Psyche and Soul in America

In post-World War II America and especially during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, the psychologist Rollo May contributed profoundly to the popular and professional response to a widely felt sense of personal emptiness amid a culture in crisis. May addressed the sources of depression, powerlessness, and conformity but also mapped a path to restore authentic individuality, intimacy, creativity, and community. A psychotherapist by trade, he employed theology, philosophy, literature,and the arts to answer a central enduring question:: How, then, shall we live? Robert Abzugs definitive biography traces Mays epic life from humble origins in the Protestant heartland of the Midwest to his longtime practice in New York City and his participation in the therapeutic culture of California. Mays books-Love and Will, Mans Search for Himself, The Courage to Create, and others-as well as his championing of non-medical therapeutic practice and introduction of Existential psychotherapy to America marked important contributions tothe profession. Most of all, Mays compelling prose reached millions of readers from all walks of life, finding their place, as Noah Adams noted in his NPR eulogy, on a hippys bookshelf. And May was one of the founders of the humanistic psychology movement that has shaped the very vocabulary with which many Americansdescribe their emotional and spiritual lives. Based on full and uncensored access to Mays papers and original oral interviews, Psyche and Soul in America reveals his turbulent inner life, his religious crises, and their influence on his contribution to the world of psychotherapy and the culture beyond. It adds new and intimate dimensions to an important aspect of Americas romance with therapy, as the site for the exploration of spiritual strivings and moral dilemmas unmet for many by traditional religion.