Some Uses of Postformal Thought in Humanistic Psychology

Abstract

The challenge articulated and accepted by the “third wave” of psychology, which includes humanistic, existential, and transpersonal psychology, is to make psychology whole again by putting meaning back into studies of human experience and by combining mind, heart, and spirit. Postformal thought seems to be one way that humans think about complex ideas such as the meaning of their existence, the split between mind, body, and emotion, the role of humankind in a universal or cosmic consciousness, and body-mind connections. It even seems necessary that we have postformal logic before we can both conceptualize the spiritually oriented subfield of humanistic psychology called transpersonal psychology and remain adaptively in touch with the “local” other-than-spiritual realities of our everyday existence.

I speak of the Manifesto of the Person, the declaration of our sovereign right to self discovery.

Theodore Roszak