“Such a Blow Just Now”

May comes down with tuberculosis even as he begins training at Teachers College.

“Therapist for Humanity”

Ironically, even as May began to find the ministry was truly not for him, he wrote The Springs of Creative Living, which put a particularly Christian stamp on the combination of religion and psychology. One subchapter was even titled “Christ, Therapist for Humanity.” Yet, the main character in this book was one who overworked so that he could forget the conflicts in his life. Not surprisingly, May was that man. Within a year or two he could see that his Christian faith had been destroyed.

“I will not become a professional Christian”

In the spring of 1934, May’s father leaves his family and Rollo is recalled to Michigan to take charge. He does so and becomes a counselor at the Michigan State Y and a campus counselor. That experience and his time with Adler in Vienna spur him to write about student counseling in several articles. He begins to craft a future merging religious and psychological themes. These articles and word-of-mouth in the Y network make him known as a future practitioner of pastoral psychology. At the same time, he works hard and successfully puts his family on an even keel.

Looking Backward, Moving Forward

May turns to writing a fond and interpretively acute short book on his relationship to Paul Tillich-Paulus—and runs into difficulties with Hannah Arendt’s own memoir of her marriage. He then publishes The Courage to Create. May becomes more and more alienated in New York, feeling drawn to California and its more open and psychologically progressive atmosphere. He accepts a Regents Professorship at the University of California Santa Cruz, but has a mixed time because of health problems and marital strife with Ingrid. At the same time, May becomes more critical of the more narcissistic and quick-fix nature of some of the humanistic psychology movement, and he along with others convene as theory conference to establish a more serious and scientifically sound basis for the movement,also one that focused on social issues in addition to personal well-being. By fall 1975, he moves to Tiburon, California, and separates from Ingrid.

The Dizziness of Freedom

Paul Tillich’s death In 1965 marks a turning point in May’s life, one in which he mourned his mentor but also declared his freedom from Tillich’s watchful influence. As the war in Vietnam heats up, May becomes active in various professional groups seeking an end to the war. He also found himself drawing closer to colleagues in California. A key moment in his public visibility came with being featured as a prophet in the newly created monthly, Psychology Today.

Kairos and Void

This chapter recounts the intertwined dramas of May’s personal and professional life in the early 1960s, one that sees him participating in the founding of the Association for Humanistic Psychology and participation in the arts scene of New York even as his marriage deteriorates and reflects in some sense trends in the culture.

Existential Calling

His work on Kierkegaard and exposure to Existentialism motivated May to collaborate with Henri Ellenberger and Ernest Angel to produce a volume, finally published in 1958, that introduced Existential Psychology to the American profession and public. Existence received wide exposure in lay and professional worlds and remains an influential text. He then participated in the founding of the, a journal called Existential Inquiries, and an APA panel that was soon published as Existential Psychology (1961). These events marked a turning point in psychotherapeutic practice and in part led to the creation of a related movement—Humanistic Psychology.

Embracing a New Profession

Publishing The Meaning of Anxiety and having experience as a psychotherapist place May in a favorable position to be an influence on the profession. In addition to his practice, he takes the lead for the New York State Psychological Association in the legislative battle to seek a licensing law that would allow non-medical therapists from practicing without linkage to a doctor. He also found a niche at the White Institute, at first creating a pastoral counseling program linking the Institute to clergy and seminar students and then as a full-fledged member of the teaching faculty. His public and professional profile expanded with the publication of Man’s Search for Himself in 1953, a popular and accurate presentation of the ideas of Kierkegaard and Tillich, as well as his own, as they applied to everyday life in modernity. It became a bestseller.

“The Most Important Thing”

May returns to New York when recovery is far enough along. He begins a private counseling practice, where he excels in empathy with patients and encourages a gay patient to remain gay if that is what he chooses to be. He also writes a doctoral dissertation on anxiety and begins again an analysis with Erich Fromm at the White Institute, where he also consults with Clara Thompson. In addition to Kierkegaard, Fromm’s work as well as that of Kurt Goldstein influenced the dissertation. He quickly publishes it in 1950 as The Meaning of Anxiety, a book notable for its comprehensiveness, its link of creativity with anxiety, and for May its lack of religious content. May’s father dies just before he publishes The Meaning of Anxiety and almost instantly becomes a major force in the emerging profession of psychotherapy.

Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich, has life and ideas, are introduced as background to his relationship with May. He writes his honor's thesis on psychology and religion with Tillich as mentor.