The expectation that our careers and personal lives should be expressions of our authentic selves; the belief that our relationships should be defined by openness and understanding; the idea that therapy could help us reach our fullest potential-these ways of understanding our lives have insinuated themselves so deeply into the fabric of American culture and consciousness that it's impossible to imagine our world without them. In "Encountering America", cultural historian Jessica Grogan reveals how these ideas stormed the barricades of our culture through the humanistic psychology movement - the work of a handful of maverick psychologists who revolutionized American culture in the 1960s and '70s. Profiling this diverse and fascinating array of thought leaders - including Abraham Maslow, Rollo May and Timothy Leary-Grogan draws on volumes of untapped primary sources to explore how these minds and the changing cultural atmosphere of the '60s combined to create a widely influential movement.
From the New Age culture of yoga and sensitivity training, to perennial American anxieties about wellness, identity, and purpose, Grogan insightfully traces how humanistic psychology continues to define the way we understand ourselves.