About the Book
Journeys of Faith: Religion, Spirituality, and Humanistic Psychology is about the intersection of a now hallowed approach to psychotherapy, today referred to as humanistic, or person-centered, counseling, and the broad religious/spiritual world that its first practitioners found themselves engaging, often much to their surprise. What is humanistic psychology? Where did it come from? How did it replace the two storied therapies-Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis and B. F. Skinner's behaviorism-that had previously dominated counseling. And why and how did the practitioners of humanistic psychology find themselves engaging spiritual and religious questions, which hitherto had been understood by most psychologists as foreign to their field of interest? These are the questions Journeys of Faith: Religion, Spirituality, and Humanistic Psychology addresses. Rising to prominence in America during the post-World War II years, humanistic psychology reached its zenith in the 1950s and 1960s and continued to influence the national conversation-psychologically, spiritually, politically, and culturally-throughout the remaining decades of the 20th century. During those years, it attracted a wide and diverse following, becoming a cultural phenomenon that affected everything from counseling and education to parenting, religion, and business management. Its influence continues to be felt today, though often unrecognized and uncredited. The key players in the humanistic psychology movement-Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm, and Rollo May-hailed from different sociocultural and religious backgrounds and followed dissimilar, though interconnecting, professional paths. While they were confronting the world's problems through the lens of psychology and psychotherapy, other thinkers were approaching them from different perspectives, though equally humanistic. Among those others, the evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley receives special attention as one with particularly useful insights into the intersection of science and spirituality. "At a time when society is desperate for a sense of centeredness, Dr. Michael Brock produces for us a comprehensive address to just those factors which make life worth living. In Journeys of Faith: Religion, Spirituality, and Humanistic Psychology, he demonstrates humanity's yearning for the experiential encounter with awe, wonder, and mystery and provides an assessment of the leading systems of psychological analysis in the modern world that offers scholars, practitioners, and students insight into the way forward in these times of anxiety and uncertainty. A more cogent integration of psychology and spirituality is not presently available." -Dr. John Henry Morgan, Ph.D., Th.D., D.Sc. (London), Psy.D. (FH/Oxford), Research Professor of Clinical Psychopathology (Graduate Theological Foundation/Oklahoma), Harvard University Postdoctoral Visiting Scholar Mike Brock is a counselor in private practice in Dallas and Carl Ransom Rogers Professor of Counseling Psychology at the Graduate Theological Foundation. In addition, he teaches in the pastoral ministry program at the University of Dallas. His academic background includes degrees in philosophy, history, counseling, and psychology.
About the Author :
Mike Brock is a Dallas-area psychotherapist whose academic background includes degrees in philosophy, history, counseling, and psychology. He holds a PhD and a PsyD in clinical and pastoral psychotherapy from the Graduate Theological Foundation. Mike was born and raised in Bronx, New York. After graduating from high school, he left New York for Texas to attend the University of Dallas, from which he graduated with a degree in philosophy. Upon graduation, he began what would become a thirty-four-year career in education, serving as a teacher and principal, first in New York (where he had the opportunity to earn a master's degree in history at Western Connecticut State University), then back to Texas, where he presently resides. At age fifty-two, Mike decided to change careers, setting aside education (although he will always consider himself a teacher at heart) for counseling. Upon completing his counseling internship through Amberton University, he set up a private practice and served for twelve years as director of the counseling center at the University of Dallas. Today, Mike is a counselor in private practice in Dallas and teaches through both the Graduate Theological Foundation, where he is Carl Ranson Rogers Professor of Counseling Psychology, and the University of Dallas School of Ministry. Mike can be contacted through his webpage, www.mikebrock.org.
