Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- May: Existential
Psychology
© The McGraw−Hill^349
Companies, 2009Chapter 12 May: Existential Psychology 343become. May’s penetrating insights and profound analyses of the human condition
made him a popular writer among laypeople as well as professional psychologists.
Many people, May believed, lack the courage to face their destiny, and in the
process of fleeing from it, they give up much of their freedom. Having negated their
freedom, they likewise run away from their responsibility. Not being willing to make
choices, they lose sight of who they are and develop a sense of insignificance and
alienation. In contrast, healthy people challenge their destiny, cherish their freedom,
and live authentically with other people and with themselves. They recognize the in-
evitability of death and have the courage to live life in the present.
Biography of Rollo May
Rollo Reese May was born April 21, 1909, in Ada, Ohio, the first son of the six chil-
dren born to Earl Tittle May and Matie Boughton May. Neither parent was very well
educated, and May’s early intellectual climate was virtually nonexistent. In fact,
when his older sister had a psychotic breakdown some years later, May’s father at-
tributed it to too much education (Bilmes, 1978)!
At an early age, May moved with his family to Marine City, Michigan, where
he spent most of his childhood. As a young boy, May was not particularly close to
either of his parents, who frequently argued with each other and eventually sepa-
rated. May’s father, a secretary for the Young Men’s Christian Association, moved
frequently during May’s youth. May’s mother often left the children to care for them-
selves and, according to May’s description, was a “bitch-kitty on wheels” (Rabi-
nowitz, Good, & Cozad, 1989, p. 437). May attributed his own two failed marriages
to his mother’s unpredictable behavior and to his older sister’s psychotic episode.
During his childhood, May found solitude and relief from family strife by play-
ing on the shores of the St. Clair River. The river became his friend, a serene place
to swim during the summer and to ice skate during the winter. He claimed to have
learned more from the river than from the school he attended in Marine City (Rabi-
nowitz et al., 1989). As a youth, he acquired an interest in art and literature, interests
that never left him. He first attended college at Michigan State University, where he
majored in English. However, he was asked to leave school soon after he became ed-
itor of a radical student magazine. May then transferred to Oberlin College in Ohio,
from which he received a bachelor’s degree in 1930.
For the next 3 years, May followed a course very similar to the one traveled by
Erik Erikson some 10 years earlier (see Chapter 9). He roamed throughout eastern
and southern Europe as an artist, painting pictures and studying native art (Harris,
1969). Actually, the nominal purpose for May’s trip was to tutor English at Anatolia
College in Saloniki, Greece. This job provided him time to work as an itinerant artist
in Turkey, Poland, Austria, and other countries. However, by his second year, May
was beginning to become lonely. As a consequence, he poured himself into his work
as a teacher, but the harder he worked, the less effective he became.
Finally in the spring of that second year I had what is called, euphemistically, a
nervous breakdown. Which meant simply that the rules, principles, values, by
which I used to work and live simply did not suffice anymore. I got so completely
fatigued that I had to go to bed for two weeks to get enough energy to continue
my teaching. I had learned enough psychology at college to know that these