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[This is a recent correspondence between John Rowan of the Association of Humanistic Psychology and the Editor of the Journal, which comes out of a slipshod comment in one of the recent editorials - Ed.]
Dear Bob Hinshelwood
I was amazed in a recent issue of the Journal to see your editorial statement: ‘… psycho-analytic theory is not the only framework for thinking about our work, yet it is the only framework that derives from the study of human beings’.
This seems to deny the existence of humanistic psychotherapy. And in the rest of the editorial this denial is repeated in that there are copious mentions of learning theory, objective science, non-human research, the medical and pharmacological approach and so on, but no mention of humanistic psychology.
Yet you have published a paper by me which was nothing to do with psycho-analysis and was purely humanistic so you must know that the humanistic approach exists. You mention the Rugby Conference so you must know that the humanistic contingent there is quite active and vocal, and second in size to the psycho-analytic contingent.
Where does humanistic psychology come from? In the early days one man was the pioneer of this way of looking at the world: Abraham Maslow. Later the movement he had started was joined by others such as Carl Rogers, Charlotte Buhler, Roberto Assagioli, Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, Kurt Goldstein, Sidney Jourard, Rollo May, Clark Moustakas, Ira Progoff, Alvin Mahrer, Jean Houston, Charles Hampden-Turner, David Boadella and others.
Carl Rogers does not owe his origins or his theories to psycho-analysis, and neither did Abraham Maslow. Yet these two founding fathers of humanistic psychology have been quoted and analysed and examined in university courses, psychotherapy courses, institutes and centres all over the world, and honoured by many accolades from people in psychology and psychotherapy as having made extremely valuable contributions. For example, they have both been elected president of the A