. Paul says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3).
Live in God’s design for relational life. The false therapeutic self says, “I am an autonomous individual.” God’s design says, “You belong to one another.” Family, marriage, and the church are God’s environments for learning self-giving love. We do not overcome self-centeredness in isolation. We learn the life of Christ as we live in relationship with His people.
More of Jesus, Not More of Self
The answer to the domination and destruction of the Therapeutic Industry is never more of self, but more of Jesus, who is life. The question that leads to life is not merely: “How can I become fulfilled?” The deeper question that does lead to fulfillment is: “How can Christ be formed in me, which leads to eternal fulfillment?”
That is where true life and fulfillment are found. Just like our solar system. Our planet works best and sustains life when it orbits around the sun in it’s proper place. We were never created to orbit around ourselves. We were created to orbit around Jesus (God’s Son), receive our identity from Him, and express His life through Christ in love toward others.
The restoration of the self does not come through greater self-focus. It comes when self returns to its proper place, and Jesus returns to the center.