The Humanistic Psychologist 

About: The Humanistic Psychologist is an academic journal published by American Psychological Association. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Humanistic psychology & Existentialism. It has an ISSN identifier of 0887-3267. Over the lifetime, 876 publications have been published receiving 8835 citations.

Toward a postmodern psychology.

Abstract: During the present century psychological science has been largely guided by a modernist world‐view. The modernist perspective, as represented in the arts, sciences, and cultural life, is centrally concerned with locating foundational forms. This romance with essentials is manifest in psychology's assumption of a basic, knowable subject matter; universal psychological processes; truth by (empirical) method; and research as progressive. Yet, in broad sectors of the intellectual world — and elsewhere — one detects a defection from modernism and the emergence of a postmodern perspective. Dominant within postmodernism is a thoroughgoing perspectivism. All attempts at foundations are viewed, then, as reflections of particular perspectives, themselves without justification except by recourse to other perspectives. Postmodernism not only raises critical questions regarding the modernist project in psychology, but opens new vistas for study. Cultural critique and the construction of new and more practical...

Staring at the sun: Overcoming the terror of death.

Abstract: In this article, the author, an eminent psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and writer, presents a brief introduction to the problem of human mortality as one of the givens of human existence, locating the problem squarely in the domain of self- awareness or human consciousness. He names the problem as death anxiety, a fear that can erupt into terror depriving an individual of happiness and fulfillment. Having identified the problem of death anxiety, the author then goes on, through a personal memoir, to disclose his personal ideas about death, their autobiographical sources, and how they have affected his life, as well as his coming to terms with the necessity of his own death. Within this autobiographical essay, he touches on experiences of death and dying from his youth, adolescence, and adulthood as well as his experience of the death of three of his most prized mentors: Jerome Frank, John Whitehorn, and Rollo May.

Spirit breaking: When the helping professions hurt

Abstract: Too often the human services dehumanize and depersonalize those who come to receive services, as well as those professionals who provide physical disabilities and people with psychiatric disabilities are frequently hurt by helping professionals, the phenomenon of “spirit breaking” is introduced. Suggestions for re‐humanizing the human services are made, including new models for clinical interaction that serve to empower rather than disempower service recipients, and the contributions that people with disabilities are making in their own state and national movements for social justice and the right to humane treatment and rehabilitation services.

"Reflexive Embodied Empathy": A Phenomenology of Participant-Researcher Intersubjectivity

Abstract: In this article, I advocate a research process that involves engaging, reflexively, with the embodied intersubjective relationship researchers have with participants. I call this practice reflexive embodied empathy. First, I explicate the concept of empathy through exploring ideas from the philosophical phenomenological literature. I then apply this theory to practice and offer examples of reflexive analysis of embodied empathy taken from various hermeneutic phenomenological research projects. Three interpenetrating layers of reflexivity are described, each involving different but coexisting dimensions of embodied intersubjectivity. The 1st layer-connecting-of-demonstrates how people can tune into another's bodily way of being through using their own embodied reactions. The 2nd layer-acting-into-focuses on empathy as imaginative self-transposal and calls attention to the way existences (beings) are intertwined in a dynamic of doubling and mirroring. The 3rd layer-merging-with-involves a "reciprocal insert...

Concerning Variations in the Application of the Phenomenological Method

Abstract: We are living in an era when many qualitative research methods are being introduced into psychology. Among the qualitative methods being introduced are phenomenological methods based on different phenomenological philosophers. Not unexpectedly, different psychologists are interpreting the primary philosophers in different ways. This article reviews the methods articulated by psychologists who claim to follow Husserl at least partially. Some of the variations that exist among the methods articulated by Colaizzi, Hycner, Moustakas, van Manen, and Karlsson are noted and discussed. While an orthodox methodology is not being proposed, it is nevertheless argued that not all variations can be justified. In addition, it is emphasized that strategies for researching phenomena differ from those focusing on individuals.