Painting by Richard Bargdill. One of the things I have marveled at is how many humanistic existential folks have found art to be an important part of their self-care. I understand that we are “amateur” artists, poets, painters and musicians, but I think that in itself is beautiful because we are, in a sense, truly… Read more »
Photo from images.virtualology.com. I have been resonating in the last few months with what it means to be an American. I’m wondering if we have lost some fundamental truth or insight into what freedom is. We have begun to believe that we should never have to stand up for anything difficult because our forebearers took… Read more »
Photo by Richard Bargdill. In one of psychology classes I teach, we were talking about experiences of the sacred. Only about half the students, through a show of hands, would admit publicly to having had such an experience. We decided, as class, to write a reflection on what people had experienced, and at least, called… Read more »
The revelation of the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program reminded me of my earlier presentation at the sixth annual Society for Humanistic Psychology conference. I presented on Lame Deer, a Lakota Sioux medicine man, whose critiques of western culture (circa 1971) and his antidotes that are very similar to those of humanistic psychology. I want to… Read more »
Richmond GMO Protest. Photo by Lorin Droppa. In the last two years, I have noticed and become part of a trend that I hope will continue. The trend is that our community of existential-humanistic psychologists has begun to move toward social activism. We have seen the power of publically taking positions for and against psychologically… Read more »
The Columbine High School Memorial. Existential and Depth psychologists are aware that there are shadow forces working beneath and behind almost anything that has a positive name to it. This might account for the skepticism that E-H folks have for “positive psychology,” which seems to have an implicit philosophy that if you want a “good… Read more »
Conference attendees at the poster session. The Division 32/Society for Humanistic Psychology Conference at Pacifica Graduate Institute at the end of February reminded me of a conference catch phrase from the previous conference in Pittsburgh in 2012. A talk on community concluded with the idea that humanistic psychology seems to have all the right ingredients… Read more »
Interviewing the Students of Dr. Wertz Richard Bargdill was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to interview three graduate students working with Dr. Wertz at Fordham University in New York. Sarah Kamens, Rachel Levine, and Miraj Desai were all interviewed at the very raucous Division 32 Hospitality Suite at the APA conference. Realizing that it… Read more »
Many of our humanistic psychologists in academia are working in departments where they are the only person holding these values. At times, the myriad of other faculty may seem to be hostile toward the humanistic paradigm and surviving seems more important than thriving. This interview—and hopefully others to follow—acknowledges a person who is acting as… Read more »
George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead The current fascination with zombies and the Zombie Apocalypse seems to clearly reflect of some of the deep-seated concerns with American culture. In his book, Horror and the Holy, Kirk Schneider suggests that monsters often represent two human extremes: constriction and expansion. Dracula embodies Hyper-constriction (deadening qualities) as… Read more »
