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Third Force Psychology and Child Psychology: A Convergence of Horizons

Article  in  The Humanistic Psychologist · January 2012

DOI: 10.1080/08873267.2012.643689

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The Whole Child:

Selected Papers on Existential-
Humanistic Child Psychology

EUGENE M. DEROBERTIS
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Copyright © 2012 Eugene M. DeRobertis

CreateSpace Publishing
7290 B. Investment Drive
Charleston, SC 29418
USA

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any
information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 1477635750
ISBN-13: 978-1477635759
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements.............................................................................................. vii

Introduction ............................................................................................................1

CHAPTER 1
Selfhood and its Development: A View from Existential-Humanistic Self-
Development Theory............................................................................................11

PART I: FOUNDATIONS
CHAPTER 2
Prolegomena to a Thomistic Child Psychology....................................................35

CHAPTER 3
The Centrality of the Imagination in Human Science Child Psychology ..............55

CHAPTER 4
Deriving a Third Force Approach to Child Development from the Works of
Alfred Adler ..........................................................................................................71

CHAPTER 5
William Stern: Forerunner of Human Science Child Developmental
Thought................................................................................................................89

PART II: CONTEMPORARY CONNECTIONS

CHAPTER 6
Winnicott, Kohut, and the Developmental Context of Well-Being ......................105

CHAPTER 7
Existential-Humanistic and Dynamic Systems Approaches to Child
Development in Mutual Encounter.....................................................................123

CHAPTER 8
Third Force Psychology and Child Psychology: A Convergence of
Horizons.............................................................................................................147

CHAPTER 9
Self Matters, But Not That Way: Humanism and Selfishness in America..........171

CHAPTER 10
Child Development Within a Consumer Cultural Context: A Critique From the
Perspective of Existential-Humanistic Self-Development Theory (EHSDT) ......177
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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the following colleagues for meaningful interactions that were
in some way or other helpful to me as I prepared the material for this text: Chris
Aanstoos, Elliot Benjamin, Joseph Boyle, Alison Broomall, Caroline Calogero, Scott
Churchill, Brent F. Costleigh, William Crain, Harris Friedman, Melissa Garaffa, Diana
Glynn, Susan Gordon, Steen Halling, John Iuculano, Ann Johnson, James T. Lamiell,
Martin McDermott, Diditi Mitra, Joel Morgovsky, Shawn Rubin, Reverend David L. Smith,
Eugene Taylor, Carl Thomas, and Leo Zaccari. I would also like to thank Ali McDowell
and Erin Maguire for editing significant portions of my manuscript.

Many thanks to Heather DeRobertis (www.TruePoison.com) for creating the artwork

found on the cover and for additional editorial assistance.

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. . . At every moment . . . I am engaged in development–from Bios through Pathos to

Logos. All of my acts display this development in a certain way. In this continuing process
of self-realization typical levels are to be distinguished which preserve their inalterable
eidetic peculiarity in the midst of the stream of becoming: the strata. They are . . .
comparable to the colors of the rainbow which are reflected by ever-changing billions of
raindrops. The essence of the strata is as unchangeable as the colors in their qualitative
determination; the functions and acts which, propagating themselves along the vertical
paths, constitute the strata are ever-new as the falling raindrops. The unity of the levels,
however, is primordially given with the coming-into-being of man. The strata are what
they are through the fact that they translate the idea “man,” step by step, into facticity.
Thus, the wholistic philosophical view of man constitutes the framework within which the
strata-doctrine is to be inserted.

The concrete is indeed, by reason if its concreteness, unique and thus never fully
comparable.
Stephan Strasser, Phenomenology of Feeling

. . . My uniqueness is rooted in my concrete responsibility toward others and in the

impossibility of delegating it to another person or to an institution. This responsibility is
inherent in me; I live it originarily without assigning it to an “anonymous life” or to a
“universal flesh.”
Stephan Strasser, Clefts in the World

The conclusion is as painful as it is enlightening: our children will be and will remain
necessarily and unavoidably the product of our imagination. No scientific facts will be able
to change this. I call this painful because it removes the last remains of optimistic
progressive thinking of positivism. I call it enlightening because it places the responsibility
where it belongs: with us adults.
Willem Koops, Beyond the Century of the Child

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CHAPTER 8
Third Force Psychology and Child Psychology: A
Convergence of Horizons!
Though some authors have argued that the goals of third force psychology are
intrinsically harmonious with those of child psychology, humanistic or human science
perspectives are rarely represented in child developmental texts, courses, and programs.
This is particularly notable at the undergraduate level. A major reason for the relative
underrepresentation of third force perspectives in the area of child development is that
the large-scale debates inherent to this field have not been conducive to third force
thinking. At the same time, contemporary child developmental thinking has evolved
considerably within recent years, and the issues that have traditionally kept humanism at
a distance from child psychology have changed. In this chapter, I argue that the nature of
these changes is such that the area of child developmental theory is now evidencing
opportunities for third force psychology to become a more recognized contributor to the
study of child development.
In his text on child development, Guy Lefrancois’ (2001) made the claim, ‘‘Self-
actualization is simply the process of development’’ (p. 562). In agreement with
Lefrancois, William Crain (2005) has noted, ‘‘There is one place where the
developmentalists’ concerns are seriously expressed. This is in humanistic psychology’’
(p. xvi). Elsewhere in the same text, Crain went on as follows:

Maslow and the modern humanistic psychologists have, without making much out
of it, drawn heavily on the developmental tradition. . . . The developmentalists, like
the humanists, have been searching for an inner force that will guide the individual
toward a healthier . . . development. (p. 375)

Both Lefrancois and Crain, in their respective attempts to introduce students to the
study of child psychology, took great care in asserting that developmental thinking is, in
its essence, fundamentally consonant with a humanistic or human science worldview.
They both noted, for example, that existential and phenomenologically-minded thinkers
are implicitly and inherently developmental due to their characterization of human
existence as a becoming (e.g., May, Angel, & Ellenberger, 1958).
To be sure, Lefrancois (2001) and Crain (2005) are exceptional in this regard. It is
rare that developmental authors show any significant interest in third force psychology.
There are at least three reasons for this state of affairs. First, humanists have been

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! This chapter originally appeared in the form of a presentation entitled Third Force Thinking and Child
Developmental Theory: On the Threshold of a Burgeoning Dialogue given at the APA Division 32
Conference in Chicago, Illinois, on April 17, 2011. A version of it also appeared in The Humanistic
Psychologist, 40(1), pp. 58-78. Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis, http://www.tandfonline.com, ©
2012.

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developmental, to reiterate Crain (2005), ‘‘without making much of it’’ (p. 375). Third force
child developmental ideas are not always found in works specifically dedicated to the
study of child development, which makes it easy for them to be overlooked. Thus, being a
humanistic developmentalist sometimes means having to wrest or explicate child
developmental thinking from relevant works (e.g., DeRobertis, 2006b).
Second, third force thinking in the area of child development has always been
inherently and intensely multiperspectival. The humanistic developmental tradition of
thought is, by nature, an amalgam composed of views rooted in existential-humanistic
psychology, phenomenological psychology, personalistic psychology, Gestalt and
organismic psychology, and also self-styled, social psychoanalysis, which has been
dubbed a humanistic ‘‘friend of the family’’ by Irvin Yalom (1980, p. 20). Thus, in addition
to being easily overlooked, humanistic child developmentalism can appear disorganized
to those unfamiliar with it. It is true that there is no one official humanistic theory of child
development fit with ironclad principles or a rigid system of research dictates.
Nonetheless, there is a specifically humanistic tradition of studying child development
(see e.g., DeRobertis, 2008). Certainly, all of the aforementioned currents of thought are
present in the child developmental works of Merleau-Ponty (2010), who preceded Piaget
as the chair of child psychology and pedagogy at the Sorbonne from 1949 to 1952. In
what follows, a number of highly significant historical figures will be noted in conjunction
with fundamental concepts within the humanistic developmental tradition of thought.
Several basic organizing themes inherent to a humanistic child developmental viewpoint
will underlie the articulation of these concepts and will be noted toward the conclusion of
this discussion.
A third reason for the relative underrepresentation of humanism in developmental
psychology is that the large scale controversial issues that have tended to preoccupy
child psychologists have been conceptualized in a way that is not conducive to third force
thinking. This will be the overriding focus of the current discussion. Debates concerning
the relative roles of nature versus nurture in development, the active versus passive
nature of development, and the continuity or discontinuity of development, for example,
have traditionally been framed in a manner that is fundamentally at odds with third force
thinking. Because these are the most fundamental debates within the developmental
area, third force developmental thinkers have thus been de facto marginalized from that
subdiscipline simply as a matter of metapsychological or theoretical incompatibility.
This problem is rooted in the inability of holistic, human scientific perspectives to
win the uncompromising respect of the American psychological community at large. As
Elkins (2009) has noted, some authors have suggested that holistic, humanistically
minded thinkers have undermined their own influence by selecting to remain outside the
mainstream of psychological discourse (thereby preaching to the converted, as it were;
e.g., Cain, 2003). However, as Elkins (2009) pointed out, this argument is unjustifiably
one-sided and ignores the more powerful outside forces that have contributed to the
marginalization of third force thought in American psychology. As he put it, ‘‘Although we
may have shot ourselves in the foot a few times, those injuries were not fatal. The real
death blows . . . came from outside the humanistic movement’’ (p. 270). Elkins specified
as follows:

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Mainstream psychology has undermined, and continues to undermine, humanistic

psychology. This undermining takes three major forms: (a) perpetuating negative
stereotypes about humanistic psychology; (b) failing to acknowledge the scholarly
contributions of humanistic psychology; and (c) acknowledging, but then
minimizing, the contributions of humanistic psychology. (p. 278)

All in all, Elkins (2009) reached the compelling conclusion, ‘‘The assumptions and values
of humanistic psychology are in radical conflict with the assumptions and values of
contemporary mainstream psychology’’ (p. 284).
Particularly relevant to this analysis, Elkins (2009) cited a personal communication
from humanistic veteran Art Bohart who observed, ‘‘I’m not sure it is anything we did as
much as we are ahead of our time and it will take awhile for the culture to catch up with
us’’ (p. 277). This observation is particularly relevant here because the primary purpose of
this discussion is to argue that contemporary perspectives in child psychology are
becoming increasingly consonant with third force thinking via a brief consideration of the
three previously noted debates. I am asserting, on this basis, that more and more
developmental thinkers are ‘‘catching up to us,’’ to use Bohart’s apt phraseology. In
carrying out my analysis, I conclude that contemporary child developmental theorizing
has evolved in such a way that it is now evidencing opportunities for third force
psychology to become a more recognized and respected presence in the study of child
development.
Before I begin to demonstrate how child psychology is converging with the third
force, I would like to point out that I am aware that some readers will be skeptical of the
culturally related line of argumentation presented above. Accordingly, I offer a few brief
observations in defense of this argument before moving on. For example, William Stern,
an early contributor to the human science paradigm in psychology (Giorgi, 1970), is only
known to American pedagogical thinkers as the creator of the IQ statistic (DeRobertis,
2011c). Stern’s many qualitatively driven holistic descriptions of child development have
been wholesale ignored in favor of a single quantitative contribution to the discipline.
Heinz Werner, with whom Stern worked closely, is regarded by his adherents as one of
the three major developmental thinkers of the twentieth century, the other two being
Piaget and Vygotsky (Valsiner, 2005). However, to the mainstream of the child
psychological community in America, Werner is but a footnote in the history of
developmental psychology. As Glick (1992) has noted, Werner’s work quickly ‘‘faded from
view’’ in the United States because his ideas appeared ‘‘at too great a variance from
contemporary consensus’’ (p. 559). Ernest G. Schachtel’s Metamorphosis (1959), a text
firmly rooted in the organismic and phenomenological-developmental current established
by Stern and Werner, suffered the same lapse into obscurity. Similarly, Merleau-Ponty’s
work in the area of child development and pedagogy at the Sorbonne has been regularly
overlooked in America in favor of Piagetian theory. With his grounding in existential-
phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty’s entire approach to pedagogical issues stands at odds
with the rationalistic (i.e., causal-empirical and intellectualistic) currents that have
traditionally dominated American psychology. Piaget, on the other hand, has been far
easier to appropriate from a rationalist viewpoint.

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Of no less significance is the active suppression of Alfred Adler’s pedagogical

perspective, which remains virtually unknown in the United States. At the present time,
Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages and associated concepts remain fundamental
reading for the introductory student of child psychology. Yet, it is striking that Freud
himself spent relatively little time discussing his now famous stages of development. It
was, in fact, Karl Abraham (e.g., 1965) who teased out the implications of Freud’s
specifically developmental assertions. Alfred Adler, on the other hand, spent far more of
his professional time outlining a view of parenting, pedagogy, and developmental
psychology. In a recent text on his lesser-known works (Carlson & Maniacci, 2012), one
finds several chapters dedicated specifically to understanding children and their
development. There is in Adler’s works a coherent, decidedly humanistic view of child
development and mother-child attachment (e.g., DeRobertis, 2011a; Weber, 2003).
However, Adler was never able to influence the mainstream of developmental thought
due to having been denied access to academic and clinical environments in the United
States by the behaviorists and Freudians respectively (Carlson & Maniacci, 2012).
Hence, he continues to be known as a personality theorist and a clinician only. These are
but a few examples of how holistic, humanistic currents of developmental thought have
been marginalized throughout history. Similar things can be said of other human scientific
pedagogical thinkers, but to continue down this path would mean too radical a divergence
from the aims of the current work.

Nature Versus Nurture

The first time I asked a class of college students what nature referred to in the
nature/nurture debate, the class collectively and enthusiastically answered, ‘‘The
environment!’’ When I asked them why they answered this way, they pointed to the trees
just outside the classroom window. Out of curiosity, I continued to start this discussion the
same way in several classes to follow and obtained similar results. I felt a tinge of guilt
each time I had to correct my classes. After all, in everyday language, the term nature
does tend to denote the whole of the natural world. However, psychology seemed to
come to a different conclusion. Nature was assigned a special meaning, referring to those
factors inside the organism, existing prior to and distinct from the environment. As
Deborah Kleese (2001) has noted, the kind of distinction between human nature and
nature at large that is often seen in psychological works is a relatively recent distinction,
as human nature had been considered a special instance of nature at large, a specific
variation of the natural world, since ancient Greece. During the medieval period, however,
this notion, which had culminated in St. Thomas Aquinas’s conviction that human beings
were social and political creatures by nature (Gilby, 1989), was overturned. Human
nature was increasingly viewed as something ‘‘wild’’ inside the person that required
taming by civilizing forces from the outside world (Kleese, 2001, p. 63). By the
Enlightenment era, Kleese noted, human nature had transformed into ‘‘an internal,
subjective attribute’’ (p. 64). When modern psychology finally emerged, this internal
attribute, human nature, became synonymous with biology. This conception of nature has
taken many specialized forms in the field of psychology, including nativism versus
empiricism in perception, biological fixedness versus environmental equiprimordiality in

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