Talk:Human Potential Movement

message: NOTE: recent messages have been moved to  the bottom  of the page to  maintain chronological  integrity.--Kudpung (talk) 19:29, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I'm a little concerned that the July 20 edit adding material refuting some criticism, and the other paragraph below in that section also refuting criticism, have a tone that becomes too conversational with the reader, as though we are giving the reader personal advice on how to balance competing claims. As has been expressed above on this page, I think there is a valid point being made here that needs to be phrased in a more objective, specific manner that ties into the subject of the movement and its critics, rather than drawing the reader aside into a sort of private conversation. --Gary D 21:08, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to take the POV out of the refutations. Saying something is true doesn't make it true. What needs to be supplied here are the results of properly controlled studies which support the contention that specific techniques are useful. I say specific techniques because of course evidence that all the techniques are useful is unlikely to available. John FitzGerald 02:14, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

text: The whole article is too conversationalFridakahlofan (talk) 01:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The July 20 addition 

message: I reverted the Roots section to what it was before the long passage about George Leonard was substituted for it, and then moved the encyclopedic part of the passage about Leonard to the Esalen section, where most of it belongs. I think I'll go back and add a note about Leonard to the Roots section, though. Anyway, much of the passage about Leonard was unencyclopedic, and more wasn't really necessary in this article because there is a separate article about him. The passage also smelt of copyright. I'm not saying that it's used without permission, but some reassurance is necessary.
Esalen also is clearly not part of the roots of the movement, which go back to the 
40s. John FitzGerald 14:08, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Turned out the article about George Leonard was about another George Leonard, so I started an article about this one. John FitzGerald 14:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Neither Esalen nor Leonard belong in the roots section. This segment is far too short and speaks more about other relative frameworks than about human potential sources.Fridakahlofan (talk) 01:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roots/Esalen 

message: It's amazing for me to have finally stumbled across this page and its tracing of this movement, having had a personal breakthrough do to self-actualization (a term I learned in high school Health) and the realization that my life's ultimate goals should be in awakening other people's untapped potential and encourage growth and education. I've never read a self-help book, nor had a person recommend any of this to me. My experience with all of this is largely from conclusions I drew myself, so it's interesting to find base for my personal beliefs in larger philosophies.
Does anyone else feel like weighing in on personal comments about this movement? Cybertooth85 07:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal Comment 

message: If I'm interpretting the human potential movement properly, then words such as "happiness, creativity, and fulfillment" should not be used in such an unqualified manner. If I can tap my fullest potential, why would I be happy or fulfilled? Maybe I would become more unfulfilled and unhappy. These adjectives should be avoided in a neutral article.
:subjectiveFridakahlofan (talk) 01:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right about the realization of potential not necessarily producing happiness etc., but the point is that the human potential movement believes it does, so using those terms is not POV but simply a description of the movement. John FitzGerald 01:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

text: After having one small paragraph for introduction, a tiny paragraph for 'roots', a small paragraph and a quote about relation to other fields, we get 3 whole paragraphs on 'alleged failure to achieve goals'. Does this seem objective, unbiased and informative? No.
I don't see the point of having this section at all, or at least making much smaller relative to the other segments. Fridakahlofan (talk) 01:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "happiness, creativity, and fulfillment" 

message: Doesn't the human potential movement really go back to Joshua Loth Liebman and his bestseller Peace of Mind (1946)? John FitzGerald 01:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joshua Loth Liebman 

message: Hi all. For anyone who's interested, there is a major critique of the HPM by Plumb,L.D. 1993 . It looks at Maslow, Rogers, and Perls. I guess this may also apply well to the Humanistic Psychology article. There is an interesting element that says Edwin Schur identified some key elements: Openness to imediate experience;denigration of the intellect; and being "real" as opposed to playing a social role. ONe criticsim is that self-realization takes one away from social concerns too much. One argument says that Americans have never been strong on ocial consciousness. Thus, Schur states that the movement's popularity is rooted in complacency. Peter Martin referred to the HPM as the "new narcissism" and argued that these are the expressions of the "growing solipsism of and desperation of a beleaguered class". Martin doesn't say it is complacency, rather that it is neither simple greed nor moral blindness, but it is instead the unrealized shame of having failed the world and not knowing what to do about it. Christopher Lasch's analysis differs from both the prior. He argued that the HPM is the result of the warlike condidtions that pervade American society, from the dangers and uncertainty that surround us in abundance, and from the loss of confidence in the future. He says that the defensiveness concerning the "shallowness of society" gives rise to the "living here and now" so as not to seek value in the unreliable world outside of yourself. The tragedy being; these defensive responses to the loss of community contribute to the further denigration of society. The last line of the book is interesting "In the final analysis, the HPM constituted and anathema to the attempt to gain self-understanding ad to create an ethical society of persons.  The HPM has apparently disintegrated, although aspects of the consciousness revolution will continue for some time" I can provide page numbers if folk are interested. Savoylettuce 05:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Another interesting source of criticism on the HPM is W. R. Coulson who studied/worked with Abraham Maslow and also worked with Carl Rogers for quite some time.
See
*Full hearts and Empty Heads: the price of certain recent programs in humanistic psychology Address of October 20, 1994, at a Conference on The Nature and Tasks of a Personalistic Psychology Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio U.S.A.
*"WE OVERCAME THEIR TRADITIONS, WE OVERCAME THEIR FAITH" Global Catholic Network. From Vol. 3, No. 1, January-February 1994 issue of "The Latin Mass."
*COULSON ON THE DARE DRUG PREVENTION PROGRAMME
Malangthon 01:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Plumb; A critique of the HPM

message: Some of the best and most balanced criticism of the HPM, looking at both its significant contributions as well as the not-so-hidden narcissistic underbelly that it often (and often unwittingly) supports is from Ken Wilber.  See "Eye to Eye," "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality," and "The Eye of Spirit" (among others).  He is quite critical of the HPM, despite being close with leaders in that field. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.46.182.104 (talk) 00:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ken Wilber 

message: The following links do not comply with WP:EL standards:
*Personal Growth on Island Foundation
:: Should be avoided: 9 - Links to search engine and aggregated results pages
*Salerno, Steve (2005). SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. New York: Random House. .
:: Should be avoided: 9 - Links to search engine and aggregated results pages
:::Though it is looking for an ISBN, it is a search engine with potentially other off-topic results
:::The link does not direct to a specific article.
:You give as the main reference a book which critisizes the human potential movement, plus 2 other obscure references. I would really like to know why 'the silva method' is mentioned at all, considering you have left out several of the major theorists.Fridakahlofan (talk) 01:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: I'm doing POV tag cleanup. Whenever an POV tag is placed, it is necessary to also post a message in the discussion section stating clearly why it is thought the article does not comply with POV guidelines, and suggestions for how to improve it. This permits discussion and consensus among editors. This is a drive-by tag, which is discouraged in WP, and it shall be removed. Future tags should have discussion posted as to why the tag was placed, and how the topic might be improved. Better yet, edit the topic yourself with the improvements. This statement is not a judgement of content, it is only a cleanup of frivolously and/or arbitrarily placed tags. No discussion, no tag.Jjdon (talk) 19:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV Tags 

message: When the article invokes Feynman, it seems to be claiming that he somehow specifically debunked the concept that humans possess potential. Reading the content of his speech, however, he only discusses his visit to Esalen to recall an incident where he witnesses a couple of naked hippies practicing reflexology, and that it perplexed him. What is the aim of an author who falsely invokes an undisputedly credible person to discredit something? Despite the hippies who may have tried to push some analog of the idea that we can be something more, you can't deny that humans have demonstrated great potential throughout history, or the parallel theme that whenever someone does this, inexplicably there are always these people waiting in the wings with baseball bats anxious to beat them down. Whatever your agenda, please leave Mr. Feynman out of this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.187.132 (talk) 02:20, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the section. — goethean ॐ 02:38, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

text: Someone seems to have put it back. Ursus-deningeri2 (talk) 11:38, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Where? -- Doctorx0079 (talk) 15:32, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Feynman in the "Psychobabble" paragraph

message: I removed a section in the article that had been unsourced since 2008. It was attempting to make a comparison between the human potential movement and the New Age Movement.  I looked for sources for this, but could not find anything that was not a Christian Website or author warning about the dangers of many things "non'christian- hardly reliable sources.   There was a sourced statement about narcissism that I put in the Authors and Essayists section. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 20:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of Comparisons to Other Fields 

message: Most of the information in the article refers to the 1960s and 70s. Although the article uses the present tense for HPM, a reader might conclude that this movement is historical. In that case, the reader would expect information about the end or dissolution of the movement. The only thing in the article that even implies the existence of the movement past the 1970s is the existence of a "Notable Proponent" who was born in 1960 and the fact that the footnote source for the Virginia Satir quote "We are at a crossroads" is to a 2011 web article. Then again, that article also quotes Abraham Lincoln. The article indicates the Virginia Satir quote is from 1984.
So, if this is an existing movement, there needs to be something about it. Otherwise it looks like HPM was only a 1960s-70s phenomenon. There should also be some information on the size of the HPM at its maximum, an indication of when that was, and some indication of the size/importance of the HPM at present. 
Finally, there is not much about the movement itself other than what is in the introduction, its "roots," a couple of paragraphs about some authors & essayists [the title doesn't give an indication of their relationship to the HPM], and a list of Notable Proponents. Since there isn't much on what HPM is about, there is, of course, nothing about criticism of HPM. How was it received at the time? What is its relevance today? Does the HPM exist outside of Esalen? Ileanadu (talk) 05:19, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism & Status? 

message: I added a couple of sentences to the article yesterday , and they were promptly reverted with the edit summary: "first sentence of source and edit are identical. Second sentence is an assemblage: partly copyvio, partly misrepresenting what the source says."
It's not clear to me that either of these reasons are justified: as I understand it, one or two sentences quoted are fair use not  copyvio. And the second sentence is also an exact quote, so I'm not sure why that editor called it an "assemblage". I've re-added it, making clear that it's a quote, and attributing in the text as well as the ref. Any thoughts? DaveApter (talk) 10:41, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently you partly (the copyvio-part) understood what the problem was: you basically restored your previous edit, this time with quotation marks added. Nevertheless, I have reverted your restored edit again. This 'quotation' is corrupt: it is nowhere to be found in the source (, p.286-288). The misrepresentation is now attributed to Puttick, what makes it an instance of source manipulation. I would humbly recommend to you to study the relevant rules and guidelines. Think twice before you reply you have done so: obviously you violated the relevant rules. Theobald Tiger (talk) 10:54, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: See also here. Theobald Tiger (talk) 12:04, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

text: So the copyvio was even more serious than I already thought: you had simply copied a section from the book. I will check it and if you are right, I will apologize and reinstate the quote (quotations in encyclopedic articles are not recommended anyway). You have halfheartedly apologized for the copyvio on your talk page. I'll leave it at that. Theobald Tiger (talk) 16:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I have reinstated the quote, for it is correct, and I apologize to DaveApter for having said that the quote is corrupt. I had compared the quote with another text of Elizabeth Puttick, and I was wrong. Theobald Tiger (talk) 08:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, that's gracious. DaveApter (talk) 08:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary added to Roots section 

message: Could Roberto Assagioli be added to the list of proponents? The article on Assagioli does say that he was a big name in humanistic and transpersonal psychology. What is more, he was the founder of psychosynthesis.Vorbee (talk) 21:02, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Roberto Assagioli

message: In its current form, I find this section doesn't adequately explain the connections between the hippie counter-culture and Western interest in Indian religions / the emergence of New Religious Movements.
"HPM was regarded by some as being related to psychedelic culture such as hippies and Summer of Love. According to author Andrew Grant Jackson, George Harrison's adoption of Hindu philosophy and Indian instrumentation in his songs with the Beatles in the mid 1960s, together with the band's highly publicised study of Transcendental Meditation, 'truly kick-started' the Human Potential Movement. It had not been defined what was 'human potentialities'. They themselves came to be called not only 'New Age' but also 'new religion'."'
I don't find any of this follows logically and is proven. How exactly did these events "kick-start" the Human Potential Movement? Did Transcendental Meditation offer a definition of human potentialities? I think that is implied with the current text, but it isn't clear -- and I also think stating how TM defined the term (if it did) is crucial. I also find the last sentence to be a bit irrelevant... it seems to be more about hippies or adherents of TM than it does HPM. 
In short, the connections aren't sufficiently made, and the block quotation that follows doesn't resolve this problem either. Actually, Elizabeth Puttick's synopsis of HPM contradicts the statements in this section, arguing HPM influenced New Religious Movements rooted in Eastern religion, rather than the other way around. Mark Stein's article in the LA Times also doesn't support the arguments in this section; it simply states San Francisco is the capital of the Human Potential Movement as a continuation of the city's openness to counter-cultural movements, but doesn't state there is a direct, influential connection between HPM and the hippie scene of the 1960's. I do not have access to the two books cited. 
Correcting these issues is extremely important, as there is a long legacy of individualism and self-improvement in American culture dating back at least to the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. BornOn8thOfJuly (talk) 02:21, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social Influence 

message: The Section "In Europe" cites "Implementing European Union Education and Training Policy" for the claim that there is a rising interesting in HPM in Europe. However, I could not find any direct relation to HPM in the source; the word "human potential" appears once in the book, in the title of a coordination program and neither do research hypothesis refer to it or related concepts. So, while it is plausible that HPM influenced EU programs, I could not establish it via the source, so the section might rather be original research -- Simulo (talk) 09:50, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  HPM in Europe