Ideas That Matter: Humanistic Psychology, Past, Present, and Future

A paper on “The Search for Challenge” by sociologist David Riesman begins a new feature of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (JHP). Periodically, various scholars in humanistic psychology will be invited to present their reactions to particular, important papers in the history of the field. Riesman, a leading social thinker in the post–World War II era, was a founding editorial board member of JHP. This article, published shortly before JHP was launched, has considerable relevance for our own time; the five scholars who have provided their reactions offer a diversity of intriguing viewpoints.