In 2020, about 20% of the U.S. adult population received psychotherapy or counseling services from a mental health professional. Why do so many people turn to help from psychology? A simple answer is that it is also estimated, through years of therapy outcome studies, that 75% of people who receive psychotherapy report feeling and functioning better because of the help.

The ultimate benefit of psychotherapy is saving lives, but that is difficult to calculate. As with shootings, it is easier to count the people who die from gunfire than the number of people whose lives are preserved by armed protection from citizens, police, and military. It is easier to count the people who committed suicide than to count the people who were at risk but chose life due to mental health services. Where there is a comparable control group — for example, veterans who receive mental health services compared to veterans who do not — the evidence is strong that therapy prevents suicide.

The benefit of modern psychology is not limited to direct services. Americans spend billions every year on self-help books, online courses, and about 20,000 mental health apps. Furthermore, psychological nomenclature has kidnapped our way of thinking and talking. People say, “I’m OCD, I’m ADHD, I’m bipolar,” almost as a form of amiable introduction. And when we don’t like someone, or wish to identify bad behavior, we use psychological terms like narcissist, sociopath, psychopath, and pathological liar rather than good old-fashioned blame-and-shame verbiage.

Whence comes this fundamental expansion in our methods to solve personal problems? Modern psychological knowledge takes many forms, but the development of psychological theory and psychotherapy to understand oneself, to change behavior, and to improve life was originally almost entirely a gift of the Jews.

Modern psychology arose in the explosion of scientific knowledge in Europe and America of the late 19th century. Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in1879. Wundt’s student, James Cattell, received a Ph.D. in 1892 and became the first professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1890, William James published the massive The Principles of Psychology, in which........

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