Fukujoka Heuman Relations Community: a Network Approach to Developing Human Potential

Abstract

At the time of the student riots in the 1960s, a small seminar on Carl Rogers's writings began at a college in the city of Fukuoka, Japan. It has spontaneously developed into a satellite network community called Fukuoka Human Relations Community (FHRC), and it is likely to evolve further into an unknown form of community. The FHRC is a large growth-oriented network of people who get to know each other through encounter groups, monthly open group sessions, and other humanistic activities. The purpose of this article is to describe FHRC and discuss how FHRC activates human potential for growth. This social experiment has important implications for the transition away from a hierarchical society in Japan and illustrates the benefits of new spontaneous, humanistic ways of being and relating.

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