THE HUMANISTIC ETHIC— THE INDIVIDUAL IN PSYCHOTHERAPY AS A SOCIETAL CHANGE AGENT1, 2

In our usual perspective, we think of the individual who seeks psycho-therapy for himself as one who desires to change his own life experi-ence. In this paper I want to take a somewhat different perspective and to suggest that many who have had a growthful therapeutic course emerge from that experience as societal change agents themselves. The person who has discovered he can change what he doesn’t like in him-self may well seek to change that which he doesn’t like in his environ-ment as well. It will be recognized at once that I am speaking of a kind of thera-peutic experience that has as its goal something quite other than producing &dquo;adjustment&dquo; in the patient. Indeed, that to me abhorrent term is almost diametrically opposite to what I hope those who honor me by being my patients will attain. I say &dquo;almost diametrically op-posite&dquo; because I do not feel that my patients become anti-adjusted. I hope-as I suppose many therapists do-that a patient completing therapy with me will support those societal forms which seem au-thentic to him in his own life and will work to change those that seem anti-authentic. In other words, I believe that we are social beings and that the healthy person will, in greater or lesser degree, express the social aspect of his life through concernedly being pro or co