Psychology as Religion and the Secular Church of Tony Robbins

I had a hot date with Netflix this past Saturday evening, and decided to take in the documentary on Tony Robbins, I Am Not Your Guru. Robbins, known to many for his late night infomercials and personal growth books, has become a celebrity coach of sorts. Even Ken Wilber was taken by him at one point.

I was never keen on Robbin's style, as it came off as too bombastic and cultish. Nevertheless, I mostly enjoyed watching one of his popular seminars (cost: $5,000!) made available to me at no cost. Moreover, it was compelling to watch workshop attendees reveal their deepest confessionals so that Robbins could work his “magic” and cut through their stuck patterns. While his technique appears effective for many attendees in the short term, I started to question how well their breakthroughs would endure.

Robbins attempts to downplay his role as a guru, however, with all the adulation and idolatry from his followers, this comes off as insincere. This is like a religion, but of what?

Paul C. Vitz wrote a terrific book, Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-worship, that speaks well to the issues behind this sort of self-help phenomenon. This book is packed with insight and so full of light, I think it would be best if I quote a bunch of the highlights for me (and throw in a few tidbits that relate to the world of Robbins).

This goal of self-realization or self-actualization is at heart a gnostic one, in which the commandment “Know and express thyself” has replaced the Judeo-Christian commandment “Love God and others.”

As a goal or purpose of life, self-actualization cannot be scientifically justified; it is based on unexamined philosophical and moral assumptions.

This self-knowledge is arrived at by the patient’s learning the meaning of his or her experienced states on their own terms, that is, phenomenologically and not via some “objective” subject-object philosophy, as found in natural science. All of this takes place in a universe that excludes God and is limited to three aspects: the external environment, the social and interpersonal environment, and the self and its relation to itself.

[It does come across in the documentary that there are no objective standards in Robbins approach. It's about growth and excellence, but in relation to what?]

The point is not that feeling bad about ourselves is good, but rather that only two things can truly change how we feel about ourselves: producing real accomplishments and having “basic trust.”

[This is stressed by Robbins, but again the accomplishments are not measured against an objective standard, and the "basic trust" presumably comes from oneself.]

Selfist psychology emphasizes the human capacity for change to the point of almost totally ignoring the idea that life has limits and that knowledge of those limits is the basis of wisdom.

[Robbin's belief is that people have no limits and can completely create themselves to whatever they want to be.]

The evidence strongly suggests that benefits from psychotherapy come from common factors found in every type of therapy. Major factors that make a difference include the commitment of the client to therapy and the therapist’s positive support of the client, combined with an ability (often based on experience) gently to challenge the client’s distorted thinking and to facilitate positive changes.

[Robbins follows this model, except there is no commitment beyond a seminar.]

A choice based on no criterion is not a choice.

The a priori existence of reason provides evidence that at least one part of a person’s existence—namely, his or her reason—already has an essence or nature; and this essence precedes the self’s existence.

[This is the nub of Robbin's existential psychology: existence precedes essence.]

But what is failing is not the family; what is failing is modernism, with its analytic emphasis on the independent, mobile individual, caught up in narcissistic goals. This uncontrolled individualistic search for personal gratification is as destructive of social ecology as the uncontrolled quest for economic satisfaction has been for our biological ecology.

Programs that emphasize the process of deciding, and ignore the content of what is chosen, are almost always relativistic.

[Again, the documentary highlights it's all about the individual using the tools to choose whatever they decide to be.]

Selfism’s active voice emphasis is contrasted... with Christian worship, which against all forms of idolatry is always and primarily rendered in the passive voice, in the expectancy and primacy of God’s action and Word. In such worship we do not invent values but discern them. We do not fashion our own identities but we are shaped and refashioned by the Spirit of God. Abraham, Moses, the prophets, and the disciples were all called. God’s word came to them and their work was a response.

This worship of creativity seems to be an outgrowth of the Romanticism of the nineteenth century. What was worshiped then was the rare “god” categorizable as “the Genius.” Gradually the “elitist” valuing of the Genius was transformed by American society into the inflated but comforting belief that the sacred creative self was centered in everyone. Our egos are all as worthy of worship as that of the Genius. Naturally, the supporting values of rebellion and defiant independence have been brought in as equally ideal for all of us. In the spread of this popular and flattering belief, creativity has been turned into a rationale for self-indulgence.

[Of all the transcendent values, clearly Robbins would say creativity is the highest. But what would he say is the source of this creativity?]

This emphasis on having faith in the self reduces God to a useful servant of the individual in his or her quest for personal goals.

These psychologists created a whole climate of opinion that made the unconscious, interior world seem more real than the conscious mind, with its awareness of external reality.

Like all popular heresy, selfism has some positive and appealing properties. That you should look out for yourself is nice (and useful) to hear; that you should try to be positive toward others is also nice and somewhat familiar. What is excluded is the spiritual life of prayer, meditation, and worship—the essential vertical dimension of Christianity, the relation to God. Selfism is an example of a horizontal heresy, with its emphasis only on the present and on self-centered ethics.

[Religion offers more a vertical relationship to something beyond oneself. While Robbins uses spiritual vernacular at times, it is always in service to the self.]

There is a poignant moment when Robbins acknowledges he received grace when a school teacher acknowledged his talent as a great communicator. He saw that event as the catalyst for re-creating himself from there on. But perhaps it was the moment where he was invited to become who he is. A subtle distinction, but not an insignificant one.