Gordon Willard Allport combined methodological, theoretical, and pedagogical approaches: rigorous experimental and quantitative research and qualitative means of data collection and analysis. Allport’s interest in the entire life and the whole personality marked the historical emergence of the narrative approach in psychology (Allport, 1942). In his autobiography, Allport posed these three empirical questions for the… Read more »
Explorations in personality In Henry A. Murray’s Explorations in Personality (1938), dedicated to Morton Prince, Sigmund Freud, Lawrence Henderson, Alfred N. Whitehead, and Carl G. Jung, he asked: What propels man? With what environmental objects and institutions does he interact and how? What occurrences in his body are most influentially involved? What mutually dependent processes… Read more »
Photo by Miguel Virkkunen Carvalho. In the beginning of October, I was lucky enough to participate in a two-day workshop with Dr. Kirk Schneider, here in Athens, Greece! It was organized by “gignesthai,” the Hellenic association for Existential Psychology. I’ll write to you about this experience, with my own little words and from where I… Read more »
Knud Leem’s 1767 copper carving of a Shaman. Charlotte Bühler’s Theory of Development Charlotte Bühler, a pioneer in women’s adolescent psychology, emphasized the distinctions between humanistic psychology and the Freudian science that had dominated the discipline earlier in her career. She pointed out that development is synonymous with health and self-realization rather than the endpoint… Read more »
Welcome to the Existential Roundup, where we bring you links to some articles currently trending that may be of interest to those in the existential-humanistic psychology community. Lately, while dealing with a period of high stress, I have found cookies—specifically those with Dulce de Leche chips—a huge source of comfort. Thus, Cookie Monster’s picture on… Read more »
Courtesy of Renate Horney Patterson. The work of Karen Horney sheds light on the internal psychosexual conflicts and unspeakable experiences of women who remain subjugated by Middle Eastern and African cultures today. The writings of Horney give an informed understanding of much of the underlying dynamic. Horney’s psychoanalytic revisionism went through three phases. In the… Read more »
Sketch by Alexandru Darida. In Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism (1991), Mircea Eliade* focuses on the Indian symbols of time and eternity and the function of myth as an account of events that took place in the beginning. In the beginning was a primordial, non-temporal instant, or a moment of sacred or Great… Read more »
Reading Myrtle Heery’s (2014) edited anthology Unearthing the Moment: Mindful Applications of Existential-Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychotherapy reminded me why I love and am so passionately committed to these fields of study and practice. Heery and 24 other contributing authors offer penetrating insights into core aspects of existential-humanistic and transpersonal psychotherapy, within an impressively diverse range… Read more »
Gustave Dore’s illustration for Don Quixote. We’ve got a glaring problem in this country and world. It’s not our only problem and it isn’t the cause of all sorrows, but today, it’s one of the chief problems we face—and it is scarcely scrutinized by psychologists. The problem to which I refer is our socio-economic model… Read more »
Lu Xun Quick to kindle, quick to calm down, an even quick to grow decadent, men of letters [i.e., a type of scholar] can always find reasons and precedents from the classics to justify their shifts of allegiance. (Lu Xun, 1931/2003) One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. (Nietzsche,… Read more »
