Psychology Is Vulgar

“Psychology seems to me vulgar because it is too often overbearing in its confidence.  Instead of saying, ‘I don’t know,’ it readily says, ‘unresolved Oedipus complex’ or ‘manic-depressive syndrome’ or ‘identity crisis.’  As with other intellectual discoveries...psychology acts as if it is holding all the theoretical keys, but then in practice reveals that it doesn’t even know where the doors are.  As an old Punch cartoon once put it, ‘It’s worse than wicked, my dear, it’s vulgar.’”

As quoted in Psychoheresy, p. 199