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By Ilene Serlin, Ph.D.
This article is posted with permission by Ilene Serlin.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Clinical Application
- Existential and Humanistic Psychology in America
- Issues in Humanistic Psychology
- Is humanistic psychology relevant today?
- Toward a new humanistic psychology
- References
I. Introduction
As humanistic psychologists, we accept that we cannot change our pasts, but believe that we can, by exercising consciousness, discriminating awareness and intentionality, help create our futures. “This capacity to transcend the immediate boundaries of time, to see one’s experience self-consciously in the light of the distant past and the future, to act and react in these dimensions, to learn from the past of a thousand years ago and to mold the long-time future, is the unique characteristic of human existence” (May, 1958, p. 67).
From the dialectical questioning of Socrates to the emphasis on beauty and perspective in the Renaissance, Humanism stressed the importance of human experience and the actualization of the human potential. The philosophy of Humanism was reflected in later movements of Romanticism and Existentialism, both reactions to an increasingly rational and technological post-Industrial world. The Romantics called for a return to spontaneity, nature, and passion (Schneider, 1998, p. 278). Romanticism was reflected in the works of artists and philosophers such as Goethe, Holderlin, Rilke, Bachelard, D.H. Lawrence, and Isadora Duncan. The Romantic influence also emerged in the back-to-nature elements of Rousseau, American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and pragmatists William James and John Dewey (Davidson, p. 142). Philosophers who influenced the existentialists and laid the ground for a methodology to study human experience included Dilthey, Brentano, Husserl, Kierkegaard, Nietszche, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur. Wilthelm Dilthey (1894/1977) differentiated the natural sciences from the human sciences because he believed that human beings experience subjectivity, consciousness, will and intentionality, and therefore should not be assessed in terms of the objective natural sciences, Husserl (1913/1983), who founded the philosophical school of phenomenology, articulated the notion of intentionality, which he based on Brentano’s idea of “the intentional act.” Brentano was teacher and mentor not only to Husserl, but also to Max Weber and Freud. Husserl’s successor at Frieburg University, Martin Heidegger (1927/1962), proposed that human suffering (angst) is elicited when the individual does not live authentically. He proposed existential dimensions for human existence in his book Being and Time. These theories influenced psychiatrists and psychologists like Medard Boss. Other existential and humanistic psychologists who followed Boss also emphasized the being of the client rather than their objectified categories of psychopathology. Further, this school of thought promoted the therapist’s use of self as therapeutic tool (ie. therapist presence), rather than a set of techniques.
II. Clinical Application
This developing school of existential psychotherapy was demonstrated in Ludwig Binswanger’s clinical application in “The Case of Ellen West,” which showed how “existential analysis is able to widen and deepen the basic concepts and understandings of psychoanalysis (May, 1958, p. 7).” Throughout this case, Ellen West is described in terms of qualities and dimensions of her world-view, using phenomenological descriptions. Descriptions such as these were applied to psychiatric research by Karl Jaspers, whose work advanced existential and humanistic psychotherapy. J. H. van den Berg, a Dutch psychiatrist, more systematically developed principles of phenomenological psychology and psychopathology (van den Berg, 1961) by using rich streams of descriptive data. Other phenomenological psychotherapists included Buytendijk, Bally, Rank, and Kuhn (May, 1958, pp. 3-4). The existentialist perspective was interdisciplinary, and included not only phenomenological psychologists Giorgi, van Kaam and van Deusen, but also anthropologists Mead, Bateson and Montagu; Existentialist philosophers Sartre, de Beauvoir and Ortega y Gasset, novelists Kafka, Camus and Gide, artist Munch, and theologians Tillich, Marcel and Buber. All of these thinkers, in their own fields, considered authentic existence in the face of death or meaninglessness. The themes of returning to the basics of human existence, authenticity, intentionality, and the importance of human subjectivity characterized humanistic psychologists in America.
III. Existential and Humanistic Psychology in America
While existentialism found angst-ridden roots in Europe, it became more pragmatic and positive as it blossomed in the U.S.. The study of phenomena like peak experiences and self-actualization were incorporated, as well as the empirical investigation of ordinary and non-ordinary states of consciousness. William James, often known as the father of American psychology, parlayed his interest in these areas into the initial development of American humanistic psychology (Taylor, 1992, p. 286).
This variation of Humanistic psychology challenged the monopoly held by behaviorism and psychoanalysis. While those theories held that man is solely determined by circumstances or events such as external forces or childhood experience, Humanistic psychology suggested that the self-transcending person could choose to live a good or meaningful life despite whatever challenges arose.
Carl Rogers popularized this theory in his “client-centered” therapy. Compared to the “sick patient” who required “treatment” in Freudian analysis, the “client” in Rogers’ office was believed to have an innate goodness and drive to self-actualize. The client’s transformation would be achieved through the unconditional positive regard offered by the therapist, rather than by critical diagnosis and psychopathological pigeon-holing. Unlike behavioral therapies, client-centered therapy was characterized by an emphasis on the client’s subjective experiencing and process rather than on his or her symptom-reduction.
This focus on the client’s subjective experience can also be found in the humanistic works of Bugental and Mahrer. The search to operationalize and measure modes of experience led to the development of Gendlin’s “Experiencing Scale” (Psychiatric Institute, University of Wisconsin), and a systematic method, called “Focusing”, which taught people how to track and differentiate their own inner states (Gendlin, 1992, p. 452). Other humanistic therapists, including Frankl, Angyl, Szasz, Perls, and Satir, also emphasize the notion of self-transcendence.
As a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, Frankl (1964) realized that while he had no control over his circumstances, he did have choice about his attitude. The theory that he eventually developed from these insights became known as Logotherapy, and postulated that the search for the meaning of one’s life events can supercede the despair generated by them. Angyl also provided a positive perspective which stressed health and the client’s ability to actively transform the past (Stern, 1992, p. 363). Szasz went far to radicalize psychiatry with his notion that psychopathology is socially constructed and that it serves to label unusual people as deviant and to marginalize them. Fritz and Laura Perls brought the idea of individual responsibility into Gestalt therapy as an action-oriented experiential therapeutic process (Serlin, 1992), Satir extended humanistic psychotherapy to a humanistic family therapy. Barton, a student of Satir’s, summarized the contributions of these clinical founders:
“…they, as Humanistic psychotherapists, perennially celebrate, assert, and evoke the full gifted presence of human beings in opposition to reductive biologism, materialism, mechanism, cognitive behaviorism, psychoanalysis, or any other reducing prismatic vision. They all proclaim an attitude of reverent celebration and appreciation as the foundational place and space from which therapy practice ought to come…Humanistic psychotherapy has also insisted on a holistic comprehension of the human person and of human interaction…Finally, Humanistic psychotherapy has also opened up specific transformative techniques: modes of rhetoric which liberate the therapist toward more effective action (Barton, 1992, pp. 346-347).”
One of the most prominent existential psychiatrists was R. D. Laing, who used existential principles in his work with psychotic people. In his groundbreaking book, The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (Laing, 1959), Laing outlined a unique Existential-Phenomenological foundation for the study and understanding of psychosis. He posited that psychosis was reflective of ontological insecurity. Because he believed that psychosis had inherent meaning which needed to be expressed rather than suppressed, Laing developed a therapeutic process in which psychotic people were encouraged to discover this meaning and work it through by completing the entire cycle of personality disintegration and re-integration.
But it is May, author of the highly influential book, Existence (1958), who is probably the most well-known psychologist to bring European Existentialism to America. May describes his existential psychotherapy:
“The context is the patient not as a set of psychic dynamisms or mechanisms but as a human being who is choosing, committing, and pointing him or herself toward something right now. The context is dynamic, immediate, real, and present (May, 1983, p. 1).”
May also situated the study of psyche in the context of art and the humanities and celebrated the artist as the prototype of one who creates even while confronting the void. It is the artist who expresses “…the underlying spiritual meaning of the period…directly in symbols (p. 53).” An artist is not removed from the trials of everyday life, but in fact contributes an important voice to the social/political dialogue of the times. May writes, “Thus the artists–in which term I hereafter include the poets, musicians, dramatists, plastic artists, as well as saints–are a ‘dew line’, to use McLuhan’s phrase; they give us a ‘distinct early warning’ of what is happening to our culture” (p. 17). The creative person is one who is able to live with heightened awareness, ecstasy and joy.
Understanding the soul sickness of his time as emptiness, despair, anxiety and inauthenticity, May stressed the role of art in the creation of a meaningful life. He defined creativity as “the process of bringing something new into being (May, 1975, p. 37).” Creativity is an “encounter with the world that undercuts the subject-object split, an encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his or her world (p. 56).” Art, from May’s perspective, is defined not primarily as a product, like a painting, but as the emergence of form from chaos. Art is necessary for the elegance of a theory, the harmony of internal form, and even as a foundation for the science (p. 73) and scientific creativity which creates meaning out of experience (p. 150).
Another pioneer of existential psychotherapy is James Bugental, who calls his approach “Existential-Humanistic.” One of his main contributions is the concept of “presence,” which stems from the non-verbal qualities of a person and provides a primary ingredient in the therapeutic alchemy. Presence requires deep listening and authentic participation with the client so that a genuine encounter can happen (Bugental, 1983, p. 1). Bugental also described the “therapeutic alliance,” through which the therapist can confront the client with his or her attempts to avoid being present, while maintaining a consistent acceptance of the client. The goal of such therapy is to develop presence and authenticity in the therapeutic relationship, and ultimately, in life. Some of Bugental’s concepts come from the self construct theory of George Kelly. According to Kelly’s, the “self” which appears in personal construct theory “…is one who is in the position of making meaning; constructing the world out of personal experiences rather than having the world dictate the meaning of one’s existence (Epting & Leitner, 1992, p. 244).” Like other humanistic psychologists, Kelly emphasized the personal freedom of the individual to shape his or her world, rather than being an object determined by either inner drives or outer forces.
Many others impacted the humanistic psychology movement:
IV. Issues in Humanistic Psychology
These theorists and clinicians are credited with nurturing the growing humanistic movement by addressing previously neglected themes of love, freedom, responsibility and the importance of living a meaningful life. In the 1960s, these isolated voices began to gather momentum leading toward a new approach to psychology itself. This vitality especially came from the massive cultural changes that swept through America in the 1960s (Serlin et al, 2000). Briefly stated, that larger movement was an expression of a society eager to move beyond the alienating, bland conformity that had characterized the 1950s “return to normalcy” after World War II. In its quest for ‘new frontiers’, Americans in the 1960s began to confront and change prejudices such as racism, sexism, homophobia, ethnocentricism, and nationalism. Psychology’s own narrow view of “normalcy” was questioned by this larger popular movement.
Adjustment models were contrasted with visions of growth, and the “Human Potential Movement” was formed. “T-groups” were developed in order to better train business managers in Human Relations (Hirsch, 1987). These were heavily influenced by Rogers’ ideas, who acted as a consultant for them. Soon these T-groups spread beyond the corporate world and became known more generically as “encounter groups”. Suddenly hundreds of “growth centers” sprang up across the country, offering “sensitivity training” workshops to everyone. A profusion of techniques emerged, including Transactional Analysis, Sensory Awareness, Gestalt, body work, meditation, yoga, massage therapy, and Psychosynthesis. Probably the best site to popularize these techniques was Esalen Institute, which continues to provide this training today.
But it was Abraham Maslow who is usually given credit for precipitating the humanistic psychology movement in the United States. Reacting against the predominant reductionism of behaviorism and psychoanalysis of the day, he gathered together a group of colleagues with whom he could share ideas, publish common theories and create community. The Association of Humanistic Psychology (AHP) eventually arose as a result of that collaboration.
Humanistic psychology blossomed in the universities, and also in the business world. Maslow’s work on the motivation hierarchy (Maslow, 1954) and Rogers’ work on client-centered styles and growth (1942) directly influenced the National Training Laboratory in Maine, a pioneer in human relation workshops. Noting that “…of particular importance in this time of rapid technological change and socio-political transformation, is the encounter between humanistic and technocratic values (Massarik, 1992, p. 389),” the UCLA Human Relations Research Group began in the early 1950s to focus on “human factors in management (Tannenbaum, Weschler and Massarik, 1961).” ‘This group was influenced by Kurt Lewin’s field theory (Lewin, 1935; 1948), and Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.
One key issue in the early days of humanistic psychology was the role of spirituality in human experience: is humanistic psychology is secular, or can/should it embrace a spiritual perspective? The relationship between Humanistic and Transpersonal psychology has always been complicated, particularly within the context of APA. Transpersonal psychology is defined as: “…the study of non-ordinary states of consciousness not traditionally covered by the discipline of ego psychology”, and included “…states of consciousness such as meditation, religious ecstasy, trance and ‘unitative conscious experiences’ often described in the esoteric and spiritual literature of humankind” (Bynum, 1992, p. 300). With their connection to consciousness and the empiricism of William James, humanistic and transpersonal psychology share roots (Taylor, 1992, p. 289).
V. Is humanistic psychology relevant today?
Humanistic psychology was founded in opposition to behaviorism and psychoanalysis; what if it is no longer needed for that purpose? Reflecting on what inspired the earlier generation to support Humanistic psychology, it might be time to renew that which was, and still is, inspiring and unifying rather than oppositional.
What were some of those originally inspiring visions of humanistic psychology, and how can these visions be–not overcome, but continued–for the next millennium?
In light of the problems of today’s world, humanistic psychology may actually be more relevant than ever. While managed care and the changing health system are eroding the myth of the heroic individual psychological journey, a psychology that stresses individual commitment is important. In a world of impersonal technology, disconnection and disembodiment, a psychology that stresses relationship and embodied experience is needed. In a world of meaningless work and random violence, a psychology that stresses meaning and ethics is essential. And in an increasingly homogenized world, a psychology that stresses authenticity and creativity brings balance.
The computer revolution of the last 25 years has not brought about the expected miracles of increased productivity or quality of life (New York Times Magazine, December 8, 1996), business and lifestyle downsizing has brought about job insecurity, young people watch fewer foreign films, college courses in Shakespeare are being cut, and the rain forest is eroding. The crisis in psychology is its vast inability to even address, much less solve critical problems as the 21st century comes closer. Imagination and soul are gone from a psychology which produces standardized training and manualized procedures instead of improving the experience and quality of human life (Serlin, 1997).
If these signs of illness in the culture were understood as presenting problems, the signs of health would point to places where people are creating their own treatment plans. Such treatment plans can help us understand what is needed to counteract the cultural illness. These signs include the enormous popularity of books explaining how to put the soul back into our relationships, into our daily lives, into our work. Over half of all Americans are seeking help with alternative medicine, and baby boomers are trying to simplify their lives and are returning to religion. Physicists are talking about the interconnectedness of all things in a world in flux, as are ecologists and theologians. Philosophers, post-modernists and cognitive scientists are calling for a new model of the human being, as complex, adaptable, and multiple. Most of these paradigm shifts, however, are happening outside the field of psychology.
Except that humanistic psychologists were calling for these paradigm shifts a long time ago. For example, Abraham Maslow, who was President of APA from 1967-1968, described what he called “the sicknessness of the soul,” or “metapathologies,” which result from a deprivation of “metaneeds” such as beauty, meaning, and joy. The task of a psychologist would be to function as a “metacounselor,” or “older brother,” to remind people of their metaneeds and of their interconnectedness (Maslow, 1971, p. 43). People who fulfill these needs, known as “self-actualizers,” would: experience life fully with total absorption, make growth choices in an ongoing process, have a self, take responsibility, be as good as they can be, experience peak moments, and be willing to give up their defenses (pp. 44-47).
Maslow noticed how the self-actualized individual is similar to what he called the “creative” individual. He called for a new kind of individual who could meet the challenges of the post-war era: “To put it bluntly, we need a different kind of human being…who is comfortable with change, who enjoys change, who is able to improvise, who is able to face with confidence, strength, and courage a situation with which he has absolutely no forewarning (p. 56).” Characteristic of this creative person is that he or she is able to be fascinated and absorbed in the present, yet somehow be timeless, selfless, outside of society and history, have a kind of innocence, a disappearance of fear, a lessening of defenses and inhibitions, strength and courage, an accepting and non-judgmental attitude, an ability to trust rather than control, receptivity, an ability to improvise, an ability to access primary process, perception which is aesthetic rather than abstract, spontaneity, expressiveness, and harmony with the world (pp. 59-68). Creativity, as the opposite of dissociation, connects us to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us. Connectedness is, “individuality freed of isolation (xvii).”
Maslow recommends art education to encourage such self-actualization and creativity, since art makes better people, not better products. Art education can be a paradigm for all other forms of education, and can help us today as we search for new ways to bring creativity into everyday life. Creativity is intimately related to real life, to living a creative life and “opening individuals to the resources within themselves (Arons, 1992, p. 167-169).”
Finally, Maslow’s self-actualized person would not just be a self-absorbed navel-gazer, a common stereotype of humanistic psychologists. A self-actualized person would become interested in improving the world, integrating intrapersonal, interpersonal, social, spiritual and aesthetic levels of experience. The self-actualized person would create meaningful experiences, beauty, and live with grace and courage in the ongoing confrontation with the anxiety of non-being. For Maslow, who taught at Brandeis from the mid 50s to the late 60s, self-transcendent spirituality meant living as a “mensch,” with integrity and devotion to “tikkun olam,” or repairing this world. His view of human beings is grounded in Jewish tradition which states that human beings have choice and exercise freedom, can choose between good and evil, and “…are partners with God in preserving and advancing the precious gift of life ( Fields, 1990, p. 23).” The word for soul, “nefesh,” originally meant “body and soul,” or the whole person (Rabbi Miriam Sentura, 1997, personal communication). The ideal of a whole human being, not just a “psyche” or “mind” or “behavior”, who takes responsibility for co-creating the world with God is what Maslow meant by being fully human.
Maslow’s prescription for a future humanistic psychology is relevant for us today. He advised that psychology “should be more humanistic…more concerned with problems of humanity, and less with the problems of the guild (1965, p. 20),” and “turn more frequently to the study of philosophy, of science, of aesthetics, and especially of ethics and values (p. 22).” Academic psychology is “too exclusively Western…needs to draw on Eastern sources…turns too much to the objective, the public, the outer, and behavioral and should learn more about the subjective, the private, the meditative” (p. 30). Finally, Maslow called for an integration of Gestalt and organismic theory into psychology, and the creation of a “health fostering culture (pp. 32-33).”
This view is expressed by psychoanalyst Susan Deri, who describes “The Good Life” as one lived with a good fit between self and environment, which she calls “viable lifespace.” A viable lifespace is one which is not only sustainable, but also beautiful. A good life has beauty through its meaning, patterning, and symbol formation, which is “the specific human way of creating order and connectedness within the person’s psychic organization, as well as the means of bridging from the inside to the outside (p. 5).”
A concern with aesthetics is something that also characterizes Bugental’s search for the authentic human life. He says that the authentic human being “.. .sees beauty and wonder in the common birthright of all human beings: the will to actualize what is latent (Bugental, 1976, p. xiii).” Affirming the importance of meaning-making, non-reductive art in psychology, Bugental explains: “I do so because I believe that psychotherapy is more an art than a science (1976, p. xvi).” The human trait which enables us to create a meaningful life is what May describes as the artist in us. That which characterizes an artist, as well as a psychologically mature person, is a quality of disinterestedness, or the capacity to connect to something larger than one’s personal ego. This something is symbolic, timeless as well as historical, and reflective of the great shifting patterns in a changing universe.
VI. Toward a new humanistic psychology
The phenomenologists, deconstructivists, feminists and others have pointed out the basic flaws in a human science which tries to understand human nature with tools inherited from the natural sciences. They have articulated the need to examine psychology’s core assumptions about the self, progress, development, and normalcy. What is needed, however, is not to pit these many voices of psychology against each other in a Tower of Babel, but instead to make new meaning out of them. Psychology should not be about a monolithic or isolated self looking for truth, but should be about pluralism, and selves in relation to other selves and in context with both time (history) and timelessness.
In their 1994 article in the American Psychologist, Bevan and Kessel call for a psychology which bridges science and the humanities (pp. 505-509), and argue that the last 100 years have seen a confusion of science with technology (p. 506). They recommend instead what Sigmund Koch called an “indigenous methodology,” which respects a range of methodologies and which can reflect the full range of human experiences (Koch, 1993), or what Oliver Sachs, after Luria, has called “romantic science (Sachs 1990).”
A new humanistic psychology therefore would align itself with the paradigm shifts already occurring in biology and ecology. Instead of a radical disconnection from nature, humanistic psychologists would see themselves as part of it. Instead of seeing human beings as superior to other creatures, Humanistic psychology would see humans as only one species living in a respectful interdependence with all sentient beings. For example, in The Lives of a Cell, biologist Lewis Thomas reminds us that we are not self-contained entities, but instead are penetrable and share our innermost selves with other creatures. In our cells are mitochondria which are “separate little creatures” with their own DNA. Thomas concludes that “…we are shared, rented, occupied (p. 2).”
A new, ecologically sensitive humanistic psychology must also take into account that we are animals, not because we are ruled by base or “lower” instincts, but because we share many similar traits with animals. Traditional psychology, from Freudian to cognitive psychology, has considered animals to have “lower” functions while “higher” functioning, dependent on the cerebral cortex, brings rational and self-conscious thinking. We try to transcend our animal nature. Yet that paradigm is wearing out; it has been said that rational and self-conscious thinking has brought about the rape of the earth and alienation from our senses (Abram, 1966).
Finally, a new humanistic psychology should be integrative. The generation of baby-boomers who were busy experimenting in the 1960s has come down off its mountain tops, re-entered the workforce and public institutions, and helped focus national attention on the need for values, spirituality, and meaning in the workplace and in the home. Even in the psychotherapy arena, this generation is less interested in dichotomies like short- versus long-term, nature versus nurture, but are able to tolerate the ambiguity of complexity and paradox. There is a growing movement toward integrative therapy; integration at work, integration in medical settings, and integration in the culture at large (Newman, personal communication).
The old enemies have shifted. Humanistic psychology began with a much-needed rebellion against psychoanalysis and behaviorism. Not only is psychoanalysis no longer what it was in the 1950s, and not only has science opened to new paradigms and ecological awareness, but humanistic psychologists are now allies with psychoanalysis in such important matters as the Template and managed care. A humanistic psychology relevant for the 21st century would therefore recognize new trends in psychoanalysis and behaviorism, in biology and religion. While the spirituality from which Rollo May shielded humanistic psychology may have been a 1950s traditionally religious “opiate of the people;” certainly now the hunger for spirituality in the general population is difficult to ignore.
It is time to move beyond the postmodern deconstruction and critique to reconstruction, thinking, and action in the real world. How can humanistic psychology reconstruct itself and move into the world?
First, humanistic psychology can contribute to the debate about illness and health in our culture. For example, 60-80% of all medical money is spent on the last two years of life; a shift to prevention and quality of life is needed. Humanistic psychology has always understood the limitations of the illness model and symptom alleviation, and has promoted work on prevention and health.
Second, humanistic psychology can make a creative contribution to alternatives to managed care. Humanistic psychologists have been advocating the need to get back out into the streets and communities, learning to collaborate with the doctors, police, school systems and churches, marrying rhetoric with action. Like physicians, psychologists have become overspecialized and, just as physicians need to re-focus on training generalists and family practitioners to work in areas where they are actually needed, so too psychologists need to re-think priorities of training and practice. Interestingly, this new agenda is close to one recently passed by APA’s Board of Professional Affairs which called for more community involvement, an emphasis on prevention and effective social policy (Callan, DeLeon, Howell, Newman, Resnick, Sexton, and Tomes, 1995).
Humanistic psychologists have always been fairly comfortable with spontaneity and creativity. It is now time to grasp the opportunity created from the break-down of old structures, and boldly create new and flexible forms. Flexibility and adaptability will be keys not only for the new “Protean” man or woman (Lifton, 1994) needed for life in the 21st century, but also for the kind of psychology. Humanistic psychologists can add their voices to the new trend in psychology to focus on health and values ( de Leon, Newman, Serlin, DiCowden et al, 1998 ) rather than on pathology and the medical model. In his opening message for the 106th convention program in 1998, for example, President Martin Seligman called for “massive research on human strength and virtue” to develop “buffers against mental illness: courage, optimism, interpersonal skill, work ethic, hope, honesty, and perseverance…Psychology is not just the study of weakness and damage, it is also–or should be–the study of strength and virtue. Treatment is not just fixing what is broken, it is nurturing what is best within ourselves. And by focusing on our strengths and virtues rather than on our deficits and wounds I believe we will have the opportunity to effectively prevent many of the problems we have spent the past 50 years trying to cure (APA 106th Annual Convention program, 1998, p. xxv).
Humanistic psychology has always understood the need to nurture growth and relatedness, as well as to learn from the tragic, depth, and transformative experiences in life. To APA’s search for a more positive, integrative psychology, humanistic psychologists can add an historic and relevant voice.
References