Rollo May

Rollo May Reece (* 21st April 1909 in Ada , Hardin County (Ohio) ; † 22. October 1994 in Tiburon , California ) was an American psychologist and representatives of existential psychotherapy ( existential psychotherapy ), a branch of humanistic psychology .

May's best-known book is Love and Will from 1969. Together with Viktor Frankl and Irvin D. Yalom , he is considered the most important representative of existential psychotherapy. May was significantly influenced by Paul Tillich .

Life

May was born on April 21st in Ada , Ohio . He grew up in Michigan. May received his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in Ohio and then worked at an American college in Greece. During this time he attended the seminars of the psychologist Alfred Adler in Vienna and began to be interested in theology . In 1933 he returned to the United States and began studying at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan, New York . In 1938 he completed his theology studies there with the degree of Bachelor of divinity . He then worked as a congregational pastor for two years . After this activity he studied psychology at Columbia University in New York .

May contracted tuberculosis in the 1940s when he was writing his first major paper. He therefore spent a year and a half in a sanatorium . His chances of survival were estimated at only 50 percent at the time. This experience of dealing with his own death shaped his existentialist convictions.

In 1949 he completed his doctorate . To this end, he wrote a dissertation on the subject of fear , which was published in a book edition in 1950 under the title The Meaning of Anxiety .

From 1958 to 1975 he worked at the William Alanson White Institute in New York, among others with Erich Fromm and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann . He later worked as co- editor of the magazine founded by Harry Stack Sullivan for the study of human relationships . From 1955 to 1976 he lectured at the New School for Social Research , which is also located in New York City. In addition, he was a visiting professor at universities such as Harvard , Yale and Princeton .

May was married twice, first with Florence DeFrees, the second with Ingrid Kepler Scholl. He died of heart failure at his home on October 22, 1994 in Tiburon , California .

plant

Shaped by his experiences with tuberculosis, May wrote his book The Meaning of Anxiety (German edition as an answer to fear ), which appeared in 1950. May's thinking was shaped by Freudian psychoanalysis and existential philosophy . He was one of the first and most influential thinkers in the field of psychotherapy influenced by the European existentialists . One of his most important views on human nature was the belief that large parts of human behavior are associated with an underlying, underlying fear. This fear is therefore an important and well-considered topic in psychotherapy. It was primarily with this idea that May influenced the work of Irvin Yalom.

Since 1996 gives Society for Humanistic Psychology ( Society for Humanistic Psychology ) the Rollo May Award . The award is given to people who have made independent and outstanding achievements in the field of humanistic psychology .

Theories

Stages of development

In May's theory there are four "stages of development" in the human psyche. These are not to be understood in the strict Freudian or traditional sense. A person can have several characteristics at the same time:

1. Innocence ( innocence ): The amoralische , upstream selfish , upstream confident state of the infant . The person only does what they have to. There is a will to satisfy needs in the form of drives .
2. Rebellion ( rebellion ): By contrasts with the adults, the forms I ( ego ) and self-confidence out. Such people want freedom, but are not yet fully aware of the responsibility it entails.
3. Ordinary ( usually normal ): The normal adult I . These people have come to know responsibility, but find it too stressful. Therefore, they switch to conformity and traditional values .
4. Creative ( creative, inventive ): The authentic adults, which his fate ( destiny ) assumes, and fear with courage ( courage ) across. This stage is also known as existential .

Awards

• 1970 : Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize for his work Love and Will (published 1969)

• 1971 : Distinguished Contribution to Science and Profession of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association

• 1987 : Psychological Professional Gold Medal Award from the American Psychological Foundation

Publications (selection)

• 1940: The Springs of Creative Living.
• 1950: The Meaning of Anxiety . ISBN 0-393-31456-1 .
• 1953: Man's Search for Himself , ISBN 0-385-28617-1 .
• 1956: Existence , ISBN 1-56821-271-2 .
• 1965: The Art of Counseling , ISBN 0-89876-156-5 .
• 1967: Psychology and the Human Dilemma , ISBN 0-393-31455-3 .
• 1969: Love and Will , ISBN 0-393-01080-5 , ISBN 0-385-28590-6 .
• 1972: Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence . ISBN 0-393-31703-X .
• 1973: Paulus: A personal portrait of Paul Tillich . ISBN 0-00-211689-8 .
• 1975: The Courage to Create . ISBN 0-393-31106-6 .
• 1981: Freedom and Destiny . ISBN 0-393-31842-7 .
• 1983: The Discovery of Being: Writings in Existential Psychology . ISBN 0-393-31240-2 .
• 1985: My Quest for Beauty . ISBN 0-933071-01-9 .
• 1991: The Cry for Myth . ISBN 0-385-30685-7 .
• 1995: Together with Kirk J. Schneider : The Psychology of Existence: an integrative, clinical perspective . ISBN 0-07-041017-8 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Rollo May in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Article in Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Rollo May: Cosmopolitan depth psychologist article in the Ärzteblatt . Published in PP 8, May 2009 edition, page 209. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
3. ↑ Paul Tillich as Hero: An Interview with Rollo May . Religion-online.org. Archived from the original on April 30, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 13, 2014. 
4. ^ Paul Tillich Resources . People.bu.edu. Retrieved June 13, 2014.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Dr. Rollo May Is Dead at 85; What Innovator in Psychology Article in The New York Times , published October 24, 1994. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
6. ↑ In the article Rollo May: Cosmopolitan Depth Psychologist of the Ärzteblatt (PP 8, May 2009 edition, page 209), Michigan is mistakenly named as the place of birth. This is in contrast to the Encyclopaedia Britannica entry and the New York Times article of October 24, 1994.
7. ^ Rollo May Award on the homepage of the Society for Humanistic Psychology. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
8. ↑ Portrait of Rollo Mays on the homepage of Dr. C. George Boeree , Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania . Retrieved May 25, 2017.
9. ↑ Stages of Development of a May display on Wikispaces. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
10. ↑ List of the Emerson Prize winners ( memento from March 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) on the homepage of the Phi Beta Kappa Society . Retrieved May 25, 2017.
11. ↑ list of past awards of the Society of Clinical Psychology , Accessed on 25 May 2017th
12. ↑ American Psychologist , Vol 43 (4), Apr 1988, pp. 260-266. Online articles. Retrieved May 25, 2017.