Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- May: Existential
Psychology
© The McGraw−Hill^351
Companies, 2009Chapter 12 May: Existential Psychology 345the fact that it was I who had the tuberculosis, an assertion of my own will to live,
did I make lasting progress” (May, 1972, p. 14).
As May learned to listen to his body, he discovered that healing is an active,
not a passive, process. The person who is sick, be it physiologically or psychologi-
cally, must be an active participant in the therapeutic process. May realized this truth
for himself as he recovered from tuberculosis, but it was only later that he was able
to see that his psychotherapy patients also had to fight against their disturbance in
order to get better (May, 1972).
During his illness and recovery, May was writing a book on anxiety. To better
understand the subject, he read both Freud and Søren Kierkegaard, the great Danish
existential philosopher and theologian. He admired Freud, but he was more deeply
moved by Kierkegaard’s view of anxiety as a struggle againstnonbeing,that is, loss
of consciousness (May, 1969a).
After May recovered from his illness, he wrote his dissertation on the subject
of anxiety and the next year published it under the title The Meaning of Anxiety (May,
1950). Three years later, he wrote Man’s Search for Himself(May, 1953), the book
that gained him some recognition not only in professional circles but among other
educated people as well. In 1958, he collaborated with Ernest Angel and Henri El-
lenberger to publish Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology.
This book introduced American psychotherapists to the concepts of existential ther-
apy and continued the popularity of the existential movement. May’s best-known
work, Love and Will(1969b), became a national best-seller and won the 1970 Ralph
Waldo Emerson Award for humane scholarship. In 1971, May won the American
Psychological Association’s Distinguished Contribution to the Science and Profes-
sion of Clinical Psychology Award. In 1972, the New York Society of Clinical Psy-
chologists presented him with the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for his book
Power and Innocence(1972), and in 1987, May received the American Psychologi-
cal Foundation Gold Medal Award for Lifetime Contributions to Professional Psy-
chology.
During his career, May was a visiting professor at both Harvard and Princeton
and lectured at such institutions as Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia, Vassar, Oberlin, and
the New School for Social Research. In addition, he was an adjunct professor at New
York University, chairman for the Council for the Association of Existential Psy-
chology and Psychiatry, president of the New York Psychological Association, and a
member of the Board ofTrustees of the American Foundation for Mental Health.
In 1969, May and his first wife, Florence DeFrees, were divorced after 30 years
of marriage. He later married Ingrid Kepler Scholl, but that marriage too ended in
divorce. On October 22, 1994, after 2 years of declining health, May died in Tiburon,
California, where he had made his home since 1975. He was survived by his third
wife, Georgia Lee Miller Johnson (a Jungian analyst whom he married in 1988); son,
Robert; and twin daughters, Allegra and Carolyn.
Through his books, articles, and lectures, May was the best-known American
representative of the existential movement. Nevertheless, he spoke out against the
tendency of some existentialists to slip into an antiscientific or even anti-intellectual
posture (May, 1962). He was critical of any attempt to dilute existential psychology
into a painless method of reaching self-fulfillment. People can aspire to psychologi-
cal health only through coming to grips with the unconscious core of their existence.