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Natalie Rogers, humanistic pioneer, creator of Person Centered Expressive Arts, author, and daughter of Helen and Carl Rogers, passed away October 17, 2015, at her home. She raised three daughters, Naomi, Frances, and Janet. In 1970, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to establish herself as a psychotherapist, artist, and feminist activist. Her first book, Emerging Woman, offers a candid and heartfelt description of the transition many women were making at that time, from a life defined by the expectations and needs of others to one that sprang from her own deep interiority. Hers was the voice of a generation of women who grew up in the claustrophobic 1950s who were expected to submerge their own potential in favor of their husbands’. In California she developed her own distinct form of transformative practice combining art with psychotherapy, which she called the creative connection. With her father’s encouragement and participation, she went on to create the Person-centered Expressive Therapy Institute and trained practitioners, worldwide. Her books, Creative Connection and Creative Connection for Groups, describe the process. Natalie was a peace activist, feminist, and teacher. She will be remembered for her contribution to humanistic psychology and her fierce yet graceful efforts on behalf of people oppressed, peace, and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An obituary for former California Senator John B. Vasconcellos is presented.

Summary All societies need ways to account for the existential facts of life. Humanistic psychology may be viewed as a recent attempt to provide a coherent story acceptable to an increasingly secular society. The author believes that even after 25 years, humanistic psychology is not yet a discipline but is what Kuhn refers to as "preparadigmatic.' It is an amorphous field of inquiry in which there are no general axioms, no consensus as to the important questions or standards of evaluation, and wherein quite different forms of utterance are made about the nature of human reality. The boundaries between religious-type utterances and propositions made as scientific fact are frequently blurred. The author discusses how this creates the possibility both for fanaticism and for the recent court ruling in Alabama declaring secular humanism a religious belief and thereby prohibited in the public schools. Also discussed is the concept of an autonomous serf that is held by humanistic psychology as a psychological "fact" even though it can be shown to be culturally given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In Carl Rogers on Personal Power (1977), Rogers devotes almost a whole chapter to what he sees as remarkable similarities between "person-centered approaches" and the pedagogical strategies of Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. During the last 13 years I have heard such similarities debated in almost every context in which the social and political implications of person-centered approaches are considered. Many Rogerians and other North American humanistic psychologists believe there is a similarity. Freirians and many Third World humanistic psychologists often disagree. This article introduces some new reflections on the work of both men that might be useful to those committed to a search for a more humane world. I hope to establish that the differences of opinion regarding the work of the two men are legitimate, that is, they are based in real differences. However, I also want to show it possible to reconcile these differences by considering the deeper underlying precepts of Freire and Rogers. Through examination of large group person-centered workshops I suggest that a reconsideration of what may be at the base of the ideas of the two men could point the way to possible new discoveries about our human nature and our human future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the ideas of psychologist Carl Rogers on humanistic psychology. Positivism in the teaching of psychology; Discussion on research publication; Conditions that need to be considered to create a community of discourse.

Summary This article discusses the so-called Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon that has been used to support a theory of critical mass in human group consciousness. Discussed are the actual studies of macaque behavior transmission and how they have been misrepresented. In considering some of the factors contributing to this story's currency in human potential circles, I have explored pseudoscience and its contradictions, ambivalence toward established science, and the lack of adequate grounds for appraisal of scientific claims. The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon is described as a bad myth that compares poorly with the powerful sustaining myth of the human potential movement, i.e., a belief in the possibility of a world composed of free, responsible, creative, rational persons participating together in the creation of a humane, pluralistic, global community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on R. Sheldrake's hypothesis that there alternative theories, well within the laws of nature, which can account for the phenomenon of morphogenesis. Problems with the hypothesis; Proposals of Sheldrake concerning the varied patterns of human behavior.