Journal of Humanistic Psychology

This article provides a brief overview of the founding of JHP as well as an assessment of its present challenges.

Our triumphant claim at age 50 is that we have endured. The halcyon days of JHP in its infancy in the early 1960s, despite the vicissitudes that have assailed it, have given way to an established, independent journal with staying power. Interviews with 75 living exponents of humanistic psychology today, however, suggest that, while everyone interviewed somewhere found a niche, that niche will not be inherited by their students, the course of whose own careers have randomly forced them back into the mainstream of managed care, insurance reimbursement, problems of licensure, evidence based methods, the hegemony of cognitive-behavioral interventions, and attempts on all fronts to regulate Humanistic psychology out of the marketplace, despite widespread public interest in more humane forms of treatment. A step toward remedying this situation is proposed in the form of a return to our founders’ emphasis on a person-centered science, instead of an impersonal, object-centered one that now prevails, and attention to the transformation of psychology that could emerge out of the humanistic implications of the current revolution in the neurosciences, changes that will surely be chronicled in future issues of JHP.

The future of humanistic psychology lies in reclaiming themes of personal growth, self-actualization, authentic happiness, optimal functioning, and human flourishing. This article proposes that a meaning-centered holistic approach within the larger context of existential givens complements the molecular approach of research on specific components of positive psychology.

Humanistic psychology shone most brightly during the revolutionary 1960s and 1970s. Referred to as “the encounter culture,” with a “sensitivity to others’ needs” including emotional self-expression, it was characterized by Carl Rogers as hunger for close relationships with fully-expressed emotions. One of the contributions of humanistic psychology to our culture was Rogers’ approach to conflict resolution using his emotionally honest approach, involving casual interaction in private, confidential settings, and with no set agenda other than the overriding issue, allowing for “troubled moments,” no matter how intense. Even international conflict was influenced, as when President Carter used this “Track II diplomacy” in reaching the Camp David Accord between Israel and Egypt. No greater contribution can be made than to save countries from mortal conflict by having them become more humanistic in their political negotiations.

The philosophical foundation of humanistic psychology must be examined. In explicitly stating its postulates it may remain in the Kantian spell, but, in trying to overcome the dichotomy of phenomena and noumena, belong to the Romantic tradition. Further, it is also conscious of its humanistic tradition in historical diversity. The inquiry into the distinction of humans from other beings, especially computers, will lead to a more fundamental anthropological and ontological question. Needed is also the sensitivity to differences within and exclusions from the unitary concept of human being. While not necessary to change the basic postulates, it may be worthwhile to make them more dynamic and less one-sided by integrating their opposites or negative aspects. The uniqueness of humanistic psychology consists in the quest for the identity of human being.

Humanistic psychology has often been misportrayed as obsolete, especially by some positive psychologists who have tended to minimize their humanistic roots and to co-opt the humanistic psychology agenda through unfairly accusing it of various errors while pursuing a narrowed version of humanistic psychology. Through this distancing from and denigration of humanistic psychology, positive psychology has garnered considerable benefits that might have otherwise inured to humanistic psychology, including attracting many talented students and scholars, gaining lucrative funding, and receiving ample media attention. Consequently, humanistic psychology needs to explicitly challenge such attacks to remain viable, as well as to continue to be innovative in fostering a holistic perspective in diverse areas of psychology, including methodology and neurobiology, which are discussed as examples.

Since much of humanistic psychology’s agenda has been taken up by mainstream psychology and culture, the question of whether humanistic psychology is relevant today is critical. This article draws on Maslow’s description of “sickness of the soul” to argue that a psychology that stresses connection and embodied experience, meaning and ethics, creativity and dreams, resilience and self-actualization is needed now more than ever.

Fundamentally, counseling and therapies of all species are intimate, humanistic encounters between sufferers and healers. A variety of societal impingements on practitioners (e.g., the need to contain burgeoning health care costs via “sustainable growth rates,” limitations on the number of treatment sessions authorized by managed care companies, increasing government regulations, ethical standards, hundreds of “schools” of psychotherapy espousing efficacy) and a growing body of supportive research have resulted in an increased attention to and demand for the use of evidence-based psychological practices that can potentially undermine the fundamental underpinnings of counseling and psychotherapy. This article proposes that care and caution need to be exercised in the rush to evidence-based psychological practices as a “solution” to the concerns noted. In turn, what is advocated in helping others to become effective and compassionate practitioners is a need for an organizing principle, that is, specifically teaching/learning to think in nonlinear ways in conjunction with already well-established empirically determined common factor principles of effective treatment.

This article addresses psychotherapy with a person described as possessing a borderline personality disorder (BPD), or possessing features consistent with this diagnosis. In particular, a selection of mainstream approaches is reviewed to examine unique and universal aspects of current thinking about this treatment population. Following this review, an expanded analysis of person-centered therapy is offered, examining current research evidence and the mechanisms of change hypothesized to occur in the person-centered treatment of BPD.

Alfred Adler has had an enormous influence on the humanistic movement in psychology, though this influence has not always been properly acknowledged. Adler is considered by some (e.g., Abraham Maslow) to be one of the founding fathers of the third force movement, as his Individual Psychology embodies many of the basic tenets of humanistic psychology. In this article, it is argued that Adler’s work not only embodies the fundamental principles of humanistic psychology but also houses a latent framework for interpreting child development. Accordingly, a third force perspective on child development is explicated from Adler’s works. It is further argued that Adler’s approach to child development was ahead of its time and is relevant today.

A tribute to Rollo May, the present essay is the result of an extended and passionate effort to embrace the work of the great psychologist. Amid a welter of voices in “new existentialism,” Rollo May continues to inspire a deeper exploration of being founded on awareness, character, and struggle.