Rollo Reese May and Existential Psychology

Rollo Reese May and Existential Psychology

The science of psychology has many original theories that provide a unique view into the complex nature of human personality development. While most people today might think that psychology has been around for as long as anyone can remember, it is still considered a very young science barely over one hundred years old. The foundations of psychology can be traced back to the work of Sigmund Freud whose insight into the human mental condition has been paramount to the evolution of psychology and personality theory. Many theorists have added their own personal contributions along the way that lead the study of human behavior to the heights at which it resides today. Such contributions range from stringently modeled radical behaviorism to the universal oneness of European existential philosophy incorporated into American psychology. One of the proponents of such existential thought in psychology is Rollo Reese May, who was one of the first Americans to bridge the philosophical thought process of existentialism into the young field of psychology. “In fact, May was as responsible as anyone for incorporating European existential philosophy into American psychology” (Hergenhahn & Olson, 2007, p. 502). Existential psychology is a field that has drawn both praise and criticism from many of the fields top minds especially so in it’s translation to psychotherapy. As it was May that was chiefly responsible for introducing existential thought into the expanding field of American psychology, we shall atempt to examine further his theoretical concepts by exploring his background, the people who infuenced his thought, and his unique contributions to the field in an attempt to understand with a bit more clarity May’s theory in the field existential psychology.

Rollo Reese May was born in Ohio, on April 21 1909 to Earl Tittle, a YMCA secretary, and his mother, Matie Boughton May. May never seemed to have a close relationship...