Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

14
This article was downloaded by: [Central Michigan University] On: 16 October 2014, At: 11:06 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The Humanistic Psychologist Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hthp20 Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy E. Mark Stern a a Professor in the Graduate Program of Arts and Sciences , Iona College , 215 East 11 St., New York, NY, 10003 Published online: 16 Aug 2010. To cite this article: E. Mark Stern (1992) Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy, The Humanistic Psychologist, 20:2-3, 359-371, DOI: 10.1080/08873267.1992.9986802 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08873267.1992.9986802 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Transcript of Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

Page 1: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

This article was downloaded by: [Central Michigan University]On: 16 October 2014, At: 11:06Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

The Humanistic PsychologistPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hthp20

Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanisticpsychotherapyE. Mark Stern aa Professor in the Graduate Program of Arts and Sciences , Iona College , 215 East 11 St.,New York, NY, 10003Published online: 16 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: E. Mark Stern (1992) Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy, The HumanisticPsychologist, 20:2-3, 359-371, DOI: 10.1080/08873267.1992.9986802

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08873267.1992.9986802

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable forany losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

The Humanistic Psychologist, \bL 20, Nos. 2 and 3, pp. 359-371©1992 Division 32, American Psychological Association

Andras Angyal, 1902-1960:Pioneer in Humanistic Psychotherapy

E. Mark SternIona College

Abstract

Forty years have passed since my initial encounter with AndrasAngyal. In the intervening years I have come to appreciate hisrole as my essential therapist. This personal account of ourcontacts is supplemented by an appreciative synopsis of Angyal'sbi-modal personality theory and his humanistic and transpersonalbridgings.

My Essential Therapist

I was then a college student, home on my first summer vacation andhad recently been affected by a severe allergic reaction in my eyes. Thetears seemed never to let up. Our family physician, who had recentlytaken some psychoanalytic training, suggested a possible link to under-lying emotions. I was referred to a psychiatrist, who after only a fewintroductory words asked me to recline on the couch and say whatevercame to my mind. The doctor's face was hidden behind an underilluminated lighting fixture. Dr. Max Helfand had the professionalpersistence which I later learned was characteristic of his erstwhilementor, Dr. Wilhelm Stekel. I was even later to learn that Stekel, an earlybreak-away figure from Freud's inner circle, regarded neurotics asrestless souls hoping to champion their disavowed personal ideals (Stekel,1943, p. x). Helfand presented the full deck in one sitting: a % u mustrecognize," he insisted, "that you are crying." The immediacy andauthority of his words had the power to initiate me into a psychoanalyticcontext. The effect was to avow my helplessness, and once I surrendered,

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 3: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

360 The Humanistic Psychologist, 20, 1992

the tears promptly ceased. I knew then that I would someday become apsychotherapist.

Helfand would be there for me through the summer. The search hadbegun to find an analyst in my college community. The only doctor whohad time availability was still a candidate in a classical Freudian institute.Though we met three times a week, I had no sense of who or what wewere about. The enterprise seemed hollow. Classical analysis, for all itscareful scrutiny of every word, needs the talents of a practitioner sensitiveto the spiritual disposition of the patient. What passed for this processhad now left me unfulfilled. My search was to continue.

After speaking with a friend who was in what sounded like a differentsort of analysis, I decided to pursue a therapist more sympathetic to theinterpersonal school of Harry Stack Sullivan, Karen Horney and ErichFromm. But it was not yet time to return to New York City. Dealing withmy parents had been difficult. I decided my best move was to continuemy.education in Boston.

I phoned Dr. Clara Thompson, who was then one of the mainstaysof the William Alanson White School of Psychoanalysis in New York.Dr. Thompson referred me to a Mrs. Izette de Forest, who she knewpracticed in Boston. Between the years 1925-1927 and again in 1929,Mrs. de Forest studied with Sandor Ferenczi both in Budapest and inNew York. I was delighted to have been directed to a non-medicalpractitioner since, beginning with my first encounter with it, I consideredpsychoanalysis to be a humanistic project - a way of extending under-standing, certainly not medical treatment. Although Ferenczi, was aphysician, he was an outspoken advocate of non-medical analysis(Grosskurth, 1991).

Izette de Forest, who had also had a decade of association with ErichFromm, both as student and friend, was most gracious throughout ourinterview. She said from the outset that she was in the process of retiring,but would be delighted to evaluate my situation and refer me to anappropriate colleague. Like Ferenczi, she had an obvious dedication towhat was most personal about therapy. I was later to learn that she wasconvinced that good therapists work "from an emotional and spiritualcapacity to digest and apply in entire beneficence the experiences of life...(through)... whatE. M. Forester (called) 'a developed heart'" (deForest,1954, p. 187).I felt understood about the kind of helper best suited tome: "I have an angel I can refer you to," she said, "I know him well andtrust him... He does not rely on a reductionistic. hydraulic model of themind... You'll know him as Dr. Angyal. In Hungarian, Angyal means

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 4: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

E. Mark Stern 361

angel." Later that day I called the "angel's" office and made anappointment for the following week. I was enthusiastic about my newbeginning:

Like so many others, I (sought) therapy needing to discover theuncommon denominator of friendship... My early life had been.a gallimaufry of friendlessness, incessant depression and recur-rent parental divorces. In the aftermath I alternately blossomed,and sank. Beyond the extremes, however, arriving at the rightplace and in the honorable home was the only quest I couldmorally consider. (Stern, 1989, pp. 187-8)

Andras Angyal was to become my essential psychotherapist. Asessential therapist, he helped me attain a qualitative appreciation of myown autobiography. We were destined to share space twice each weekfor a bit more than two and a half years beginning in 1949. His patientswere free to determine how they would negotiate their working presence.He mentioned that some sat while others reclined. He'd worked with oneman who would stride back and forth the length of the office. Given thechoice, I decided on continuing the use the couch. Out of respect for thenecessary polarity I set between us, Dr. Angyal sat somewhat out of view.I guessed ¿ a t his decorum mighthave possibly been different with others.Certainly I was not about to add to my discomfort by keeping him insight. My most recent attempt at being in analysis was characterized bymy nonstop talk. For a time, this uncontrolled pattern continued withAngyal:

One patient in the course of several sessions never permitted thetherapist to get a word in edgewise. This man had worked withtherapists who apparently let him monopolize the sessions; hehad been helped very little. After the trial period the therapistagreed to work with the patient on the conditions that he was nutto associate in the sessions (as this apparently served to disguisehis problems), and would agree at any time by a given signal sothat the therapist could comment. Tears came to the patient's eyesas he said, "I don't know how you knew it, because I didn't knowit myself, but I think I have been hoping all my life to findsomeone to understand me enough to say 'shut up. '" (Angyal,1965, p.216-217).

Though that patient might not have been me, I was, for all intentions,still uncommitted to the therapeutic relationship. I was instead, trying toplease, and would steer the conversation to aesthetics and spirituality,topics I "knew" were close to him.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 5: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

362 The Humanistic Psychologist, 20, 1992

"Prodigies" have an uncanny ability to disarm, but Angyal remainedfaithful to the process, understanding all along that my defenses super-seded any premature presence.

He acknowledged that, for the moment I would probably hear littleor nothing capable of challenging the stalemate. "One can't change," hesaid, "if the options are murky," Choice could only be exercised whenalternatives were more available. Alternatives would be made knownwhen my design became secure enough to tolerate rearrangement. Forthe time being it was enough to hear that even collapse has meaning.

Doubts plagued me. The most insignificant opposition resulted infear and humiliation. Yet our relationship became the necessary newalliance. Angyal was sensitive to the hurts of the past. Early memoriesand impressions were always cast in a new key. He saw them asopportunities for change. For him, neurosis was not so much a reactionto trauma as it was the relentless panic and anguish embedded in thesearch for safety.

Dr. Angyal valued the growing ability to regroup experience."Nothing can give way," he insisted, "not even the suffering, until newoptions are seen as viable." The present task, he insisted, was to learnto reverence all of the elements of my existence, even the ones whichseemed "craziest" in order to allow them to exfoliate into new workablepatterns. Angyal believed that the past, no matter how unfortunate, wasnevertheless a storehouse of personal and transpersonal value. It wasnever the future, but the past which was to be transformed. It waspresented to me as a matter of a shifting perspective. If I could re-viewfrom another vantage point, what may have once seemed outlandish andunproductive could take on other highlights. As a child, I was oftencriticized for being too involved in religion, too interested in beingobservant. Dr. Angyal took this criticism and helped me see how myreligious preoccupation had a most positive role to play in my presentexistence. Even though much of it was obsessive and dreamlike, it wasan important hallmark of my "art." When so redefined, the pasttranscended its purported negative consequences. This new regard forthe past has remained the kernel of my working principle as a practicinganalyst:

This approach to therapy and to existence... become(s) apparentas soon as one looks at the world not as something to be reckonedwith, an object of mastery, but rather as something to beappreciated a context in which all experience has imminent value.In this frame of reference, the past is more than a fetter. As

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 6: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

E. Mark Stern 363

Andras Angyal has it "causation works back and forth, and. thepresent can change the past as the past is now. " A therapist whosees experience as something to be appreciated tends to stressmastery less and reverence more. (Stem, 1966, p. 280)

Angyal's Foundations

Angyal acknowledged his debt to the "organismic* theories ofHaldane and Woodger; the Gestalt psychologists Wertheimer, Köhler,Koffka and Kurt Goldstein; the psychobiology of the then celebratedAmerican psychiatrist Adolph Meyer; the personalistic approach ofWilliam Stern; and, perhaps more man the others, to the holism of JanSmuts, once Prime Minister of the then Union of South Africa.

Beyond these building blocks, there yet remains a story that unfoldedduring the course of my therapy. Dr. Angyal had been commenting onunexpected congruent happenings:

In the course of my applying to graduate school, he (Angyal) tellsme how he decided to take temporary leave from his medicalstudies in favor of an immediate Ph.D. in psychology. It seemsmat he was on a train returning to medical school after his summervacation. Across from him sat a man who soon proved to be anuisance. Fighting boredom and annoyance, the young Andrasbegan to fill the man's ears with fancifid psychological theories.He did this to ward off the man's incessant banter. Nevertheless,by the time Angyal arrived at his destination, it dawned on himthat he had unleashed seminal ideas that would change his wholelife and became the cornerstones for his ultimate work in;psychology and psychiatry (Stern, 1981, p.9).

Foundations for a Science of Personality (1941) was based onAngyal's University of Vienna doctoral thesis. The bulk of its ideas wereintroduced in 1937 at the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of the JohnsHopkins University following his arrival in the United States. Soon afterhe was asked to join the staff of the Worcester State Hospital, finallybecoming head of its psychiatric research unit.

Throughout his years of research and practice, Angyal remainedconcerned that psychiatry would never attain status as an authentic inquiryinto abnormal clinical states if it failed to contribute to a basic under-standing of normal functioning. The focus of the healthy paradigm heoffered centered on expansiveness and purpose. "The self," he contendedis "a finite distance on an infinite line (since)... within the person eachprocess of structure is part of a larger one (Angyal, 1965, pp. 298-299).What remained fundamental was the tenet that "to be part and to becomea part means the maintenance of a balance between finitude and one's

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 7: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

364 The Humanistic Psychologist, 20, 1992

place in the whole of creation" (Stern, 1985, p.2). Recovery is the processof concretizing the experience of this balance. It is the occasion forre-identification with what Angyal termed the "humility system" (An-gyal, 1965, p. 260). Here the person grasps his or her essential awe andhelplessness even while being in the process of making positive shifts inrelating to others. These shifts may further entrap confusion since theycontain trends toward both the homonomous, i.e., an orientation involv-ing increased participation, and the autonomous, i.e., self-governance.Re-identification is, however, holistic since both autonomy andhomonomy can together become the expansive means of relating.

Angyal veered away from classical psychoanalytic notions whichstressed the primacy of instincts. Growth, according to Angyal, drawson renewed symbol-structures stemming from the multidimensionalphenomena present in the patient's creative unconscious (Deri, 1984).The unconscious is, by definition, unavailable to consciousness, exceptthrough symbolization. This symbolization is organized through will andattitude and thus remains malleable. Meaning and value play critical rolesin recovery since they are the necessary refinements of will and attitude.It is was this recognition of personal autonomy mat anticipated thehumanistic directions of ego and self psychologies (Zevin, 1981).

Andras Angyal's therapeutic approach conformed to his theoreticalfoundations. He remained skeptical of analytic approaches which pin-pointed trauma in infancy and childhood as the mainstays of neuroses.According to him, neurotic orientations tend to resist all attempts atdestablizing them so that the mere search for early psychic shocks hasthe potential of becoming an obsessive task in its own right. Though heacknowledged early beginnings of neurotic orientations, he neverthelessinsisted that any accounting for symptomology based exclusively on anyone epoch of life avoids an authentic understanding of the ubiquitousquality of a neurosis.

Angyal's therapeutic format was transformative and reconstructive.As a therapist, he remained consummately respectful, if not reverential,of the emergence of all experience. Experiences on all levels were seenfoundational to recovery. His therapeutic principles provided a constantamplification of the personal perspective. Therapeutic confrontationswere managed sensitively and skillfully. He recommended abiding withthe patient's experience since it represents all that he or she has.

Angyal steadfastly maintained that holistic insights were the neces-sary mainstays of "changes in attitude(s) of wide scope" (Angyal, 1965,p.265). Much in the spirit of St. Augustine's motto mat sins themselves

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 8: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

£ Mark Stern 365

need to baptized, he claimed that neurotic behavior is bound tx̂ prevailuntil its healthy substructure is fully experienced. In making his ease, hedescribed the plight of a man who had been experiencing a strong aversionto birthmarks as far back as he could recall. His abhorrence- of these"dirty blemishes" made it virtually impossible for him to not "get thedirt on" anyone who dared show concern or care for him. Art earlier"incomplete" analysis explained his abhorrence by citing the probableshock of having been confronted by the "blackness" of his mother'snipples while still being nursed. While this "genetic" material might wellhave been historically accurate, it merely scaled the surface withoutproviding the patient with a way of dealing with the larger cluster ofnegative attitudes which had accrued over the years and which appearedto block the emergence of his more productive critical faculties (Angyal,1965, p.206).

Neurosis, for Angyal was never simply a blend of morbid aberra-tions, be they obsessive or hysteric. More precisely, each neurosis is itsown life style, consistent with its own unique pains and pleasures.Nevertheless, each neurotic style, complete in itself, represents atherapeutic challenge. Angyal proclaimed the necessity of neuroticsneeding to learn to embrace the authentic guilt which invariably arisesduring the course of treatment. Such guilt speaks directly to the. need togo beyond "the betrayal and falsification of {self}" (Angyal, 1965,p.191).

Angyal observed significant links between the contrasting neuroticworlds of obsessiveness and hysteria. Both are personifications ofnoncommitted patterns. Obsessives are preoccupied with the search forsafety at any price. Their struggle for self-worth is set against a backdropof imagined derisions. Correspondingly, the hysteric sees the world asdangerous and ungiving and seeks to remediation with inappropriateinstant gratification.

Obsessives become paralyzed by the ambiguities of the demands ofgood and evil in their lives. Owing to its ubiquitous and painful state ofuncertainty, obsessive confusion obscures any underlying trust. Sincethey usually see others as hostile and blaming, obsessives are never clearabout people's motives. Their fundamental doubts appear to arise; out ofthe double messages they received as children and continue to permeateas the years move ahead. Obsessives remain ever watchful, fearful ofretreating into crippling "weakness." They discourage any meaningfuldialogue with those who offer love and support. Hysterics, on the otherhand, having convinced themselves of their phantasmagoric emptiness,

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 9: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

366 The Humanistic Psychologist, 20, 1992

ward off the world's friendlessness with their own brand of bizarreness.Health and neurosis paradoxically blend as mirror reversals formingsomething of a pervasive harmony in the contradiction (Stern, 1980a, p.2). AngyaTs bipolar model views each person as having parallel healthyand neurotic potentialities. Each remains a latent presence in the other.This uneasy contrast forms the basis of "a poetic process... ratify[ingthe] entire composition" (Stern, 1980b, p. 80). Each personality is ripewith the potential of becoming transformed on an almost daily basis.Even where the daily struggle for health endures, a person may at anymoment give way to neurotic trends. Angyal was early to recognize theAlcoholics Anonymous program as the desirable model for psychologicalrecovery. Alcoholics are never "recovered" but always "recovering."Accordingly, the maintenance of psychological health in Angyal's bipolarsystem becomes a day-to-day task. He suspected that self-annihilatingmotifs are bound to persist in the absence of some recognition ofalternatives. And while relapses back into a neurosis are to be expected,love and the tasks involved in learning to be of meaning to others aid thereinforcement of new reconstructions. Angyal's bipolar arguments con-clude that whatever constitutes personhood may be productively orcounter-productively rearranged. This "ambiguous Gestalt... suggests aJanus-faced organization of both healthy and neurotic features... withevery conceivable characteristic represented in each organization"(Frick, 1984, p. 227). Angyal was quick to reassure his patients thatwithin the transformation of the neurotic, no experience is ever lost sinceevery condition of life represents the font of personal value.

Angyal was convinced that any viable option to neurosis had tocorrespond to the patient's personal readiness and ultimate resourceful-ness. "If (the patient) shows stamina in standing up for his neurosis, hewill show stamina later in standing up for his health" (Angyal, 1965,p.224). I recall his speaking of the stepped-up need for a dynamicreconstruction of attitude following any serious negotiation to change.The single-minded demolition of a neurotic pattern must be initiated bythe patient's despair. This bottoming-out happens when all neuroticresources prove repugnant. "While the patient is completely caught upin his neurotic existence," he wrote, "he has neither the possibility northe wholehearted desire to find his way out" (Angyal, 1965, p. 227).After the neurotic stance is weakened, whatever insights were availablefor that weakening, become the building blocks for a creative emotionalreconstruction. Each insight furthers the ability to stand outside of theentangling confusion. Yet as stated earlier, health is not an outside

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 10: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

E Mark Stern 367

position, but rather is within the body of the neurosis. Neurosis is; alwaysthe distortion of health. Health is achieved as the patient reckons with"the realization that in a wrong way he has been fighting for the rightpurpose" (Angyal, 1965, p. 229). The unbridled appeal of health abatesshame and provides the necessary courage to move ahead.

Steady recovery requires consistent diligence set against the back-ground of neurotic deterministic closure. Taking due cognizance of thepower of this Gestalt dynamic, it would follow that closure narrowsoptions and obtrudes flexibility. Systems need to remain open in orderto be present to a new attitudinal and behavioral repertoire. For therecovering neurotic, as for the recovering addict, new options are a dailychoice.

Momentary flares, no matter how cathartic, rarely lead to lastingchanges. More man likely, bona fide insights are the products oflong-term hard-won assemblages of awareness. Authentic insights echothroughout one's life, constantly enriching the individual Leitmotif. Suchinsights become axioms for meaningful conduct since they create theground for authentic participation in a relevant social nexus. Induced intoa re-relationship with others, the person slowly begins to appreciate theuniquenesses and importance of autonomous personhood. Autonomy isthe foothold for full engagement in superindividual relationships, extend-ing from personal kinship to participation in the community. Angyal sawsuperindividual involvement as the spearhead for any transpersonal-encounter with God and the cosmos.

Angyal's holism never segmentalized any one human function. Heconsidered each to be representative of an enlarged and enlargingensemble. Given the appropriate setting, all elements in this seemingheterogeneity, become capable of radical rearrangement:

Setting can be defined as the construction of a system. The partshave multiple functional possibilities, but after being arranged ina given system, they function in one definite way, namely, inaccordance with the system principle. The other functionalpossibilities of the parts are excluded; they become activated onlywhen the parts are rearranged in other systems and work inaccordance with the new system principle... Setting and shiningmay thus be regarded as the key mechanism of an organizedactivity. (Angyal, 1965, p. 54)

Transformation

The person as far as he is known to us is not complete. As partof a whole he must be larger than we know him, so our knowledge

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 11: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

368 The Humanistic Psychologist, 20, 1992

begins with an openness, a door to a larger context... Bybecoming a part of increasingly larger wholes, the person gainsa larger territory in which he can feel at home. (Angyal, 1965,p. 299).

Angyal's belief in the potential of the human will made him muchadmired by Abraham Maslow. They became friends in the mid to late194O's. Angyal found in Maslow's depiction of peak experiences anelaboration of the outer limits of belonging and participation. Both menrecognized latent capacities for experiencing awarenesses of self beyondthe usually encrusted boundaries. Through epiphanies or peak moments,the self is preserved, even as it is donated to a superindividual pos-sibilities. For Angyal, these epiphanies or peak experiences were for-tunate clues to radical personality reconstruction.

Angyal's notion of superindividuality is reminiscent of the mysticaldoctrine of the Flemish John Ruysbroeck who visualized a discreet unitywithin the self as it moves into something transpersonal before finallyvaulting into its unique union with the supernatural (Merton, 1961). Itwas, for Angyal, the experience of greater and more discrete superin-dividual units which related person to person, person to community andfinally, person to the cosmos. This superindividuality never diverts fromthe unique struggle to reconstruct and express autonomy and participationin what Angyal refers to as the trend toward homonomy or recognizableunity of all experience. What makes Angyal's thesis fundamental tohumanistic and transpersonal psychology is that it focuses on homonomy,not as some curious mystical state, but bound wimin the terra incognitoof the individual's life.

Maslow, intrigued by his friend's holistic paradigm, helped sponsorthe Angyal seminar at Brandies University. Similar seminars were givenat Harvard, notes from which served as the background for his posthu-mous text Neurosis and Treatment: A Holistic Theory (Angyal, 1965).

Unity

Health, like personality and aesthetics, is best understood as aholistic construct. In Angyal's sense, each aspect of the whole invokesdefinite rules which result in a startling reinterpretation of the field. Newtruths emerge which, in turn, are based on the unique operating principleof these relationships.

Each segment re-presents the whole. To view any one personalepisode, no matter how serendipitous, as just another add-on is to missthe richness of the whole. The essence of the whole is to be found

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 12: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

E. Mark Stem 36B

wherever disparate parts adhere as a system, not because of theirqualities, but more as a result of their various "positional values"(Angyal, 1941, p.257). This locus or unity assumes a central role in thetherapeutic relationship. Its animating principle alive in Wordsworth'swords has caught sight of mat immortal sea of a unity whicfr "rollsthrough all things." Relationships experienced in any one biography allforth an exemplification of the whole. "This need," according to Angyal,"is not a luxury or a superstructure, but a part of man's very nature"(Angyal, 1941, p. 198). A unitary life history, differentiated intosuccessive developmental stages, each with its own contrasting relation-ships, includes all of the characteristics of the whole. Dynamic unitycoheres as all traces of the person become highlighted against thebackdrop of all other traces. Even chance, in Angyal's code, is deter-mined by the structure of the consummated whole. Relationship of pastto present is thus transformable, resulting in the potential for "anincreased metaphysical anchoring" (Angyal, 1941, p.356).

As with the individual, so too do all life forces cohere to the dynamicinterplay of "organismic autonomy and environmental heteronomy"(Angyal, 1941, p. 379). Each person is the expression of intrasomaticand extrasomatic occurrences. What are termed quality relationships inall of life and non-life involve a unified interaction of the full spectrumof ethical and aesthetic attitudes (Stern, 1991). Angyal's ethics andaesthetics were always congruent with their trends toward the superin-dividual, communicating inherent messages only fortuitous as oppor-tunities arise.

For Dr. Angyal, every person and every object has a meaningfulexpressive function as a constituent body of the whole. My personaltherapy with Andras Angyal opened up relational passageways amidpainful stresses and pressures. The effect was a widening and ripeningof my vision. Most important was my realization of Dr. Angyal'scorrelation between personal growth and the amplification of the aes-thetic:

The perception of opening horizons, of widening meanings,makes the aesthetic experience a striking expression of the;homonomous orientation. The person's separation from the?world is overcome together with the separateness of objects, andwider patterns emerge. (Angyal, 1965, p.28)

This was Angyal's message: The whole is ideally at one with itsparts. He stressed this intactness throughout his professional life». Forhim the system ideally and effortlessly emerges as the expression of a

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 13: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

370 The Humanistic Psychologist, 20, 1992

well-integrated experience of the autonomous and homonomous. Whatresults becomes the unfixed dynamic of self-surrender and personalmastery.

Summing It Up

Angyal synopsized his holistic view of the vivacity of the life coursein recording made in the summer of 1949, and later recommended byAbraham Maslow for publication in the Journal of Humanistic Psychol-ogy. As he linked the simplicity of the aesthetic to the ethical experience,Angyal once again underscored that for him "no existence is separatefrom the others" (Angyal, 1962, p. 124). For him, sublime unity was tobe found in the appreciation of the ordinary. Here is how he summed itup. It was during a momentary contemplation of a tree on the way home.The tree, he observed, was

like a bridge between the earth and the sun... And even when itis dead it has strength, it has grain, it has fiber; it still has theenergy it had absorbed and transformed... And when... fire burnsout (its) heat, after having warmed us, is dissipated again in theworld and what has been taken from the earth is there in a fewhandfuls of ash, the cycle is completed. It is the end of one cycleand the beginning of another. (Angyal, 1962, p. 125)

ReferencesAngyal, A. (1941) Foundations for a science of personality. New York: The

Commonwealth Fund.Angyal, A (1951) The convergence of psychotherapy and religion. Journal

of Pastoral Care, 4, 4-14.Angyal, A. (1962) Aesthetic experience. Journal of Humanistic Psychology,

2 (2), 123-125.Angyal, A (1965) Neurosis and treatment: A holistic theory (E. Haufmann &

R. M. Jones, Eds.) New York:John Wiley & Sons.de Forest, I. (1954) The leaven of love: A development of the psychoanalytic

theory and technique of Sandor Ferenczi. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Deri, S. (1984) Symbolization and creativity. New York: InternationalUniversities Press.

Frick, W. (1984) Angyal's theory of the ambiguous gestalt: Its implicationsfor psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, 21, 226-231.

Grosskurth, P (1991) The secret ring: Freud's inner circle and the politics ofpsychoanalysis. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Merton, T. (1961) The new man. New York: The Noonday Press.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014

Page 14: Andras Angyal, 1902–1960: Pioneer in humanistic psychotherapy

E Mark Stem 371

Stekel, W. The interpretation of dreams: New developments and technique.(E. Paul & C. Paul, Trans.) New York: Liveright.

Stern, E. M. (1966) Reverence for experience. The Journal of Existentialism,6, 279-287.

Stern, E. M. (1980 A) Interface with Asya: Experiences in the poetics of onepsychotherapy. Voices: The art and science of psychotherapy, 15 (4),2-5.

Stern, E. M. (1980 B) Comment on W.B. Frick A therapist encounters theambiguous gestalt. Voices: The art and science of psychotherapy, 15(4), 80-81.

Stern, E. M. (1981) Out of chaos: beginnings. In E. M. Stern (Ed.) The otherside of the couch: What therapists believe (pp. 5-14). New York: ThePilgrim Press.

Stern, E. M. (1989) At last my friend. Voices: The art and science ofpsychotherapy, 25 (1/2), 177-181.

Stern, E. M. (1991) Foundations for a soul psychology. In K. Gibson, D.Lathrop & E. M. Stern (Eds.) Carl Jung and soul psychology (pp. 2-7).New York: Harrington Park Press.

Zevin, R. N. (1981) An alternative to psychoanalytic metapsychology: Thecontribution of Andras Angyal. Dissertation Abstracts International, 42(6-B) 2559.

E. Mark Stern, Ed.D., Professor in the Graduate Program of Arts andSciences, Iona College, is a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, ABPP,and Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the AmericanPsychological Society. He is Past President of the Division of HumanisticPsychology (APA) and is in the independent practice of psychotherapyin New York. Address correspondence to: Mark Stern, 215 East 11 St.,New York, NY 10003.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Cen

tral

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

06 1

6 O

ctob

er 2

014