1st Edition
Toward the Psychological Humanities A Modest Manifesto for the Future of Psychology
Mark Freeman’s inspiring account of the burgeoning field of the psychological humanities presents a clear and compelling vision of what the discipline of psychology might become.
Valuable though the scientific perspective has been for advancing the discipline, Freeman maintains that significant dimensions of the human experience elude this perspective and call for an entirely different kind of psychology, one more closely tied to the arts and humanities. Issuing his call for the psychological humanities in the form of a ten chapter "manifesto," Freeman’s groundbreaking book offers a comprehensive rationale for a more inclusive, pluralistic, and artful approach to exploring the psychological world in all of its potential complexity, obscurity, and beauty.
Engaging and accessible, this bold, provocative book is destined to spark significant discussion and debate in audiences including advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, and professionals in the field of psychology with interests in theoretical and philosophical psychology, history of psychology, clinical psychology, humanistic psychology, and qualitative psychology. It will also be welcomed by those in philosophy, literature, and the arts, as well as anyone intrigued by psychological life who may be interested in encountering a vital new approach to examining the human condition.
Introduction: Time for a Change
1. Openness to the Mystery
2. Interpretive Humility
3. Reverence for the Real
4. Reaching for the Poetic
5. Thinking Otherwise
6. Fidelity to Other Persons
7. Fidelity to the Otherness Within
8. A Space for the Ineffable
9. In the Service of Humanity (and Beyond)
10. Tear Down the Walls (in the Name of Love)
Biography
Mark Freeman is Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Department of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross, USA. His writings include Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative; Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward; The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Living Beyond the Self; and Do I Look at You With Love? Reimagining the Story of Dementia.
"In this remarkable book, Mark Freeman makes a powerful case for reimagining psychology as an integral practice of the humanities. This is an elegant, passionate, and persuasive plea for a deeply humane approach to our understanding of the psyche - one more poetically and ethically attuned to what it means to be human. It is timely and bold."
Richard Kearney, Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy, Boston College, USA.
"At a time when despair rises Mark Freeman – a stunning writer, theorist and humanistic psychologist – offers a resurrection story for Psychology, inviting us to move forward toward uncertainty, curiosity, the poetic and the unknown. The world needs us to take up his challenge. Thanks, Mark, for pouring your heart, desire and radical love into a field that so needs to be watered by your light. Readers – Put down your power points, buy this book and teach it! In elite universities and even more so in community colleges where young people have desires, stories to tell, anxieties to express, wounds to heal and radical visions to narrate, if only we asked."
Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Critical Psychology, The Graduate Center, CUNY and Visiting Professor at University of South Africa.
“The discipline of psychology has reached a negative-dialectical stage where another randomly chosen empirical study may contribute to normal science, and can be added to the millions of published articles, but fails to advance substantive knowledge about the mental being of persons. In contrast, Mark Freeman’s book invigorates theoretical streams of thinking and provides proof of the psychological humanities’ relevance and potential for an integrative understanding of the human condition. His ideas outline a humble framework for a new psychology that is onto-epistemically satisfying, ethical, as well as revolutionary.”
Thomas Teo, Professor of Psychology, York University, Canada.
"In this work, Freeman sketches the contours of a psychological humanities, an alternative approach to psychological inquiry which remains faithful to ‘mystery’ and ‘messiness’ of human life. Freeman beautifully illustrates its potential with rich examples, the most potent of which come from his own life. If the goal is to understand humanity in all its rich texture and complexity, Freeman’s ‘poetic science’ speaks directly and compellingly to that goal. I believe this is an essential book for all students and researchers of psychology."
Kathleen L. Slaney, Professor of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Canada.
