Psyche and Soul in America

In post-World War II America and especially during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, the psychologist Rollo May contributed profoundly to the popular and professional response to a widely felt sense of personal emptiness amid a culture in crisis. May addressed the sources of depression,
powerlessness, and conformity but also mapped a path to restore authentic individuality, intimacy, creativity, and community. A psychotherapist by trade, he employed theology, philosophy, literature, and the arts to answer a central enduring question: "How, then, shall we live?"

Robert Abzug's definitive biography traces May's epic life from humble origins in the Protestant heartland of the Midwest to his longtime practice in New York City and his participation in the therapeutic culture of California. May's books--Love and Will, Man's Search for Himself, The Courage to
Create, and others--as well as his championing of non-medical therapeutic practice and introduction of Existential psychotherapy to America marked important contributions to the profession. Most of all, May's compelling prose reached millions of readers from all walks of life, finding their place,
as Noah Adams noted in his NPR eulogy, "on a hippy's bookshelf." And May was one of the founders of the humanistic psychology movement that has shaped the very vocabulary with which many Americans describe their emotional and spiritual lives.

Based on full and uncensored access to May's papers and original oral interviews, Psyche and Soul in America reveals his turbulent inner life, his religious crises, and their influence on his contribution to the world of psychotherapy and the culture beyond. It adds new and intimate dimensions to
an important aspect of America's romance with therapy, as the site for the exploration of spiritual strivings and moral dilemmas unmet for many by traditional religion.

"In post-World War II America and especially during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, the psychologist Rollo May contributed profoundly to the popular and professional response to a widely felt sense of personal emptiness amid a culture in crisis. May addressed the sources of depression, powerlessness, and conformity but also mapped a path to restore authentic individuality, intimacy, creativity, and community. A psychotherapist by trade, he employed theology, philosophy, literature, and the arts to answer a central enduring question: "How, then, shall we live?" Robert Abzug's definitive biography traces May's epic life from humble origins in the Protestant heartland of the Midwest to his longtime practice in New York City and his participation in the therapeutic culture of California. May's books--Love and Will, Man's Search for Himself, Power and Innocence, The Courage to Create, and others--as well as his championing of non-medical therapeutic practice and introduction of Existential psychotherapy to America marked important contributions to the profession. Most of all, May's compelling prose reached millions of readers from all walks of life, finding their place, as Noah Adams noted in his NPR eulogy, "on a hippy's bookshelf." And May was one of the founders of the humanistic psychology movement that has shaped the very vocabulary with which many Americans describe their emotional and spiritual lives. Based on full and uncensored access to May's papers and original oral interviews, Psyche and Soul in America reveals his turbulent inner life, his religious crises, and their influence on his contribution to the world of psychotherapy and the culture beyond. It adds new and intimate dimensions to an important aspect of America's romance with therapy, as the site for the exploration of spiritual strivings and moral dilemmas unmet for many by traditional religion"--

"As a mid-century public intellectual, Rollo May became the foremost American exponent of existentialism in religion and psychology. Now, in what will surely be a defining assessment, Robert Abzug melds social history, intimate biography, and a masterly explication of the work to introduce or
reintroduce readers to Rollo May." -- Peter D. Kramer, Brown University

"Robert Abzug expertly weaves together Rollo May's tumultuous personal life and pathbreaking work in this comprehensive, thoroughly absorbing, and remarkably intimate biography. An intrepid explorer of anxiety, emptiness, and boredom, as well as of LSD, sex, and the counterculture, May brought
European existentialism to American readers in a comprehensible and appealing form. A celebrity psychologist in his day, May and his writings on the contours of a meaningful life are all the more pertinent in our own anxious, turbulent times." -- Elizabeth Lunbeck, author of The Americanization of
Narcissism

"Making his way from small-town Michigan Christianity to Manhattan psychoanalysis and San Francisco Bay Area spirituality, May's talents -- 'working with people' and helping them 'by means of ideas' -- produced a deeply American contribution to the perennial problem of living soulfully with human
contradiction. In Robert H. Abzug, Rollo May, who described himself as a 'wounded healer, ' has found a biographer who does justice to his lifelong quest for thoughtful soulcraft and the higher reaches of self-help." -- Todd Gitlin, author of The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage

"Abzug reminds us of Rollo May's continuing relevance to our personal lives and the life of our country. May's insights into the union of outer and inner life speaks to us in good times and bad, connects us with our past, and gives us hope. You will be glad you've read this book." -- Senator Bill
Bradley

"A penetrating yet tender engagement with one of the 20th century's leading psychologists... [This biography is] a far more honest portrait than May's public image as a self-confident intellectual... Readers gain access to May's inner struggles through his uncensored journals, which May gave the
author three decades ago and from which he draws deeply to achieve extreme intimacy with his subject. But May lived in the world as much as his journals, and Abzug provides an excellent introduction to May's work that also serves as a useful overview of the tenets and major figures of 20th-century
psychologyEL In addition, he offers portraits of youth, family, marriages, affairs, rivalries, illnesses, and deaths-all the rich stuff of life as it concerns a man who was committed to understanding and experiencing the fullest possible range of human possibility. A revelatory book that should
sustain May's reputation and influence for at least another generation." - Kirkus Starred Review