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August / September 2003

Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Vol. 43 No. 4 Fall 2003 Contents

Commentary by the Editor
I n this issue you will find obituaries for Carmi Harari and Bob Tannenbaum, friends and colleagues in humanistic psychology for many years. I met Carmi in 1971 when, as the newly appointed JHP Editor, I attended my first AHP Board of Directors meeting at John Levy’s house near San Francisco. Carmi was one of the prime movers of humanistic psychology, as you will see in his obituary. His article in the special Winter 1997 JHP issue on international developments in humanistic psychology gives you some idea of his contributions and escapades.

Bob Tannenbaum gave me my first training in sensitivity training group facilitation in 1962, and then we were part of a men’s group that met regularly for decades until last year. He helped me greatly with his reviews of submissions to JHP, and he published two articles: “Consulting and Being in Israel” in the Winter 1983 issue, and a letter to Jim Bugental in the Fall 1996 issue dedicated to Jim. Bob’s obituary lists his broad range of contributions, and he, like Carmi, will be sorely missed.

The first article in this issue is challenging but worth your careful reading. Austrian authors Renate Motschnig-Pitrik and Ladislav Nykl discuss Rogers’ person-centered approach using an integrative model extended to consider the processing of feelings at a cognitive neuroscience level. Such an analysis gives a modern scientific foundation for understanding the profound changes that occur with the person-centered approach. Rogers, as early as 1946, wrote about “the inter-relation of psychological and physiological change,” anticipating Damasio’s recent thinking about the “body relatedness” of emotion, feeling, and consciousness. Rogers’ concept of congruence is given deeper, neurologically grounded as well as phenomenologically experienced meaning, and the confluence of the fields of humanistic psychology, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience are explored.

From Japan comes a related article about what the authors Akiko Doi and Akira Ikemi call “referencing.” By this they mean what actually happens in the process of getting in touch with feelings and then articulating them. Akira Ikemi previously co-authored a JHP article on humanistic psychology in corporations and now works in corporate medical centers using a focusing approach he learned from Eugene Gendlin. Akiko Doi is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Kobe College.

Next we shift focus from work in Austria and Japan to the Hungarian associate of Freud, Sandor Ferenczi, who is being rehabilitated after years in the psychoanalytic doghouse. Two articles in this issue give him some long overdue credit and connect him intellectually with the early development of humanistic psychology. Tobi Zausner presents this roguish Hungarian’s metapsychology with particular focus on “humility, empathy, and rebirth.” In her article you can read about how, in a sense, “We are all Ferenczi’s children.” Dassie Hoffman’s article is based on her dissertation at Saybrook Graduate School and explores the direct and indirect influences Ferenczi had on humanistic psychology.

Sanford Drob published an article in the Summer 1999 JHP titled “The Depth of the Soul: James Hillman’s Vision of Psychology.” In the current issue, he explores “Fragmentation In Contemporary Psycholoogy: A Dialectical Solution.” We certainly need a solution, lest our field split irrevocably apart. He lists seven problems or dichotomies in psychology, and their possible integration. After reminding us of Sigmund Koch’s concerns and efforts, he proposes multi-perspectivism, and you can read how that is related to the moon over New York vs. the moon over Buenos Aires.

Jim Lester took a long, steep hike in 1963 and wrote about the experience in the Spring 1983 JHP in his article “Wrestling with the Self on Mount Everest.” His article in this issue is a followup titled “Spirit, Identity, and Self in Mountaineering” and explores the haunting question, “Why do they do it?” He quotes Wielicki who, after ascending a Himalayan mountain totally alone, wrote: “In that small stone house at the foot of Nanga Parbat, far from my loved ones, by the light of a small candle I made tea. Had anything changed in my life?” Jim’s articles provide some thought-provoking answers, ones I find stirring but not quite sufficient to drive me up an ice wall.

Dennis Jaffe and I teach together at Saybrook, but maybe we would be happier teaching, or even being students, at Nueva School. There we could learn along with Dennis’ son Colton at this wonderful school extending earlier work by A. S. Neill, Jonathan Kozol, George Dennison, Herbert Kohl, and others. A group of 17 Nobel prize winners met to discuss what they would have wanted in place of the schooling they got. Dennis’s article about this creative school adds to the long list of JHP articles on humanistic education.

I am pleased to announce that Tom Cloonan and Linda Riebel have joined JHP’s Board of Editors. Tom received his doctorate from Duquesne University and is also a graduate of the National Academy School of Fine Arts. In addition to his drawing and painting, he is Professor of Psychology at Marymount College of Fordham University. His interests are in the philosophy and psychology of art and esthetics, and in phenomenology. I have had the pleasure of working with him on doctoral dissertation committees at Saybrook, and look forward to his help with JHP.

Linda Riebel has published three articles in JHP: “Theory as Self-Portrait and the Ideal of Objectivity” (Spring 1982), “A Homeopathic Model of Psychotherapy” (Winter 1984), and “Consuming the Earth: Eating Disorders and Ecopsychology” (Spring 2001). She has been in private practice for more than twenty years, on Saybrook’s adjunct faculty for almost ten years, and is very concerned about our environment and our greed and waste which constitute a war against the earth. She has written about these concerns in her book Eating to Save the Earth: Food Choices for a Healthy Planet (Celestial Arts/Ten Speed Press, 2002) and is part of a task force that is creating a sustainability specialty at Saybrook.

This issue goes to press right around the time of the APA convention in Toronto. I won’t be there; instead I’ll be struggling to catch up with a huge backlog of unread manuscripts. The Winter 2004 issue will contain some excellent articles, so, until next year . . . — TOM GREENING