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These are among the experiences stressed in the "human-potential movement" (TIME, Nov. 9, 1970), which includes Esalen and other growth centers. But, writes May in his new book Power and Innocence, "the human-potential movement has fallen heir to the form of innocence prevalent in America, namely that we grow toward greater and greater moral perfection." Evil is present in everyone, along with good, May insists, and one should grow toward greater sensitivity to both.
Anyone is a utopian, says May, who believes "that when we develop a society which trains us rightly, we'll all be in fine shape." He does not agree that "it is society's fault that we are what we are." For one thing, there will always be strong individuals who will step forth from "the conditioned mass." Just as evil is a distinguishing characteristic of human beings, so too is the capacity to rebel, to fight against bureaucracy or loss of integrity. In man's relationship to society, May believes, a new ethic is needed for our age—"an ethic of intention, based on the assumption that each man is responsible for the effects of his own actions."
In humanistic psychology, as well as in much contemporary psychoanalysis, there is a new sense that man can become a more active force in shaping his life. Freud, with his emphasis on man's being driven by his unconscious, tended to undercut the notion of will. Writes Italian Psychoanalyst Roberto Assagioli: "The will can be truly called the unknown and neglected factor in modern psychology, psychotherapy and education." San Francisco Psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis agrees. "Knowledgeable moderns put their back to the couch, and in so doing may fail to put their shoulders to the wheel." But this should change. Wheelis talks about the desirability of "self-transcendence, a process of change that originates in one's heart and expands outward," beginning with "a vision of freedom."
Freedom to or for what? In the opinion of Viennese Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, a man's "will to meaning" is more basic than the Freudian will to pleasure. To ignore his concern with value is to fail to do justice to "the humanness of man." As Freudian analysis aims to liberate the mature sexual and aggressive drives, so Frankl's treatment (called logotherapy) seeks to free man's spiritual unconscious so that he can realize his innate need to find meaning in life.
A method of treating emotional disturbance called psychosynthesis also assumes the reality and the importance—for a few men, at least—of their spiritual side. Assagioli, the Freudian-trained psychoanalyst who originated the method, explains that "we walk to the door of religion, but we let the individual open it." Assagioli's theory postulates several levels of man's "inner constitution," including a higher realm that is the psychic home of his spiritual, philosophical and artistic "imperatives." To gain access to this region, Assagioli uses conventional psychoanalysis as well as a series of esoteric exercises and meditation techniques.