PSY 3500 - Humanistic Psychology and Psychotherapy

This course is intended to provide an introduction to and overview of humanistic psychology, including its origins and tributaries, its historical interrelations with Saybrook, and the possibilities that inhere for its future evolution and significance. We will consider, especially, humanistic psychology's spheres of influence in the arena of psychotherapy but also in education and upon culture considered more broadly. Humanistic psychology's critiques of alternate perspectives will be taken up, no less than those that have been leveled at humanistic psychology itself. The course will include an introduction to the writings of a triumvirate of founding parents - Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, and Rollo May - as well a consideration of their precursors and the ongoing work of simpatico voices in sister disciplines: Maya Angelou in literature, for example, and Robert Coles in psychiatry. One or two films resonant with core humanistic values/themes will also be included, as will John Coltrane's sublime 1964 jazz recording, A Love Supreme. The impulse that informs humanistic psychology speaks in various voices. We shall take time in this course to savor its several expressions and callings. Though open to all students, this course also satisfies the Clinical Interventions III/IV requirement in the Clinical Psychology degree program, with Clinical Interventions I & II as prerequisites. Cross-listed as EHTP 3500. 3 credit(s)

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