Extending the Humanistic Vision: Closing Thoughts

The author reflects on the collaborations that led to this special issue. The author also reviews some of his original ideas, comments on the values embodied in this issue, and outlines some of his hopes for the future of the counseling profession. ********** I am honored and humbled that my article was chosen to be the focus of this special issue. Like my other manuscripts, I simply submitted "Extending the Humanistic Vision: Toward a Humanities Foundation for the Counseling Profession" (Hansen, 2012), hoping that it would be favorably reviewed and eventually accepted for publication. After reviewing the manuscript, Colette Dollarhide (Journal of Humanistic Counseling editor) not only accepted it but suggested that the article be the centerpiece of a special issue. I was extremely flattered, excited about the opportunity, and immediately agreed to her suggestion. Since then (about 2 1/2 years ago), Colette and I have worked closely together to bring this special issue to fruition. I could not have asked for a more considerate and supportive colleague than Colette. Her vision, sharp intellect, and commitment to scholarly excellence animate these pages. I am grateful for her guidance, editorial insights, and friendship. Thank you, Colette. All of the authors have provided extremely sharp and challenging critiques of my ideas. I greatly appreciate each of them for thoroughly considering my article and taking the time to formulate a response. Thank you, Jeffrey, Clayton, David, Matthew, Peggy, Todd, and V. Suthakaran. I have grown considerably from your challenges. My idea for the "Extending the Humanistic Vision" article (Hansen, 2012) was inspired by the midcentury humanists (e.g., Maslow, 1968; Rogers, 1951), who insisted that the intellectual foundation of the counseling process should be the humanities, not science (Fishman, 1999). This was an extremely countercultural idea at the time (as it surely is today) because proponents of the then-dominant approaches to treatment (i.e., psychoanalysis and behaviorism) conceptualized the counseling process as a type of reductive, scientific dissection (Hansen, 2009). Alternatively, the humanists argued that the humanities (e.g., literature, history, philosophy), not science, was the best intellectual fit for holistically understanding the rich meaning systems that emerge during the counseling process (DeCarvalho, 1990). I found the idea that the counseling process should be intellectually founded on the humanities profound, extremely intriguing, and completely obvious. This trio of strong reactions (which ordinarily do not hit me all at the same time) kept my intellectual interest in humanism going for years. Eventually, I began to wonder: What if the humanities foundation was extended beyond the counseling room? Perhaps the entire counseling profession, not just the counseling process, should be structured by the humanities. The "Extending the Humanistic Vision" article (Hansen, 2012), then, was essentially the result of a thought experiment in which I envisioned the insights of the original humanists being extended beyond the counseling room to the entire counseling profession. I concluded that the profession would be a lot better off if counselors acted more like literary professors (i.e., humanities professionals) than chemists (i.e., science professionals). Indeed, it seemed to me that the professional life of counselors had been overtaken by the value system of science, with its emphasis on objectivity and singular truth. For instance, elite members of the field tell counselors the type of professional identity that they should adopt, and commonsensical ideas have transmogrified into behemoth authoritarian institutions (e.g., multiculturalism) with accompanying standards that are used to determine whether professionals are sufficiently versed in the party line. Although I recognize that none of the aforementioned developments represent science in the formal sense, all of them arguably draw from the value system of science, which operates from a singular truth hierarchy. …