"...I have described the human dilemma as the capacity of man to view himself as object and as subject. My point is that both are necessary -- necessary for psychological science, for effective therapy, and for meaningful living. I am also proposing that in the dialectical process between these two poles lies the development, and the deepening and widening, of human consciousness. The error on both sides -- for which I have used Skinner and the pre-paradox Rogers as examples -- is the assumption that one can avoid the dilemma by taking one of its poles. It is not simply that man must learn to live with the paradox -- the human being has always lived in this paradox or dilemma, from the time that he first became aware of the fact that he was the one who would die and coined a word for his own death. Illness, limitations of all sorts, and every aspect of our biological state we have indicated are aspects of the deterministic side of the dilemma -- man is like the grass of the field, it withereth. The awareness of this, and the acting on this awareness, is the genius of man the subject. But we must also take the implications of this dilemma into our psychological theory. Between the two horns of this dilemma, man has developed symbols, art, language, and the kind of science which is always expanding in its own presuppositions. The courageous living within this dilemma, I believe, is the source of human creativity." (Psychology and the Human Dilemma, 1967, p. 20)
 
 

On Rollo May:

There is no doubt that Rollo May is one of the most important figures in existential psychology, and, without question, one of the most important American existential psychologists in the history of the discipline. May was born April 21, 1909 in Ada, Ohio, a native American, and has often been referred to as "the father of existential psychotherapy." This, in itself, is an amazing accomplishment--his pioneering of an existential psychotherapy--since existential philosophy originated in Europe and, for the most part, met with hostility and contempt in the United States.

In 1930, May earned his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in Ohio. His first teaching position was at an American college in Greece where he taught English. While in Greece, May would often travel to Vienna to attend the seminars of Alfred Adler, and, while there, he was called to study theology and move back to the States. He recieved a bachelor of divinity degree in 1938 at the Union Theological Seminary, after which he practiced for two years as a Congregationalist minister. Psychology, however, was the supreme calling for May, and so he resigned from the ministry and began his studies in psychology at Columbia University in New York, New York. While working on his doctorate, he contracted tuberculosis, a life-threatening disease, and, out of this traumatic experience, May developed a new fondness for existential philosophy, which matched his belief that his struggle against death, even more than medical care, determined his fate in suriviving the disease. Of course, May's background in theology, particularly the influence of the existential theologian Paul Tillich, was a major impetus for his desire to pursue a study of psychology informed by existentialist philosophy. In 1949, May completed his doctorate in psychology. His career in psychology included a position on the faculty of the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychoanalysis and a position as lecturer at the New School for Social Research, as well as being a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other universities.

May can be credited with being the editor, along with Ernest Angel and Henri F. Ellenberger, of the first American book on existential psychology: Existence, published in 1958, which highly influenced the emergence of American humanistic psychology (i.e., Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow). This collection of essays introduced American readers to translations of work by existential-phenomenological psychologists such as Eugene Minkowski, Ludwig Binswanger, Erwin Straus and Roland Kuhn, and included essays by Werner M. Mendel and Joseph Lyons, as well as the editors. May's essays, "The Origins and Significance of the Existential Movement in Psychology" and "Contributions of Existential Psychotherapy" demonstrated that, for his time, May indeed had a rich understanding of the possibilities and benefits of an existential psychology, which he articulates well.

In "The Origins and Significance of the Existential Movement in Psychology," May urges that a psychologist, in order to do justice to the human being who is his patient, must participate in the world of the client, and, with this basic motivation, May persuasively argues that an existential psychology is best equipped to help the clinician to do so without doing violence to the client. May, for example, asserts that an existential approach to psychology refuses to force a client to conform to a pre-articulated theoretical system and, further, does not simply fall back on using "techniques" as a defense against fully engaging with the client in psychotherapy. Further, May warns that existential psychotherapy is not simply another splinter of the Freudian tradition in two respects: 1) the movement grew spontaneously without the influence of one leader, and 2) rather than seeking to construct a new theoretical school of therapy, it seeks, instead, "to analyze the structure of human existence--an enterprise which, if successful, should yield an understanding of the reality underlying all situations of human beings in crises" (p. 7). May notes that, out of mainstream psychotherapy, there are several resistances to the existential approach. For one, May argues that many psychotherapists at the time had assumed that, with Freud and his followers, most of the major discoveries had already been made, leaving nothing left but the 'mopping up operations' to fill in the details (Note: this attitude is typical of 'paradigms' in the sciences, as Kuhn has pointed out). But, more challenging felt May was the resistance from mainstream psychology which held that existential analysis "is an encroachment of philosophy into psychiatry, and does not have much to do with science" (p. 8). Incidently, this latter argument is still today a major resistance of mainstream psychology toward existential approaches to psychology. "This attitude," wrote May, "is partly a hangover of the culturally inherited scars from the battle of the last of the 19th century when psychological science won its freedom from metaphysics" (p. 8). May's answer to this important criticism from mainstream psychology is still relevant today.

In addressing this second resistance, May writes that "the existential movement in psychiatry and psychology arose precisely out of a passion to be not less but more empirical" (p. 8). (Note: May would likely have been better served by saying that existential psychology seeks to be more "concrete," a term which holds less intellectual baggage--such as logical positivist assumptions--than the term "empirical.") Essentially, May is asserting, following Binswanger and other existentialists, that traditional psychological theory had more often concealed what is really going on with the patient rather than revealing such happenings in a constructive and therapeutic way. May's strongest argument, however, is his assertion that "every scientific method rests upon philosophical presuppositions" (p. 8). That is, May points out the fact that a science which claims that it is not needful of philosophy is a science which is blind to its own philosophical presuppositions, which is obviously a danger and, often, covertly motivated by oppressive politics (as the critical theorists are so good at pointing out). May writes:

"It is a gross, albeit common, error to assume naively that one can observe facts best if he avoids all preoccupations with philosophical assumptions. All he does, then, is mirror uncritically the particular parochial doctrines of his own limited culture. The result in our day is that science gets identified with methods of isolating factors and observing them from an allegedly detached base--a particular method which arose out of the split between subject and object made in the 17th century in Western culture and then developed into its special compartmentalized from the late 19th and 20th centuries." (p. 8)

May's argument is today more important than ever as the American Psychological Association continues to fall prey to economic pressures (largely due to managed care) to systematize psychotherapy. This also leads us to what May points out as a third resistance from mainstream psychology: "the tendency in [the United States] to be preoccupied with technique and to be impatient with endeavors to search below such considerations to find the foundations upon which all techniques must be based" (p. 9). American psychologists, like the rest of our culture, has a history of impulsivity which is always ready to jump in and do before stopping and thinking about the consequences. Yet, simple reflection would show that technique for the sake of technique ultimately undermines even technique, if the foundations of such techniques are not carefully articulately and reflected upon.

Resistances aside, what then is existentialism for May and what does it have to contribute to psychology? In short: "Existentialism...is the endeavor to understand man by cutting below the cleavage between subject and object which has bedeviled Western thought and science since shortly after the Renaissance" (p. 11). Further, as May points out, existentialism cannot be characterized either as materialist or idealist since existentialism also undercuts the old dilemma of materialism versus idealism, the very product of the subject-object dichotomy. May then locates the precursors of 20th century existentialist thought in Pascal, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. (Follow links to read more about these thinkers--it would be redundant to review their thought on this page when I have done so elsewhere). Existentialism, in this sense, grows out of a protest against the rationalism and idealism which would reduce the human being to a subject, a mere thinking being, on the one hand, and which reduces the human being to an object to be calculated and controlled, on the other. Tracing the root of "existence" as ex-sistere--literally, to stand out, to emerge--May shows how existentialism aims to portray "the human being not as a collection of static substances or mechanisms or patterns but rather as emerging and becoming, that is to say, as existing" (p. 12). With this starting place, May argues, existentialism provides psychology with the much-needed ability to bridge the chasm (in the sciences) between what is abstractly true and what is existentially real for living persons.

May goes on to point out the seminal thinkers in existential philosophy, psychology and literature, including Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Tillich, Franz Kafka and Albert Camus. Interestingly, May also shows how there are striking similarities between Zen Buddhism and Taoist philosophies in the East and existentialist philosophy in the West. (See my Perennial Philosophy page). But one of the most interesting aspects of May's essay is his analysis of the emergence of existentialism and psychoanalysis within the same cultural situation. Both existentialism and psychoanalysis, writes May, are concerned with the historical context of the human being rather than a human subject detached from the world. Further, both existentialism and psychoanalysis are preoccupied with the impact of the social context on the human being in the 20th century. Specifically, May shows how both psychoanalysis and existentialism catch site of the "breaking up of personality into fragments" in the latter half of the 19th century (p. 20), the result of the rise of indusrialization which has had a "depersonalizing and dehumanizing effect upon man in his relation to others and himself" (p. 21). (See also: Marx). Drawing from the work of Max Scheler, May describes how this fragmentation also shows itself in the fragmentation of the human sciences--scientific, philosophical and theological anthropology--which have no clear and consistent idea of human beings, know nothing of each other, and, as such, remain confused and obscure. (See essay: Tower of Babel: Shadow of the Interdisciplinary). In this sense, both psychoanalysis and existentialism are concerned with what is repressed, what is the cultural unconscious, so to speak. Existentialism, perhaps, is more forceful in its aims toward developing a liberatory psychology for the human being "as the being who represses, the being who surrenders self-awareness as a protection against reality and then suffers the neurotic consequences" (p. 23).

May's subsequent work in existential psychology builds on this foundation. In 1960, he edited Existential Psychology, which included essays by himself, Gordon Allport, Herman Feifel, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. In his Psychology and the Human Dilemma (1967), May further articulates how an existentialist psychology can undercut the subject-object split in psychology. One of his greatest works, Love and Will (1969) finds May tracing the problem of love in modern society, arguing that "love and will are interdependent and belong together...Will without love becomes manipulation [and] love without will becomes sentimental and experimental." May is perhaps most famous, however, for his existential analysis of anxiety in his The Meaning of Anxiety (1950), written early in his career, which challenged the popular notion that "mental health is living without anxiety." In this brilliant work, May argues that, living in a world in which there is the possibility of mass destruction with the atom bomb, living without anxiety would, in fact, be pathological--and, more generally, he shows that anxiety is an essential part of being a human being, without which we would be overcome with boredom, become insensitive, and live without the necessary tension we require to preserve human existence.

Rollo May died on October 22, 1994 in Tiburon, California.

Quotations from May:

"Lacking positive myths to guide him, many a sensitive contemporary man finds only the model of the machine beckoning him from every side to make himself over into its image." (Psychology and the Human Dilemma, 1967, p. 30)

"...when people feel their insignificance as individual persons, they also suffer an undermining of their sense of human responsibility." (Psychology and the Human Dilemma, 1967, p. 31)

"Increasingly in our time--this is an inevitable result of collectivization--it is the organization man who succeeds. And he is characterized by the fact that he has significance only if he gives up his significance." (Psychology and the Human Dilemma, 1967, p. 37)

"Anxiety occurs because of a threat to the values a person identifies with his existence as a self...most anxiety comes from a threat to social, emotional and moral values the person identifies with himself. And here we find that a main source of anxiety, particularly in the younger generation, is that they do not have viable values available in the culture on the basis of which they can relate to their world. The anxiety which is inescapable in an age in which values are so radically in transition is a central cause of apathy..., such prolonged anxiety tends to develop into lack of feeling and the experience of depersonalization." (Psychology and the Human Dilemma, 1967, p. 42)

"...the overemphasis on the Baconian doctrine of knowledge as power, and the accompanying concern with gaining power over nature as well as over ourselves in the sense of treating ourself as objects to be manipulated rather than human beings whose aim is to expand in meaningful living, have resulted in the invalidation of the self. This tends to shrink the individual's consciousness, to block off his awareness, and thus play into...unconstructive anxiety...I propose that the aim of education is exactly the opposite, namely, the widening and deepening of consciousness. To the extent that education can help the student develop sensitivity, depth of perception, and above all the capacity to perceive significant forms in what he is studying, it will be developing at the same time the student's capacity to deal with anxiety constructively." (Psychology and the Human Dilemma, 1967, p. 50)

"a person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat." (Psychology and the Human Dilemma, 1967, p. 51)

"Now it is no longer a matter of deciding what to do, but of deciding how to decide." (Love and Will, 1969, p. 15)

"The schizoid man is the natural product of the technological man. It is one way to live and is increasingly utilized--and it may explode into violence." (Love and Will, 1969, p. 17)

"Our patients are the ones who express and live out the subconscious and unconscious tendencies in the culture. The neurotic, or person suffering from what we now call character disorder, is characterized by the fact that the usual defenses of the culture do not work for him--a generally painful situation of which he is more or less aware..." (Love and Will, 1969, p. 20)

"Both artists and neurotics speak and live from the subconscious and unconscious depths of their society. The artist does this positively, communicating what he experiences to his fellow men. The neurotic does this negatively." (Love and Will, 1969, p. 21)

"When inward life dries up, when feeling decreases and apathy increases, when one cannot affect or even genuinely touch another person, violence flares up as a daimonic necessity for contact, a mad drive forcing touch in the most direct way possible." (Love and Will, 1969, p. 31)

"In a world where numbers inexorably take over as our means of identification, like flowing lava threatening to suffocate and fosilize all breathing life in its path; in a world where 'normality' is defined as keeping your cool; where sex is so available that the only way to preserve any inner center is to have intercourse without committing yourself--in such a schizoid world, which young people experience more directly since they have not had time to build up the defenses which dull the senses of their elders, it is not surprising that will and love have become increasingly problematic and even, as some people believe, impossible of achievement." (Love and Will, 1969, p. 32)

"The constructive schizoid person stands against the spiritual emptiness of encroaching technology and does not let himself be emptied by it. He lives and works with the machine without becoming a machine. He finds it necessary to remain detached enough to get meaning from the experience, but in doing so, to protect his own inner life from impoverishment." (Love and Will, 1969, p. 32)

Links:

Rollo May at the E.P. Page
The Rollo May Institute of Humanistic Studies at Saybrook
Rollo May page at Clarion
May page by Snark & Associates
Writings of Rollo May
The Human Dilemma (interview) with Rollo May
Creative Quotations of Rollo May
May on ecstasy
"A Brief History of Psychoanalytic Thought" by Brent Dean Robbins
"Toward an Ecology of Being: Paths to Authentic Selfhood" by Brent Cameron
"A Comparative View of Creativity Theories" by Carlisle Bergquist
"A Brief History of Literary Theory IV" By Chris Lang
"Creation: The Creative Forms Underlying Nature at All Levels" by Thomas J. McFarlane
"Killing God: A True Story" by Stephen X. Arthur
"The Judge" by Doctress Neutopia
"Whistling in the Dark: On Courage" by Rev. Dr. Patrick T. O'Neill
"Theological Reflections on Human Rights" by Alan D. Falconer
"The Concept of Risk" by Daniel Brandt
"The Impact of Existential Philosophy on Modern Psychology" by Sheldon Litt
"Reflections on Constructivism and Instructional Design" by Brent G. Wilson
"A Guide to Humanistic Psychology" by John Rowan
"Consciousness as an Active Force" by Amy L. Lansky
The Existentialists
"Realizing the Resurrection"

Recommended Reading:

Art of Counseling by Rollo May ($23.95)
The Courage to Create by Rollo May ($8.76)
The Cry for Myth by Rollo May ($11.16)
The Discovery of Being: Writings in Existential Psychology by Rollo May ($9.56)
Existential Psychology by Rollo May (ed.) ($20.60)
Freedom and Destiny by Rollo May ($11.20)
Love and Will by Rollo May ($11.16)
Man's Search for Himself by Rollo May ($11.16)
The Meaning of Anxiety by Rollo May ($11.20)
My Quest for Beauty by Rollo May ($9.95)
Psychology and the Human Dilemma by Rollo May ($10.40)
Existence by Rollo May, Henri F. Ellenberger, and Ernest Angel (eds.) ($40.00)
Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence by Rollo May ($10.40)
Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic by Stephen A. Diamond, Rollo May ($15.96)
The Psychology of Existence by Kirk J. Schneider, Rollo May (Contributor) ($53.25)

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