Becoming Enthusiastic About Learning for the First Time as a Child
In this study, a qualitative method of research was used to study how students experience becoming enthusiastic about the learning process for the first time as a child. The objective of the study was to explicate the student’s perspective and articulate it as a coherent structural whole. Six students (ages 17-22 years) provided descriptions of becoming enthusiastic about education for the first time as a child that were analyzed using a phenomenological style of analysis. The focus of the study was the qualitative significance of becoming enthusiastic about learning as lived by the students themselves. The results w...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - June 1, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: DeRobertis, E. M. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Flow and Emotional Experience in Spirituality: Differences in Interactive and Coactive Collective Rituals
This study seeks to compare flow and emotional experience in interactive and coactive collective rituals. For such purpose, a correlational study was performed collecting self-report measures of flow, positive emotions, and social identity in three different social collective gatherings: the Sunday celebration of a Catholic mass (N = 57), a Zen Buddhist meditation practice (N = 50), and secular Sunday group activities (N = 37). Results show the presence of flow in all three contexts, being higher in the interactive social situations (the Catholic mass and other Sunday group activities) than in the coactive one (the Zen med...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - June 1, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Rufi, S., Wlodarczyk, A., Paez, D., Javaloy, F. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Short-Term Existential Psychotherapy in Primary Care: A Quantitative Report
Existential Experimentation is a short-term integrative psychological therapy intervention. It is based on the recent government initiative focusing on recovery and thus integrates central ideas from existential theory, utilizes a phenomenological methodology, and applies considerations of human potential from humanistic psychology to support recovery and aim for well-being. This work explores the outcomes of a systematic application of this approach to working-age adults referred for a psychological intervention for depression and/or anxiety in terms of (a) reducing depression and/or anxiety symptomatology, (b) reducing t...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - June 1, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Rayner, M., Vitali, D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Traumatic and Mystical Experiences: The Dark Nights of the Soul
This article examines the similarity between the mystical experience and the traumatic experience, the latter involving a fundamental threat to life or bodily integrity. Despite the necessary caution and reservations, there are many similarities between these two kinds of experience. Indeed, the resemblance is not restricted to a phenomenological description but is far more deeply rooted: a result of the subject’s encounter with nothingness. This comparison provides us with an opportunity to improve our understanding of both the traumatic and the mystical experience as well as phenomena such as Posttraumatic Growth a...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - June 1, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Ataria, Y. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

An Exploration of Spirituality and the Traumatizing Experiences of Combat
The complex experiences of combat demand significant levels of adaptation and resilience. An individual’s spirituality may be challenged by these experiences, and as a result, he or she may be left both psychologically and spiritually wounded. Incorporating spirituality into the healing process may help mend the wounds of combat soldiers, especially within an integrative treatment framework. In this article, spirituality and the impact of traumatizing combat experiences are discussed from a cultural perspective, using the experiences of an Israeli soldier as an example. (Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology)
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - June 1, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Gubkin, R. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Becoming "Threshold Researchers" in the Community: Toward a Queering Practice as a Hermeneutic of Love
This article provides a research methodology based in Queer Theory in order to support ethical interpretation within participatory, action, and community-based research. The work defines and explicates a potential relationship between a queering process as a threshold practice and a hermeneutics of love as a research stance. Additionally, this work offers qualitative, phenomenological narrative accounts of queer and threshold experiences that support the theoretical work herein. (Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology)
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - April 13, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Goss, R., McInerney, R. G. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

A Hermeneutics of Love for Community-Based, Participatory Action Research
This article presents a broad humanistic-existential framework in support of community-orientated, participatory action research. Beginning with Pink Floyd’s The Wall as a pedagogic illustration of the aporia of community, three dispositions are offered for the community researcher: communitas, allopathy, and munificence. Each disposition is shown to be supported by particular shared burdens (hospitality, alterity, finitude, and supplementarity) within existence. From this theoretical framework, a model is provided for what is designated as a hermeneutics of love as a research practice in communities. (Source: Journa...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - April 13, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: McInerney, R. G. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Borne Forward Ceaselessly Into Love: A Theory of the Hermeneutics of Love Exemplified by Martin Luther King, Jr.
In this article, I develop a theory of a hermeneutics of love, defined as the act of interpreting with love, through love, and for love, including the intention to take action on behalf of love. Declaring love as my gospel, I begin with the "genesis" of this theory, with how I came to develop it, and I end with the "revelations" that came as I applied this theory in my life and teaching. In between, I utilize a case study of Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, showing how King was a practitioner par excellence of a hermeneutics of love. King elevated agape, defined as unconditional love for all of hum...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - April 13, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Selig, J. L. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

The Heart of Humanistic Psychology: Human Dignity Disclosed Through a Hermeneutic of Love
Through a philosophical analysis, guided by phenomenology, humanistic psychology is interpreted as a way of knowing that is guided by an interpretive stance of love. Hermeneutics, the study of interpretation, understands that interpretation is guided by certain moods or dispositions. Agape love, or a good will toward others, is an interpretive stance, or hermeneutic, by which others can be understood through an empathic attitude of charitability, which provides a safe space for the other person to disclose himself or herself. An approach to science and practice, when it is grounded in a hermeneutic of love, can be understo...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - April 13, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Robbins, B. D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Introduction to Special Issue on Community Psychology and the Hermeneutics of Love
In this introduction to the special issue on humanistic community psychology and the hermeneutics of love, a context is provided for the emergence of a community psychology founded on a hermeneutics love. The origins of the concept are traced to the development of a humanistic community psychology program at Point Park University. The introduction also provides a basic overview of hermeneutics and its relevance and importance for humanistic psychology, especially as informed by the phenomenological and existential tradition of continental philosophy. The hermeneutics of love is shown to be especially indebted to Paul Ricoe...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - April 13, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Robbins, B. D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Horsing Around: Gestalt Equine Psychotherapy as Humanistic Play Therapy
This article explores how the key concepts within Gestalt Equine Psychotherapy (GEP) and Humanistic Play Therapy (HPT) can be compatible modalities for working with children. The connections between GEP and HPT can be seen in their philosophical framework of viewing the self as an embodied, relational process, and the belief in the importance of play and experimentation within the therapeutic encounter. Both approaches emphasize the importance of the therapeutic relationship and trust that the child is able to self-direct his or her own growth and learning. Both GEP and HPT can draw from neuroscience research to provide ev...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - February 10, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Lac, V. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Therapeutic Relationship as a Change Agent in Psychotherapy: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
The study qualitatively explored the clients’ and their psychotherapists’ perspectives on the mutative role of therapeutic relationship. The sample was composed of 13 psychotherapist participants from four professional backgrounds, namely, psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists trained in psychotherapy, and trained psychotherapists not belonging to the above three categories, as well as 16 clients who have successfully completed individual psychotherapy with any one of these 13 psychotherapists in a city in India. Semistructured interviews conducted separately with the client–psychotherapis...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - February 10, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Banerjee, P., Basu, J. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

The Therapeutic Effects Upon Dog Owners Who Interact With Their Dogs in a Mindful Way
This case study describes the experiences of three individuals who participated in a training program that taught them to work with their dogs in a mindful manner. That is to say, in a way that would help them intentionally pay attention in an open, accepting, and curious way, to the needs, body language, responses, and reactions of their dogs. The ways in which these external experiences led to an awareness of their internal experience are also discussed. The results suggest that this method not only positively influenced the relationship these women had with their dogs, but also enhanced their relationship with others an...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - February 10, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Jackson-Grossblat, A., Carbonell, N., Waite, D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Synthesis of Meaning: Negative and Positive Change in Family Members Following the Adversity of Dementia
This study highlights that although often fraught with distress, positive aspects of the dementia journey are possible and offer opportunity for psychological growth and well-being. (Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology)
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - February 10, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Walmsley, B. D., McCormack, L. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

"How Am I Not Myself?" Despair in Sickness Unto Death as Misguided Attempts Toward Self-Actualization
This article is an attempt at a creative exegesis of Kierkegaard’s diagnosis of despair in Sickness Unto Death, that is, the overextension of the self into one side of the polarities of personality that should be a synthesis: infinity, finitude, and possibility–necessity are explored. For each instance of despair, I provide concrete examples of how this type of despair manifests itself in everyday life and in our current cultural context. Finally, the role of faith, as a means to curb despair and allow the self to actualize, is discussed over against the attempt to assert the self as an act of defiance. (Source...
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology - February 10, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Oaks, C. L. Tags: Articles Source Type: research