A History of Division 32 (Humanistic Psychology) of the American

Aanstoos, C. Serlin, I., & Greening, T. (2000). History of Division 32
(Humanistic Psychology) of the American Psychological Association. In
D. Dewsbury (Ed.), Unification through Division: Histories of the
divisions of the American Psychological Association, Vol. V. Washington,
DC: American Psychological Association.


A History of Division 32 (Humanistic Psychology) of the American
Psychological Association



Christopher M. Aanstoos, Ilene Serlin, Thomas Greening*



Authors' note: The authors thank Carmi Harari, Myron Arons, Gloria
Gottsegen, Mark Stern, Amedeo Giorgi, Stanley Krippner and Alvin Mahrer,
all early leaders in Division 32s history. Their generous willingness to give
their time to be interviewed greatly assisted in the research that led to the
chapter. Harari's own written correspondence and other archival materials,
which he kindly shared, were also indispensable. Further thanks are owed to
Eleanor Criswell, David Elkins, Kirk Schneider, and Myron Arons, without
whose supportive efforts the chapter could not have been completed. We
also thank Donald Dewsbury, without whose patience and perseverance this
chapter would not have reached a final publishable form.

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A History of Division 32 (Humanistic Psychology) of the American
Psychological Association

Christopher M. Aanstoos, Ilene Serlin, Tom Greening


As with most complex human endeavors, the history of APA Division
32, Humanistic Psychology, has many facets and lends itself to many
narratives and interpretations. Presented here is one version, resulting from
the input of three authors and many other people. Readers may wish to
read between the lines or project onto the text their own versions. In
humanistic psychology, in writing the Division's history, and indeed in
psychology itself, there are always texts and subtexts, and multiple "stories"
and interpretations. Right and left brains play their parts in the making of
history, and in the recording and interpretation of it. This chapter is one
history of the Division. Other fascinating chapters could be written about
the people involved, the intellectual and interpersonal currents, and the
creative, socially responsible, and sometimes spontaneous and chaotic
events that underlay this history.

Prior History: An Emergent Cultural Zeitgeist

Humanistic psychology is sometimes known as the Third Force in
contrast to two major orientations in American psychology, behaviorism and
psychoanalysis, which, along with the biomedical model, are considered by
humanistic psychologists to be reductionistic, mechanistic, and
dehumanizing in regard to human beings as whole persons. As one critic of
behaviorism put it, "American psychology first lost its soul, then its mind,
and finally its consciousness, but it still behaved" (Waters, 1958, p. 278). In

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regard to psychoanalysis, Freud's own words present the challenge to which
humanistic psychology responded:
The moment a man questions the meaning and value of
life he is sick, since objectively neither has any existence;
by asking this question one is merely admitting to a store
of unsatisfied libido to which something else must have
happened, a kind of fermentation leading to sadness and
depression. (Freud, 1960, p. 436)

Many psychologists were crucial in preparing the ground for what
emerged as humanistic psychology's alternative, but three stand out:
Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May. Maslow founded the
psychology department at Brandeis University in 1951 with a strong
humanistic orientation even before the movement was thus named.
Originally working within experimental psychology, Maslow (1954),
developed a research program and subsequent humanistic theory of
motivation. He argued that people are motivated not only reactively by the
"deficiency needs" with which psychology had hitherto been concerned, but
also proactively by "being needs," ultimately including such motives as self-
actualization.

Rogers (1951) sought ways to facilitate clients' yearning for self-
actualization and fully-functioning living, especially via person-centered
therapy and group work. He was one of the first researchers to study
psychotherapy process using tape-recordings and transcripts, and he and his
students also made extensive use of Q-sorts to study self-concept and
change. He explored the necessary conditions for therapeutic progress and
emphasized congruence, presence, and acceptance on the part of the
therapist.

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May, Angel, and Ellenberger (1958) built a bridge from interpersonal
psychoanalysis and European existentialism and phenomenology, having
been influenced by Harry Stack Sullivan, Ludwig Binswanger, and Medard
Boss. May's books integrated creativity, the arts, mythology and the
humanities with psychology, and encompassed the tragic view of life and the
daimonic forces. Charlotte Bühler, Erich Fromm, and Viktor Frankl also
contributed European perspectives to this stream, including a concern for
values in psychotherapy, human development over the whole course of
human life, humanistic psychoanalysis, social issues, love, transcendence of
evil, and the search for meaning.

In the 1960s many isolated voices began to gather momentum and
form a critique of American culture and consciousness, and to form the basis
of a new approach to psychology. Massive cultural changes were sweeping
through America. That larger movement was an expression of a society
eager to move beyond the alienating, bland conformity, embedded
presuppositions, and prejudices that had characterized the 1950s return to
"normalcy" after World War II. In psychology, adjustment models were
challenged by visions of growth, and the human potential movement
emerged. T-groups, sensitivity training, human relations training, and
encounter groups became popular. The goal was greater awareness of one's
own actual experience in the moment and authentic engagement with
others, goals not well-served by academic psychology, clinical psychology, or
the culture in general. Growth centers sprang up across the country,
offering a profusion of workshops and techniques, such as transactional
analysis, sensory awareness, Gestalt encounter, body work, meditation,
yoga, massage therapy, and psychosynthesis. The best known of these was
Esalen Institute, founded in Big Sur, California in 1964, which continues to

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this day. Begun as a site for seminars, it featured not only psychologists
such as Rollo May, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers, but also scholars from
other disciplines such as Arnold Toynbee, Paul Tillich, Gregory Bateson and
Alan Watts.

These developments in the culture and in "pop psychology" paralleled
changes in clinical and academic domains. Existential and phenomenological
trends in continental psychiatry affected the Anglo-American sphere through
the work of R. D. Laing and his British colleagues. His trenchant critique of
the prevailing medical model's reductionistic and pathological view of
schizophrenic patients began a revisioning of even psychotic processes as
meaningful growth-seeking experiencing. Various American psychiatrists
also contributed to the elaboration of this alternative, most notably John
Perry and Thomas Szasz. At the same time, Gestalt therapy was developed
and popularized especially by Fritz Perls.

Meanwhile, from the academic side a rising tide of theory and research
focused attention on this nonreductive, holistic view of the person. As the
1960s unfolded, new books by Rogers (1961, 1969), Maslow (1962, 1964,
1965, 1966), and May (1967, 1969) were enormously influential in this more
receptive era. May pointed out that if we are to study and understand
human beings, we need a human model. He advocated a science of
persons, by which he meant a theory which would enable us to understand
and clarify the specific, distinguishing characteristics of human beings. Many
new voices also now began to be raised. Amedeo Giorgi (later Division 32
president in 1987-1988) criticized experimental psychology's reductionism,
and argued for a phenomenologically based methodology that could support
a more authentically human science of psychology (Giorgi, 1965, 1966,
1970). Giorgi argued that psychology has the responsibility to investigate

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the full range of behavior and experience of people in such a way that the
aims of rigorous science are fulfilled, but that these aims should not be
implemented primarily in terms of the criteria of the natural sciences.

As an organized movement, humanistic psychology grew out of a
series of meetings in the late 1950s initiated by Abraham Maslow and Clark
Moustakas and including Carl Rogers, all APA members. They explored
themes such as the nature of the self, self-actualization, health, creativity,
being, becoming, individuation, and meaning. Building on these meetings,
in 1961 an organizing committee including Anthony Sutich launched the
Journal of Humanistic Psychology (JHP). Its early editorial board included
many well-known scholars such as Andras Angyal, Erich Fromm, Kurt
Goldstein, Rollo May, Clark Moustakas, and Lewis Mumford. Maslow had
compiled a mailing list of colleagues to whom he sent his papers which
conventional journals would not publish, and this was used to begin the
promotion of JHP (deCarvalho, 1990).

The new journal's success in coalescing a responsive subscriber base
quickly convinced its founders that a professional association could also
meet a need. With the assistance of James Bugental, who served as its first
president pro tem, and a grant arranged by Gordon Allport, the inaugural
meeting of the Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP) was held in
Philadelphia in 1963. Among the 75 attendees were many who would later
play prominent leadership roles in this movement. (For a summary of this
meeting see deCarvahlo, 1991, pp. 10-11.)
In 1963 James Bugental published a foundational article, "Humanistic
Psychology: A New Breakthrough," in the American Psychologist which was
adopted by AHP as a basic statement of its own orientation. This statement
was amplified in Bugental's 1964 article, "The Third Force in Psychology" in

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the Journal of Humanistic Psychology and appears, in the following slightly
amplified version, in each issue of JHP.
Five Basic Postulates of Humanistic Psychology
1. Human beings, as human, are more than merely the sum of their
parts. They cannot be reduced to component parts or functions.
2. Human beings exist in a uniquely human context, as well as in a
cosmic ecology.
3. Human beings are aware and aware of being aware—i.e., they are
conscious. Human consciousness potentially includes an
awareness of oneself in the context of other people and the
cosmos.
4. Human beings have some choice, and with that, responsibility.
5. Human beings are intentional, aim at goals, are aware that they
cause future events, and seek meaning, value and creativity.
(Bugental, 1964, pp. 19-25)

The second AHP meeting took place in Los Angeles in September 1964,
with about 200 attendees. As Bugental observed, this group already
included the four major subgroups that have characterized and sometimes
strained the association ever since: therapists, social/political activists,
academic theorists and researchers, and "touchy feely" personal growth
seekers (deCarvalho, 1991, 1992).

To develop the philosophy, themes and direction of the Association for
Humanistic Psychology and humanistic psychology theory, The Old Saybrook
Conference was convened in 1964 at a Connecticut country inn. It was an
invitational conference sponsored by AHP, financed by the Hazen Foundation,
and hosted by Wesleyan University under the chairmanship of Robert Knapp.
Leading figures in the psychology of personality and in the humanistic

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disciplines participated: Gordon Allport, George Kelly, Clark Moustakas,
Gardner Murphy, Henry Murray, and Robert White of the founding
generation; Charlotte Bühler, representing a European tradition of research
labeled "life-span development," Jacques Barzun and Rene Dubos as
humanists from literature and biological science, and James Bugental,
Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, and Carl Rogers, who became the intellectual
leaders of the movement. These founders did not intend to neglect scientific
aspirations; rather, they sought to influence and correct the positivistic bias
of psychological science as it then stood. The titles of some of the papers
indicate the focus of the conference: "Some Thoughts Regarding the Current
Philosophy of the Behavioral Sciences" by Carl Rogers, "Intentionality, the
Heart of Human Will" by Rollo May, "Psychology: Natural Science or
Humanistic Discipline?" by Edward Joseph Shoben, and "Humanistic Science
and Transcendent Experiences" by Abraham Maslow.

In addition to the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, the Association for
Humanistic Psychology, and the Old Saybrook Conference, the subsequent
years also saw the founding of graduate programs in humanistic psychology.
Masters' programs in humanistic psychology were begun in 1966 at Sonoma
State University (then Sonoma State College), and in 1969 at the State
University of West Georgia (then West Georgia College). An M.A. program in
existential-phenomenological psychology was created at Duquesne
University in 1959, and a Ph.D. program was added in 1962. Several free-
standing institutes also initiated humanistic graduate programs. John F.
Kennedy University and the Union Institute, both begun in 1964, and the
California Institute of Integral Studies in 1968 were among the first. In
1971 the Association for Humanistic Psychology created the Humanistic
Psychology Institute (now known as Saybrook Graduate School, named after

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the famous conference). These early programs, still continuing, have since
been joined by many others. Thirty-seven are listed in the current Directory
of Graduate Programs in Humanistic-Transpersonal Psychology in North
America (Arons, 1996). Some of these have focused on synthesizing
humanistic scholarship with eastern philosophies such as Hinduism and
Buddhism (the best known of these are the California Institute for Integral
Studies, John F. Kennedy University, the Institute for Transpersonal
Psychology, and Naropa Institute). Faculty members from these graduate
programs have been active in Division 32 and many, especially from State
University of West Georgia and Saybrook Graduate School, have served as
its president.


The Founding of Division 32: Ambivalence and Collaboration

During the 1960s the primary organizational forum for the burgeoning
humanistic movement was the Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP),
which had become an organization of 6,600 thousand members. As a
protest movement against the mainstream approaches in psychology, this
alternative venue outside of APA seemed most appropriate. However, as the
momentum of change during the 1960s continued, the mainstream also
began to open up to much of this new thinking. Abraham Maslow was
elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1968.
(Rogers had been president in 1947, and later Stanley Graham and Brewster
Smith, two Division 32 presidents, also served as APA presidents.)
Eventually, a group of psychologists within APA decided to pursue the
organization of an APA division devoted to humanistic psychology.

This effort was spearheaded by Don Gibbons, then a faculty member
at West Georgia College. In order to propose a new division, the signatures

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on a petition to APA of 1% of APA's existing membership were required
(approximately 275 at that time). In January 1971, Gibbons wrote to John
Levy, the executive director of AHP, seeking his support in soliciting these
signatories from APA members who belonged to AHP. Many members of
AHP were also members of APA, so it was evident that the two groups would
have a significant overlapping membership. As Gibbons wrote in that
January 12, 1971 letter: "We would like to see it set up in such a way as to
facilitate communication between the A.P.A. and all areas of the humanistic
movement. In particular, we would like to see the new division maintain the
closest possible degree of collaboration with A.H.P." In the end, 374
members of APA petitioned for the proposed division. As a result, the APA
Council of Representatives, after hearing receiving affirmation from the
existing divisions of APA, confirmed and made official the new Division of
Humanistic Psychology.

This prospect of another humanistic organization raised concern on the
part of some that it would dilute the movement (Arons, personal
communication, June 6, 1998). The proponents of the proposed division,
however, were in any case determined to proceed, and viewed the eventual
formation of a Division of Humanistic Psychology within the APA as
inevitable, given the continuing rapid growth of humanistic psychology at
that time. Though still wary, previously opposed members of AHP who also
belonged to APA chose to help make the proposed division the best it could
be, and gathered at the official organizational meeting scheduled by Gibbons
during the 1971 APA convention (Harari, personal communication, June 26,
1998). For unknown reasons, Gibbons himself did not attend the meeting.
Spontaneously, a group of individuals occupied the dais and took charge of
the meeting.

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