Page 130 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

A Portrait of a Christian Psychologist: Paul C. Vitz

Since then, at least in the US, the narcissistic nature or our culture has received consistent attention as
a major personal and social problem. A sub- theme of the book was that Christians were buying into
this self focused interpretation. They were forgetting “not my will but Thy will be done”.

In the story of your conversion, you recounted four deep experiences of God 1977 / 78 – for example, a
vision of the presence of God, or some days later you experienced being convicted of personal sin and
evil – but without sense of condemnation -, which left a strong impression on you and which led you to a
living, personal relationship with the triune God.

After so many years are your interpretation of these experiences still the same? And, do these experiences
still influence you today?

Yes. I don’t think of them too often but every now and then the memory of them helps me very much
during times of personal difficulty or spiritual trouble.

Paul C. Vitz
Ph.D. Professor and Senior Scholar, Institute for the Psycho-
logical Sciences, Arlington, Virginia; Professor Emeritus,
New York University. (Ph.D., Stanford University)
Dr. Vitz’s teaching and research is focused on the integrati-
on of Christian theology, especially Catholic anthropology,
with psychology. This requires breaking from the modern se-
cularism and post-modern relativism prevalent today. He is
presently also addressing the following special to-
pics: the psychology of hatred and forgiveness, the
psychology of the virtues, the psychological impor-
tance of fathers and the relevance of psychology for
understanding atheism.

Dr. Vitz‘s books include: Psychology as Religion:
The Cult of Self-Worship; Sigmund Freud‘s Chri-
stian Unconscious; Modern Art and Modern Sci-
ence: The Parallel Analysis of Vision; Faith of the
Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism (which will
come out in a revised edition in fall 2013 from Igna-
tius Press); and The Self: Beyond the Post-modern
Crisis. He is also Professor of Psychology Emeritus
Paul today at New York University where he taught for many years prior

to joining IPS.
He is married to Evelyn Birge Vitz, best known as Timmie,
who is a Professor of French at NYU; they recently moved
down to Arlington, VA after over 40 years in Manhattan.
They have six grown children and 16 grandchildren.

1vitz@ipsciences.edu

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