Humanistic Approach To Psychodynamic Research

However, as the unofficial “humanistic” approach gained momentum in the field, it received a lot of warning and criticisms. For example, in the 1960’s when there was a great emphasis on peace and justice from the ending of recent wars, Carl Rogers warned that the approach would not become permanent if it was made into a protest movement. The humanistic approach needed to be taken seriously, and if psychologists treated it as a “fad”, then the community will treat it as such as well. In order for that to happen, there needed to be an appeal for innovative research on the topic (Giorgi, 1992). So, Maslow took initiative. At that point in time, he was being isolated from the psychological community as a result of straying from experimental and
comparative research. In 1954, he compiled a list of 125 individuals who were not being able to publish in the APA journal because of their disenfranchisement from the community (Rowan, 2004). Personally recruiting these psychologists, Maslow initiated trade and intercommunication of research and theories back and forth to compare outside of the accredited journals. These psychologists began to form a new group that focused on separate sets of theories, which were primarily humanistic in nature. Named the “Eupsychian network”, the group members were to be the first subscribers to the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (JHP) (deCarvalho, 1992). One member of the group, Anthony Surich, met with Maslow in the spring of 1949 (Rowan, 2004). The psychologists were unhappy with not only the direction in which psychology was moving, but also with the means of communication they were using at the time to receive all of these fascinating new theories. To solve this, they assembled a group of editors who wrote the statement of purpose and proposed title for a legitimate humanistic psychology journal where they could compile the research traded. This would make the research more accessible to everyone in the field, generating new ideas faster. Stephen Cohen first proposed the “Journal of Humanistic Psychology”, and it stuck as the first issue was printed in 1961. The new journal focused on theoretical research, self-actualization, and many other concepts that humanistic psychology traditionally used (deCarvalho, 1992). The journal then launched the same year with the help of the Association’s first president James Bugental in 1961, who would later hold the famous Old Saybrook Conference (Rowan, 2004).