Psychotherapy and Process

The Fundamentals of an Existential-Humanistic Approach

by James F.T. Bugental
Type: Softcover

“This book takes you on a wonderful adventure through the process of psychotherapy, both from the side of the client and the therapist. Although it has brief moments of academic flavor, it is mostly engaging and interesting no matter from where you approach it. Bugental shares his own experience as a therapist and discusses a view on human potential that is beautiful, moving, and inspiring. I highly recommend this book for an enjoyable read (nonfiction) and for insight on what psychotherapy can be.”

Contents include:

Deficiency Levels of Therapeutic Goals
Matching Therapy to Client Needs
Other Contrasts among Therapies
What the Client Brings to the Enterprise
Desirable Qualities in a Therapist
The Fundamental Importance of Concern
An Existential-humanistic Ideal for the Client-therapist Relationship
Phases in the Psychotherapeutic Process
A Client’s Account of Working in Therapy
What the Therapist Does
Changes in Life Experience
Enlarged Sense of Identity

JAMES F. T. BUGENTAL was a leading psychotherapist and a founding father, with Abraham Maslow and others, of humanistic psychology or “the third force” (in contrast to psychoanalysis and behaviorism). He was also the creator, along with Rollo May, of existential-humanistic psychotherapy. Bugental earned his doctorate from the Ohio State University in 1948 where he was influenced by Victor Raimy and George Kelly. After a brief time on the University of California, Los Angeles faculty in psychology, Bugental resigned in 1953 to found the first group practice of psychotherapy, Psychological Service Associates, with Alvin Lasko. The group added Tom Greening in 1958, and subsequently Gerard Haigh, Bill Zielonka, Harris Monosoff, and others. A men’s encounter group evolved from this core, which included Jim Clark, Bob Tannenbaum, and Art Shedlin from UCLA, and this group continued meeting for decades until 2006.

With Abraham Maslow and others, Bugental was a cofounder of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology and the Association for Humanistic Psychology in 1961. He was elected a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1955, and was the first recipient of the APA’s Division of Humanistic Psychology Rollo May Award. Bugental also was president of the California State Psychological Association, the Los Angeles Society of Clinical Psychology, and the Association for Humanistic Psychology (serving as its first president in 1962). Among Bugental’s many valuable contributions to psychology and psychotherapy are his other books, Challenges of Humanistic Psychology (1967) (and its updated, co-authored version The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology, 2001), The Search for Existential Identity (1976), Psychotherapy and Process (1978), The Art of the Psychotherapist (1987), and Psychotherapy Isn’t What You Think (1999).